Sudden Environmental Changes Research Articles

THE ROLE OF INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENT FACTORS TO ACHIEVE THE SUCCESS STRATEGIC PLANNING IN ORGANIZATION: A CASE STUDY IN DNO COMPANY – ERBIL

The current business field is characterized by high competition. The field is in continuous change as most organizations look for new strategies to achieve a state of leadership and uniqueness in the international market in order to make advances in the competition. Therefore, they look for new methods to enter the markets by minimum costs and to get maximum benefits. The current research aimed to identify the role of international environment factors in achieving success strategy planning in organizations. Through field testing of the views of managers, assistants and heads of departments in a sample of OMV company city in Erbil - Kurdistan, these factors were found to vary in their effects toward the strategic planning dimensions. There has recently been a sudden change in the international business environment as a result of increased competition especially in the economic sector. Also, the field has witnessed variation in the capacity in adoption, and strategic planning is one of the modern models in the conduct of organizations. Therefore, the subject of international environment factors and strategic planning for business has attracted the attention of many researchers and scholars focusing on contemporary themes with a huge impact on the performance of organizations in pursuit of excellence. In the field, a presumptive scheme was developed to indicate the relationship between the variables of the study and adopted a model relationship in one direction. The study was based on a set of assumptions that field-tested on a sample of foreign companies operating in the city of Erbil. A number of basic questions for the study were prepared for 30 administrative leaders (managers and their assistants, and department heads) who answered the questions. The questionnaire of this research was designed to collect data which included several measures derived from previous studies, but were modified and redesigned to align with the requirements of the current research. While operations of statistical analysis of the data was done using the software statistical (SPSS) and a number of statistical indicators were calculated which formed the basis to present and discuss the results of field-based analysis. The study reached a number of conclusions, including: 1. The theoretical sector for research dealing with international environment shows that there is confusion between this concept and the concept of the International Management, especially among writers and researches. 2. The presence of a significant correlation between the independent variables (international environment factors) overall and adopted variable (the success strategy planning) in organizations. The research reached a number of recommendations including: The need to work and focus on the analysis of the factors of international environment. This can be achieved by offering training workshops or through field work in administrative levels. In order to achieve the dimensions of strategic planning in the organizations in the sample companies, focus should be directed to the ability of management of organizations within the international environment to discover opportunities and create value. These can reduce the threats and challenges which prevent achieving the best strategy planning.

Organic Electrochemical Transistor Microplate for Real-Time Cell Culture Monitoring

Human cell cultures provide a potentially powerful means for pharmacological and toxicological research. A microplate with a multielectrode array of 96 organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) based on the semiconductive polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythio-phene):poly(styrene sulfonic acid) PEDOT:PSS was developed and fabricated by the screen printing method. It consists of a microplate of a 12 × 8 chimney–well array with transistors on the bottom. The OECT is circular with a channel of 1.5 mm2 in the centre surrounded by the circular gate electrode. The device is designed for electrogenic cell monitoring. Simulations with the electrolyte revealed good electrical characteristics and indicated the setup information of the experimental conditions. A transconductance of g = 1.4 mS was achieved in the wide range of gate voltages Vgs = ±0.4 V when the drain potential Vds = −0.735 V was set and the long term relaxation was compensated for. The time constant 0.15 s limited by the channel-electrolyte charge electrical double layer (EDL) capacitance was measured. The device was tested on a 3T3 fibroblast cell culture and the sudden environmental changes were recorded. The living cells can be observed on the channel of the OECT and during electrical stimulation by gate voltage, as well as during the source current response.

Microfossil evidence for recurrent coseismic subsidence around Lake Hamana, near the Nankai-Suruga trough, central Japan

We reconstructed recurrent coseismic subsidence during the middle Holocene from analyses of sedimentary facies and fossil diatom assemblages in a small drowned valley, the Shinjo lowland, bordering Lake Hamana, near the Nankai–Suruga trough, central Japan. The Lake Hamana region is known for coseismic subsidence during the 1707 Hoei (M8.6) and 1854 Ansei-Tokai (M8.4) earthquakes along the Nankai–Suruga trough subduction zone.A coring survey revealed three widely distributed peat layers in the lowland, with a mud layer overlying each of the two lower peats with a sharp contact. We traced the alternating peat–mud beds for over 300 m along the long axis of a valley. The fossil diatom assemblage analysis revealed that the peat layers were deposited in a freshwater pond/marsh environment, which changed abruptly to an estuarine to inner bay environment, recorded by the mud layers. From the sudden environmental change at the two peat–mud contacts and our radiocarbon dating results, we inferred that coseismic subsidence followed by an invasion of seawater into the lowland occurred at least twice, during a great earthquake that occurred between 5645 and 6635 cal yr BP and during another great earthquake at ca. 5700 cal yr BP.Within the mud layers, the dominant diatom species changed gradually upward from Nitzschia frustulum and Cocconeis scutellum in the lower part to Cyclotella striata and Achnanthes submarina in the upper part. These changes suggest that water depth and salinity gradually increased after the coseismic subsidence. A possible cause of this gradual subsidence is postseismic subsidence following great Nankai-Suruga trough earthquakes.

Instantaneous A Priori SNR Estimation by Cepstral Excitation Manipulation

As the a priori signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) contains crucial information about a signal's mixture of speech and noise, its estimation is subject to steady research. In this paper, we introduce a novel a priori SNR estimator based on synthesizing an idealized excitation signal in the cepstral domain. Our approach utilizes a source-filter decomposition in combination with a cepstral excitation manipulation in order to recreate an idealized excitation, which is subsequently shaped by an immanent envelope. In contrast to the well-known decision-directed approach by Ephraim and Malah, an instantaneous estimate is obtained, which is less prone to sudden acoustic environmental changes and musical noise. Additionally, the proposed estimator is able to preserve weak harmonic structures resulting in a spectrum that is more full-bodied. We present both a speaker-independent and a speaker-dependent variant of the new a priori SNR estimator, both showing more than 2 dB $\Delta \textrm {SNR}$ improvement versus state of the art, without any significant increase in speech distortion.

Effect of environmental stress on cell surface and membrane fatty acids of Lactobacillus plantarum.

Adhesion has been regarded as one of the basic features of probiotics. We undertake this study in the aim to give new insight about the change in cellular physiological state under heat and acid treatments of Lactobacillus plantarum. Different cell properties have been investigated such as adhesive ability to abiotic surfaces, the cell surface hydrophobicity and the fatty acids profiles. The results of cell surface properties and Gas chromatography analysis demonstrated a modification in term adhesive ability and fatty acid (FA) composition of the tested strain under stressful conditions. In fact, after the exposure of the strain to heat and acid treatments, an increase in the hydrophobicity level and the adhesion capacity on HeLa cells was shown. Our findings revealed that high temperature and low pH change the fatty acids profiles of the treated cells, especially the proportions of unsaturated and saturated fatty acid. In this context, our data revealed that the unsaturated FA-to-saturated FA ratio was increased significantly (P<0.05) for stressed strains compared with control cells. The results of the present finding suggest that the tested strain have suffered changes like the modifications on bacterial membrane as a cellular response to survive the hard environmental conditions, allowing them to withstand harsh conditions and sudden environmental changes to survive under.

Methods to Classify Cytoplasmic Foci as Mammalian Stress Granules.

Cells are often challenged by sudden environmental changes. Stress Granules (SGs), cytoplasmic ribonucleoprotein complexes that form in cells exposed to stress conditions, are implicated in various aspects of cell metabolism and survival. SGs modulate cellular signaling pathways, post-transcriptional gene expression, and stress response programs. The formation of these mRNA-containing granules is directly connected to cellular translation. SG assembly is triggered by inhibited translation initiation, and SG disassembly is promoted by translation activation or by inhibited translation elongation. This relationship is further highlighted by SG composition. Core SG components are stalled translation pre-initiation complexes, mRNA, and selected RNA-binding Proteins (RBPs). The purpose of SG assembly is to conserve cellular energy by sequestering translationally stalled housekeeping mRNAs, allowing for the enhanced translation of stress-responsive proteins. In addition to the core constituents, such as stalled translation preinitiation complexes, SGs contain a plethora of other proteins and signaling molecules. Defects in SG formation can impair cellular adaptation to stress and can thus promote cell death. SGs and similar RNA-containing granules have been linked to a number of human diseases, including neurodegenerative disorders and cancer, leading to the recent interest in classifying and defining RNA granule subtypes. This protocol describes assays to characterize and quantify mammalian SGs.

PV Single-Phase Grid-Connected Converter: DC-Link Voltage Sensorless Prospective

In this paper, a dc-link voltage sensorless control technique is proposed for single-phase two-stage grid-coupled photovoltaic (PV) converters. Matching conventional control techniques, the proposed scheme assigns the function of PV maximum power point tracking to the chopper stage. However, in the inverter stage, conventional techniques employ two control loops: outer dc-link voltage and inner grid current control loops. Diversely, the proposed technique employs only current control loop and mitigates the voltage control loop, thus eliminating the dc-link high-voltage sensor. Hence, system cost and footprint are reduced, and control complexity is minimized. Furthermore, the removal of the dc-link voltage loop proportional-integral controller enhances system stability and improves its dynamic response during sudden environmental changes. The system simulation is carried out, and an experimental rig is implemented to validate the proposed technique effectiveness. In addition, the proposed technique is compared with the conventional one under varying irradiance conditions at different dc-link voltage levels, illustrating the enhanced capabilities of the proposed technique.

Optimal harvesting policy of a stochastic two-species competitive model with Lévy noise in a polluted environment

As well known that the sudden environmental shocks and toxicant can affect the population dynamics of fish species, a mechanistic understanding of how sudden environmental change and toxicant influence the optimal harvesting policy requires development. This paper presents the optimal harvesting of a stochastic two-species competitive model with Lévy noise in a polluted environment, where the Lévy noise is used to describe the sudden climate change. Due to the discontinuity of the Lévy noise, the classical optimal harvesting methods based on the explicit solution of the corresponding Fokker–Planck equation are invalid. The object of this paper is to fill up this gap and establish the optimal harvesting policy. By using of aggregation and ergodic methods, the approximation of the optimal harvesting effort and maximum expectation of sustainable yields are obtained. Numerical simulations are carried out to support these theoretical results. Our analysis shows that the Lévy noise and the mean stress measure of toxicant in organism may affect the optimal harvesting policy significantly.

Dynamics of molecular evolution in RNA virus populations depend on sudden versus gradual environmental change

Understanding the dynamics of molecular adaptation is a fundamental goal of evolutionary biology. While adaptation to constant environments has been well characterized, the effects of environmental complexity remain seldom studied. One simple but understudied factor is the rate of environmental change. Here we used experimental evolution with RNA viruses to investigate whether evolutionary dynamics varied based on the rate of environmental turnover. We used whole‐genome next‐generation sequencing to characterize evolutionary dynamics in virus populations adapting to a sudden versus gradual shift onto a novel host cell type. In support of theoretical models, we found that when populations evolved in response to a sudden environmental change, mutations of large beneficial effect tended to fix early, followed by mutations of smaller beneficial effect; as predicted, this pattern broke down in response to a gradual environmental change. Early mutational steps were highly parallel across replicate populations in both treatments. The fixation of single mutations was less common than sweeps of associated “cohorts” of mutations, and this pattern intensified when the environment changed gradually. Additionally, clonal interference appeared stronger in response to a gradual change. Our results suggest that the rate of environmental change is an important determinant of evolutionary dynamics in asexual populations.

A decade process of coastal land use changes in Peukan Bada-Aceh after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami

Sudden environmental changes due to the impacts of the 2004 tsunami demolished a vast area of land around Peukan Bada of Aceh Besar. There were paddy fields and ponds as major livelihoods supports for coastal communities around this area. However, the tsunami waves demolished all the paddy fields and ponds around this sub-district. Since the 2004, a number of interventions were made to recovery the paddy fields and ponds. This study was aimed at monitoring the land use changes, in term of paddy fields and ponds, during 12-year of recovery process. Geographic Information System tools were used to map every 100 meter of interval in this area to observe the recovery process of the two land use types. After 12-year of the recovery process, total areas successfully being recovered in Peukan Bada were about 80% and only 19% for paddy fields and ponds, respectively. Some reasons were behind these changes. Two of the most frequent reasons are the changes of job types of the residents and the low productivity of the tsunami affected ponds/paddy fields.

Impact of the ‘Little Ice Age’ climate cooling on the maar lake ecosystem affected by penguins: A lacustrine sediment record, Penguin Island, West Antarctica

A Pliocene-age volcano on Penguin Island became active again in the Pleistocene/Holocene, forming the main cone of the island – Deacon Peak, and leaving late-Holocene phreatomagmatic craters, including ‘Petrel Crater’, about 200 m in diameter and filled currently by a maar lake with a flat bottom at 18 m water depth. Petrographic, geochemical, photosynthetic pigment, and diatom data from the 72-cm-long sediment core reveal that the crater was initially a marine lagoon with typical phytoplankton assemblages. Most probably, tectonic–volcanic activity about 1250 years ago, documented in tephra fallout, triggered an abrupt glacio-isostatic uplift that separated the lake from the sea. The horizon of tephra, probably from the Deception Island volcano, marks a sudden change in environment from brackish to lacustrine. The ecological evolution of the lake was initially constrained by an uplift, whereas the influence of marine water vanished with time, the lake became meromictic, and the freshwater mixolimnion layer expanded, while the monimolimnion became anoxic due to the influence of a penguin rookery situated on the shore. During the ‘Little Ice Age’ (LIA), the maar may have been covered by permanent ice. A discharge of mineralized guano from the possibly enlarged penguin rookery on the lake shore caused an expansion of the anoxic monimolimnion to the ice surface and an important reduction of autochthonous lacustrine biota of the maar, whereas a substantially increased participation of allochthonous biota passively supplied with guano. That record in the lake sediment core reaffirms the occurrence of a regional LIA event in the maritime Antarctic.

Game-Changing Innovations: How Culture Can Change the Parameters of Its Own Evolution and Induce Abrupt Cultural Shifts.

One of the most puzzling features of the prehistoric record of hominid stone tools is its apparent punctuation: it consists of abrupt bursts of dramatic change that separate long periods of largely unchanging technology. Within each such period, small punctuated cultural modifications take place. Punctuation on multiple timescales and magnitudes is also found in cultural trajectories from historical times. To explain these sharp cultural bursts, researchers invoke such external factors as sudden environmental change, rapid cognitive or morphological change in the hominids that created the tools, or replacement of one species or population by another. Here we propose a dynamic model of cultural evolution that accommodates empirical observations: without invoking external factors, it gives rise to a pattern of rare, dramatic cultural bursts, interspersed by more frequent, smaller, punctuated cultural modifications. Our model includes interdependent innovation processes that occur at different rates. It also incorporates a realistic aspect of cultural evolution: cultural innovations, such as those that increase food availability or that affect cultural transmission, can change the parameters that affect cultural evolution, thereby altering the population’s cultural dynamics and steady state. This steady state can be regarded as a cultural carrying capacity. These parameter-changing cultural innovations occur very rarely, but whenever one occurs, it triggers a dramatic shift towards a new cultural steady state. The smaller and more frequent punctuated cultural changes, on the other hand, are brought about by innovations that spur the invention of further, related, technology, and which occur regardless of whether the population is near its cultural steady state. Our model suggests that common interpretations of cultural shifts as evidence of biological change, for example the appearance of behaviorally modern humans, may be unwarranted.

Environmental and social recovery asymmetries to large-scale disturbances in small island communities

People’s livelihoods in tropical small-island developing states are greatly dependent on marine ecosystem services. Yet services such as fisheries and coastal buffering are being degraded at an alarming rate, thus making people increasing vulnerable to protracted and sudden environmental changes. In the context of the occurrences of extreme events such as earthquakes and tsunamis, it is vital to uncover the processes that make people in these island states resilient, or not, to environmental disruptions. This paper compares people’s perceptions of social and environmental impacts after an extreme event in the Western Solomon Islands (11 different villages on 8 different islands) to better understand how knowledge systems influence the coupling of human and natural systems. We examine the factors that contributed to perceptions of respective recovery in the environmental versus the social domains across communities with different traditional governance and modernization characteristics in a tsunami impact gradient. First, we separately assessed, at the community and individual level, the potential determinants of perceived recovery in the environmental and social domains. At the community level, the average values of the perceived environmental and social recovery were calculated for each community (1 year after the tsunami), and at the individual level, normally distributed environmental and social recovery variables (based on the difference in perceptions immediately and 1 year after the tsunami) were used as dependent variables in two General Linear Models. Results suggest that environmental and social resilience are not always coupled correspondingly and, less unexpectedly, that asymmetries during recovery can occur as a result of the underlying social and ecological context and existing adaptive capacity. More generally, the study shows how by evaluating post-disturbance perceptional data in tsunami-affected communities, we can better understand how subjective perceptions of change can affect the (de)-coupling of human and natural systems.

Departure from optimal O2 level for mouse trophoblast stem cell proliferation and potency leads to most rapid AMPK activation.

Previous studies showed that cultured mouse trophoblast stem cells (mTSCs) have the most rapid proliferation, normal maintenance of stemness/potency, the least spontaneous differentiation, and the lowest level of stress-activated protein kinase (SAPK) when incubated at 2% O2 rather than at the traditional 20% O2 or hypoxic (0.5% and 0% O2) conditions. Switching from 2% O2 induced fast SAPK responses. Here we tested the dose response of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) in its active form (pAMPK Thr172P) at O2 levels from 20–0%, and also tested whether pAMPK levels show similar rapid changes when mTSC cultures were switched from the optimal 2% O2 to other O2 conditions. There was a delayed increase in pAMPK levels ~6–8 h after switching conditions from 20% to 2%, 0.5%, or 0% O2. Altering O2 conditions from 2% to either 20%, 0.5%, or 0% led to rapid increase in pAMPK levels within 1 h, similar to the previously reported SAPK response in mTSC cells removed from 2% O2. Twelve hours of 0.5% O2 exposure led to cell program changes in terms of potency loss and suppressed biosynthesis, as indicated by levels of phosphorylated inactive acetyl CoA carboxylase (pACC). Phosphorylation of ACC was inhibited by the AMPK inhibitor Compound C. However, unlike other stressors, AMPK does not mediate hypoxia-induced potency loss in mTSCs. These results suggest an important aspect of stem cell biology, which demands rapid stress enzyme activation to cope with sudden changes in external environment, e.g., from least stressful (2% O2) to more stressful conditions.

Ultrastructural and physiological changes induced by different stress conditions on the human parasite Trypanosoma cruzi.

Trypanosoma cruzi is the etiological agent of Chagas disease. The life cycle of this protozoan parasite is digenetic because it alternates its different developmental forms through two hosts, a vector insect and a vertebrate host. As a result, the parasites are exposed to sudden and drastic environmental changes causing cellular stress. The stress response to some types of stress has been studied in T. cruzi, mainly at the molecular level; however, data about ultrastructure and physiological state of the cells in stress conditions are scarce or null. In this work, we analyzed the morphological, ultrastructural, and physiological changes produced on T. cruzi epimastigotes when they were exposed to acid, nutritional, heat, and oxidative stress. Clear morphological changes were observed, but the physiological conditions varied depending on the type of stress. The maintenance of the physiological state was severely affected by heat shock, acidic, nutritional, and oxidative stress. According to the surprising observed growth recovery after damage by stress alterations, different adaptations from the parasite to these harsh conditions were suggested. Particular cellular death pathways are discussed.

A Study on Factors that may affect the Oral Health Status of University Students

The present study investigated and analyzed how dietary habits, snack intake behavior, and stress affect the subjective oral health status of university students. Subject data involved oral health status and oral health awareness inquires via survey inquiries and the SPSS 20.0 statistics program. The results of the study are as follows. Snack intake increases when stress increases, and this affects oral health. Furthermore, nutrition labeling awareness increases when stress is lower and dietary habits are better, which affects oral health status. College is a transitional period between adolescence and adulthood, when adequate intake of nutrition and establishing proper dietary habits are important. University students may establish different dietary habits from adolescence due to the sudden change in environment, so by actively using nutrition labels, they can choose foods that fit their oral health status and needs, and the adequate education for filling in the lacking nutrients is important. The oral health awareness and behavior of university students appear to have difference in accordance with the general characteristics of subjects, and oral health education must consider such differences. Because awareness toward oral knowledge and oral education is low, education corresponding to this must be strengthened. The present study investigates the effect of dietary habits, snack intake behavior, and stress on subjective oral health status in order to provide basic data necessary in building programs for increasing preventive oral health management behaviors.

Universal Stress Proteins as New Targets for Environmental and Therapeutic Interventions of Schistosomiasis.

In spite of various control measures and eradication methods that have been in progress, schistosomiasis still prevails as one of the most prevalent debilitating parasitic diseases, typically affecting the poor and the underprivileged that are predominantly concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa. The parasitic schistosome blood fluke responsible for causing the disease completes its complex developmental cycle in two hosts: humans and freshwater snails, where they physically undergo gross modifications to endure the different conditions associated with each host. Just like any other organism, the worm possesses mechanisms that help them respond to environmental insults. It has been hypothesized that a special class of proteins known as Universal Stress Proteins (USPs) are up-regulated during sudden environmental changes, thus assisting the worm to tolerate the unfavourable conditions associated with its developmental cycle. The position of praziquantel as the drug of choice against all schistosome infections has been deemed vulnerable due to mounting concerns over drug pressure and so the need for alternative treatment is now a matter of urgency. Therefore, this review seeks to explore the associations and possible roles of USPs in schistosomiasis as well as the functioning of these proteins in the schistosomulae stage in order to develop new therapeutic interventions against this disease.

Improved performance low‐cost incremental conductance PV MPPT technique

Variable-step incremental conductance (Inc.Cond.) technique, for photovoltaic (PV) maximum power point tracking, has merits of good tracking accuracy and fast convergence speed. Yet, it lacks simplicity in its implementation due to the mathematical division computations involved in its algorithm structure. Furthermore, the conventional variable step-size, based on the division of the PV module power change by the PV voltage change, encounters steady-state power oscillations and dynamic problems especially under sudden environmental changes. In this study, an enhancement is introduced to Inc.Cond. algorithm in order to entirely eliminate the division calculations involved in its structure. Hence, algorithm implementation complexity is minimised enabling the utilisation of low-cost microcontrollers to cut down system cost. Moreover, the required real processing time is reduced, thus sampling rate can be improved to fasten system response during sudden changes. Regarding the applied step-size, a modified variable-step size, which depends solely on PV power, is proposed. The latter achieves enhanced transient performance with minimal steady-state power oscillations around the MPP even under partial shading. For proposed technique's validation, simulation work is carried out and an experimental set up is implemented in which ARDUINO Uno board, based on low-cost Atmega328 microcontroller, is employed.

변화무쌍한 환경에서의 지속성장성 결정요인분석 : 세계 금융위기 시 미국 기업을 중심으로

In response to drastic environmental changes, companies have been continuously rebalancing their resources and capabilities to sustain their competitive status or to survive difficult times. The aim of this study is to analyze the effect of sudden environmental changes on the competitive status of a firm and to identify the internal factors that differentiate sustainer and non-sustainer groups. To achieve this goal, we selected 85 representative IT and non-IT companies from the S&P 500 companies and investigated them with respect to the change in their five-year competitive status since the 2008 global financial crisis. As a concrete performance measure, the concept of perceived competitive status (PCS) was introduced, and four distinct PCS categories were identified by using the stock price changes during the selected period. The four distinct PCS categories are sustaining, drifting, deep sunken, and bouncing back. Discriminant analysis was performed on these four distinct PCS categories. The empirical study conducted showed that revenue and cost efficiency are the most discriminating factors, especially in the economic recovery period. In particular, stronger financial liquidity was observed in high-performing bouncing back companies than in the other category companies.

Fire Elicits an Adaptive Reproductive Strategy Shift from Host Plant Quantity to Quality in a Capital Breeding Species

Capital breeding species, those that do not acquire resources over their reproductive period, are hypothesized to have more flexible reproductive strategies than income breeding species, enabling the former to better cope with environmental changes. Yet, empirical study of this life history attribute in a changing environment is rare. Hemileuca eglanterina (Saturniidae), a strict capital breeding, day-flying moth, should employ a different reproductive strategy to exploit temporary increases in host plant nutrient quality following fire. In wetlands, where one half was burned and the other left unburned, the number of eggs/clutch was positively correlated with host plant abundance in the absence of fire, suggesting that H. eglanterina uses a resource abundance matching reproductive strategy by default. However, following fire, H. eglanterina laid greater numbers of eggs/clutch and did not adjust clutch size to host plant abundance, appearing to shift to a host plant quality based reproductive strategy. Coinciding with the fire-induced shift in reproductive strategy, host plants from burned habitat contained a greater proportion of N-containing compounds in their foliage than plants from unburned habitat, and larvae fed only leaves from the burned habitat had significantly greater survival than siblings fed unburned foliage. These results suggest the shift in reproductive strategy by H. eglanterina following fire was adaptive and that capital breeding species can cope with sudden environmental changes via alternative reproductive strategies.