bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Capitalism
Authors: Kalb Don
Published: September 2018

Capitalism as a concept is as crucial for the social and human sciences as it is contested. It is used to broadly characterize some of the key relations and dynamics of contemporary societies, which the concept claims are organized around the social production, valorization, and private accumulation of capital. The basic definition of capitalism is simple: it refers to a set of social, spatial, and institutional arrangements that serves to guarantee the endless accumulation of capital.
Autobiography, Anthropology and
Authors: Okely Judith
Published: September 2018

A written account of the self as autobiography in anthropology can be created either by the researcher/outsider or by an individual member of a group studied by an anthropologist. Both types of autobiography were initially sidelined in the history of the discipline but are open to greater attention.
F
rench Association of Ethnology and Anthropology / Association
F
rançaise
d
'Ethnologie et d'Anthropologie (
AFEA
)
Authors: Bellier Irène
Published: September 2018

The Association Française d'Ethnologie et d'Anthropologie (French Association of Ethnology and Anthropology) was established in 2009, after a long period of discussion and negotiation had taken place among several organizations, as a professional organization aiming at including all components of anthropology. It is a state‐regulated association by law (Association Régie par la Loi de 1901), which is the most common form of association in France for nongovernmental organizations. It is a membership‐based association.
Wenner‐Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research
Authors: Aiello Leslie C.
Published: September 2018

The Wenner‐Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research is a private operating foundation whose mission is to support significant and innovative research in all areas of anthropology, to foster the international anthropological community, and to provide leadership in the field. It was established in 1941 and today provides between $5 million and $6 million annually in support of the discipline internationally through varied grant, fellowship, networking, conference, and symposia programs. It founded and continues to publish the international journal
Current Anthropology
, and its online magazine,
SAPIENS
, brings anthropological research to the public worldwide.
Environmental Institutions and Governance
Authors: Nuttall Mark
Published: September 2018

A large number of regional, national, and international institutions are concerned with the governance of the environment or are tasked with managing and finding solutions to the effects of environmental problems arising from, for example, pollution or deforestation. Some of these have responsibility for broader aspects of ecosystem management, biodiversity conservation, the protection and conservation of wildlife, the sustainable use of resources, the monitoring of long‐range air pollutants, or the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. Others have a specific mandate in relation to forests, oceans, fisheries, or particular species of animal such as polar bears or whales. International procedures for environmental governance, especially those that cut across national boundaries and jurisdictions, or that deal with migratory species, have arisen from agreements signed between countries, or have emerged in the form of conventions that set out principles for how an ecosystem or a species is to be protected, conserved, and managed. Countries that ratify and become signatories to international conventions, such as those agreed upon by the United Nations, are legally bound to observe their principles and to act within the rules and regulations that have been set out, often following considerable political negotiation.
Gangs
Authors: Lewis O'Neill Kevin
Published: September 2018

The anthropology of gangs challenges the early twentieth‐century Chicago school of human ecology to detail the ever‐expanding social relations of gangs around the world. Migrant labor circuits, new regimes of deportation, and uneven efforts at democratization are some of the processes that prompt many anthropologists to understand gangs as transnational assemblages.
Division of Labor
Authors: Sanchez Andrew
Published: September 2018

For key areas of anthropological enquiry throughout the twentieth century, analyses of the division of labor were largely informed by Marxist and Durkheimian models, which posited that society functions as a collective economic whole. Durkheim's analysis of highly developed divisions of labor suggested that complex societies exhibited “organic” solidarities, which function for the collective good. Such an assumption informed the structural–functionalist school of British social anthropology in the early to mid‐twentieth century. In comparison, Marxist models of the division of labor describe antagonistic classes defined by their role within production. Such a model was influential to the development of Marxist and feminist anthropology in the mid‐twentieth century.
Work: Piece‐Rates
Authors: Sanchez Andrew
Published: September 2018

Piece‐rate payment systems compensate work according to the output of the labor process irrespective of the time invested within it. The expansion of piece‐rate payment systems in mid‐eighteenth‐century Europe is assumed to be a pivotal moment in the development of market capitalism. In the early twenty‐first century, economic anthropologists conduct research on piece‐rate systems in a variety of global industries.
Oral Cultures
Authors: Leavitt John
Published: September 2018

Whether societies without writing all share a distinctive mentality, orientation to the world, or single form of expression has been proposed and debated for several centuries. Since the 1960s, the debate has centered around the role of media technologies, with some authors maintaining that a change in the media of communication is the key factor in social and mental transformation while others argue for multifactorial analyses. While the presence or absence of a medium of communication has evident implications, the diversity of forms of oral communication, as well as of their interaction with other media, argues for the necessity of specific cartographies and a skepticism about broad generalizations.
Empathy, Evolution of
Authors: Buck Ross
Published: September 2018

Advanced forms of cognitive empathy grow out of more elementary forms of emotional empathy, both evolutionarily and developmentally. Core emotional empathy involves original, prelinguistic forms of inter‐individual linkage observed in communicative behaviors even in early life forms. Strong emotional bonds underlying emotional empathy were associated with changes in sexuality and appeared early in the hominin line. In modern humans, primary intersubjectivity emerges naturally over development from mutual contingent responsiveness: caregiver and infant respond “online” to the flow of the communicative behavior of the other in spontaneous nonverbal “protoconversations” in which each is automatically attuned to the subjective state displayed by the other. In addition, intersubjective attunement to and understanding of others' mental states appear naturally with experience involving emotional communication over the course of development as emergent dynamical systems, culminating in advanced cognitive empathy including theory of mind (ToM), inference, appraisal, attribution, and perspective taking.
Ethnoclimatology
Authors: Strauss Sarah
Published: September 2018

Ethnoclimatology is a subfield of the broader study of the anthropology of weather and climate. It focuses on the localized knowledge and practices generated by cultures or communities grounded in a specific geographical context. These communities may be indigenous peoples, whose roots and traditional knowledge may go back many tens or hundreds of generations in a region, or they may be cultures based on shared knowledge that has much more recent origins.
Gender,Marxist Theories of
Authors: Robinson Kathryn
Published: September 2018

Marxist theories of gender are fundamentally concerned with analyzing the relation between class exploitation and gender inequality. Women's oppression is regarded as the product of the economic, political, and social structures of capitalism. Marxist approaches were taken up by some feminist anthropologists in the 1970s, in particular taking inspiration from Friedrich Engels'sThe Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State(1884), seeking evidence of gender equality in pre‐class societies. Related to the 1970s discourse of universal subordination of women, Engels's approach was economic deterministic and feminist scholars who took up his work have struggled to incorporate understandings of masculinity and femininity into the application of this model. Marxist ideas inspired other approaches to the understanding of gender, in both communist and capitalist societies, with studies of communist societies bringing attention to the organization of social reproduction as the basis of gender inequality.
Urban Ecology
Authors: Jaffe Rivke
Published: September 2018

This entry discusses recent work at the intersection of urban and environmental anthropology, focusing on analyses of urban nature and environmental justice. Anthropological research on urban ecology has explored the material and discursive politics of socionatural processes in urban contexts and emphasized the emplaced and embodied character of ecological epistemologies.
Cultural Attraction Theory
Authors: Heintz Christophe
Published: September 2018

Cultural attraction theory, also referred to as cultural epidemiology, is an evolutionary theory of culture. It provides conceptual tools and a theoretical framework for explaining why and how ideas, practices, artifacts, and other cultural items spread and persist in a community and its habitat. It states that cultural phenomena result from psychological or ecological factors of attraction.
Disability
Authors: Groce Nora
Published: September 2018

The now widely accepted “social” model of disability allows us to better understand how the lives of persons with disabilities are shaped by the interplay of individuals' specific impairments and the prevailing beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions of the societies in which they live. Over a billion people—15 percent of the world's population—live with a disability, and people with disabilities routinely (but not always) are among the most marginalized members of society. Anthropology can contribute significantly to better understanding how society shapes and interprets disability.
Household
Authors: Pine Frances
Published: September 2018

The household is a central analytical concept in anthropology, particularly in the areas of kinship, gender and generation, and economics. It has also been a contested category at various times and for various reasons. It is sometimes defined spatially, as a house or dwelling, sometimes functionally, as a unit of production and consumption, and sometimes socially, as a group of people, usually related by kinship (including fostering and adoption) or marriage but also sometimes including servants and lodgers who share a common hearth. In the 1970s and 1980s critiques of household models, previously seen as stable, bounded units, usually male headed and internally bound to common interests, resulted in more flexible and nuanced understandings of the elasticity of household boundaries, of the conflicts as well as the shared interests within households, of the hierarchies within them, and of the ways in which they change over time, in response to different historical and economic circumstances.
Swidden Cultivation
Authors: Padoch Christine
Published: September 2018

Swidden cultivation is a way of farming that involves the clearing of natural or largely natural vegetation, usually using fire, to plant crops for one or two years and then allowing woody plants to regenerate on the plot for two or more years before clearing and cropping it again. Now largely confined to tropical uplands, it was once more widely distributed. Despite its long history and wide use, swidden cultivation is in decline in most areas. It has been the object of considerable criticism and broad condemnation by governments. Anthropologists have described and analyzed swidden cultivation in many areas and have debunked many of the myths and criticisms leveled at the practice.
Health, Youth, and Adolescence
Authors: Reis Ria , Berckmoes Lidewyde H.
Published: September 2018

Most societies recognize youth, especially adolescents, as transitioning between childhood and adulthood, though boundaries are contested within and across cultures. The anthropology of youth and health flourishes in the domains of sexuality and reproductive health and rights, violence, mental health, and bodily practices. Health‐related social sciences tend to study young people in a framework of liminality: as vulnerable, susceptible to behavior that puts them at risk, or overcoming adversity related to their liminal state. Their healthy lives and their caring roles deserve more attention. Studying youth and adolescent health asks for theoretical approaches that combine ecological framing with youth‐focused practice theory.
Initiation
Authors: Fontaine J. S. La
Published: September 2018

Initiation is a ritual that in many societies throughout the world marks the end of social childhood; it both signals and effects the transition to adulthood of those who go through it. Many organizations, particularly those termed “secret societies,” also induct new members through an initiation ritual. Without undergoing the accepted ritual, these individuals are not regarded as adult, however old they may be, or as full members of the group they aim to join. Thus, initiation performs two distinct functions, although both of these concern admissions to a new social standing: as an adult and as a member of a group.
Gender and Visual Arts
Authors: Jelinek Alana
Published: September 2018

Unlike other forms of material culture, visual art seems always to entail high status. Because of its relationship to high status, unlike other forms of material culture, visual art also always has a relationship with elite markets, high finance, and wealth. Other forms of material culture may be commodities, but visual art is a distinctive class of asset. As a category of material culture, visual art is strongly demarcated against other forms of production and this demarcation is often produced in gendered terms. Whereas men make visual art that can be considered works of great genius, women are more often considered as creating either other forms of material culture or lesser forms of visual art. The demarcations between art and non‐art, between the extraordinary and the ordinary, and between male and female work reflect differences in the monetary and social value of the various types of material culture.
W
einer,
A
nnette (1933–97)
Authors: Lepani Katherine
Published: September 2018

Annette Weiner was a distinguished anthropologist who made lasting contributions to anthropological theory on gender, kinship, and exchange, based on her original fieldwork in the matrilineal Trobriand Islands of Papua New Guinea in the southwest Pacific. Her key text,
Women of Value, Men of Renown: New Perspectives in Trobriand Exchange
(1976), which focuses on women's wealth in mortuary ceremonies, exemplifies how ethnographic perspectives are inherently gendered and situated.
Play
Authors: Tunçgenç Bahar , Jefferies Megan
Published: September 2018

Play is a widespread activity that is integral to the daily lives of human children and the young of many other animal species. Play is often characterized by enjoyment, voluntary engagement, and the spontaneous and free occurrence of movements, though it can also take place in the form of structured, rule‐based games. This entry addresses two questions that have dominated the psychological‐anthropological study of play: What are the types of and the developmental significance of play for children? Why does play behavior exist?
Kinship (Early Human), the Archaeological Evidence for
Authors: Gowlett J. A. J.
Published: September 2018

Kinship is likely to have been an important factor in human groups and their survival throughout most of the course of human evolution. Although evidence of kinship is far harder to recognize in the past than in the present, and information about individual relationships is usually lacking, in total a great deal can be established using several lines of approach. Historical records provide specific evidence, sometimes through several thousand years, to the start of early civilizations; linguistic reconstructions sometimes give suggestions of ancient social structures more than 10,000 years into the past; and genetic evidence is becoming increasingly important in all periods. DNA is helping to trace marriage practices in the Neolithic of Europe and China, and further back provides sometimes comprehensive information in the form of genomes of past species, such as the Neanderthals. It can cast light on social practice through providing information about inbreeding, and even the extent of interbreeding between separate species populations.
Spain, Anthropology in
Authors: Barrera‐González Andrés
Published: September 2018

This entry draws an outline of the history of anthropology and ethnology in Spain and the Hispanic world since the sixteenth century. It also provides a panoramic view of the institutionalization of the discipline in the twentieth century. It pays in this regard specific attention to the introduction of social and cultural anthropology in Spanish universities during the 1970s.
Cousin Marriage
Authors: Clarke Morgan
Published: September 2018

Given its imprecision, the term “cousin marriage” belongs more to everyday than to anthropological discourse. Anthropologists, and people from cultures across the world, distinguish between cousins of various sorts. Where the phrase is employed, however, it is generally used as an equivalent to what is otherwise sometimes called “close” or “consanguineous marriage”: that is, in contemporary terms, marriage between people genetically closely related—so first or at most second cousins. It is most commonly used in the context of global public health debates over the potential consequences of such alliances for the health of resulting offspring. Such debates are often colored by the assumptions and prejudices of Western modernity, namely that such alliances are in some sense “backward.” An anthropologist will want to qualify this discussion in several ways.
Ardener,E. W.(1927–87)
Authors: Chapman Malcolm
Published: September 2018

Edwin Ardener was a social anthropologist, best known as an authority on the relationship between linguistics and anthropology; during his lifetime, if the relationship between linguistics and social anthropology was under discussion, his name was among the first mentioned. Ardener was a route through which the ideas of Saussure, through Lévi‐Strauss, reached both his own generation and a younger generation of scholars—not only social anthropologists and linguists but also scholars in other fields and practitioners of various kinds. His use of linguistic inspiration for social analysis produced a perspective and practice challengingly different from those, often more behavioral and positivistic, that, from similar inspiration, came to dominate in the United States. His fieldwork, both in duration and published output, was exceptionally rich and rigorous. He made empirical rigor into an exercise in reflexivity, and into analytical sophistication. His own published output inspired many further publications by his students and by other scholars influenced by him.
Death and Dying
Authors: Pool Robert
Published: September 2018

Although death has always been an important topic for anthropologists, it is only in recent decades that the anthropology of death and dying has really taken off. Contemporary anthropologists carry out research on a broad range of death‐related topics, ranging from mortuary rituals, grief, mourning, and communication with the dead to suicide and euthanasia. This research is carried out in a wide range of settings, from the jungles of the Amazon to the intensive care wards of hospitals, from the hospice to the internet.
S
iberia, Anthropology in
Authors: Funk Dmitriy
Published: September 2018

This entry presents the main stages in the development of anthropology in Siberia. Major research areas, schools, and names as well as trends in scholarly thought are presented, starting from the early period of knowledge accumulation in the eighteenth century. Anthropology in Siberia is shown to be an essentially international area of scientific inquiry.
Family
Authors: Clarke Morgan
Published: September 2018

“Family” is a ubiquitous term in talking about kinship in English and other European languages. As a term in ordinary language, it suffers corresponding advantages and disadvantages. Unlike the rather more artificial term “kinship,” it conveys a powerful sense of what is at stake: the affective bonds of closeness, but also their suffocating demands. But this sense of familiarity can be deceptive when it comes to ethnographic writing and cross‐cultural comparison. Given the emotive pull of the notion of family and the very obviously political nature of debates over its proper form, its ethnocentricity and contestability have been often remarked upon. It has thus not been a widely favored technical term of anthropological analysis, even though it has proved just as hard to avoid. However, given the spread of the nuclear family as a social paradigm (if not reality) across much of the world following European colonialism from the nineteenth century onward, the salience of the term and the importance of grappling with it are arguably growing rather than diminishing.
Chiefs and Chiefdoms
Authors: Skalník Petr
Published: September 2018

Anthropologists define chiefs as political representatives of their chiefdoms who exercise their power under an inherited authority. Chiefs and chiefdoms are contemporary political formations in many parts of the world today, and chiefs continue to function formally and informally in relation to political formations of other kinds. Anthropological inquiry classically flows along two channels, one ethnographic and the other archaeological. Archaeological scholars look to excavated and archival evidence of chiefs and chiefdoms for what they reveal of state formation in the past. Some ethnographic scholars of a neoevolutionist bent have looked to similar evidence to establish the parameters of political evolution. This entry details the central claims and controversies associated with neoevolutionist accounts.
UnitedKingdom, Anthropology in
Authors: James Wendy
Published: September 2018

The United Kingdom played a leading part in the origins and subsequent development of English‐language anthropology, initially through works by individual scholars in the humanities from the mid‐nineteenth century but also by some from the natural sciences or the museums who had opportunities to travel to remote regions and observe “unknown” peoples. From the 1920s, along with the particular opportunities provided by colonial administrations, and after World War II especially with strong support from the universities, “social anthropology” emerged as a British specialism that saw humanity as a whole rather than as divided into “primitive” and “civilized,” or even into permanently different “cultures.” By the turn of the twenty‐first century, fresh research questions had led to fruitful worldwide comparisons as well as stimulating new forms of philosophical and scientific inquiry into the character of humanity and its evolutionary origins.
Traditional Chinese Medicine: Its Philosophy, History, and Practice
Authors: Hsu Elisabeth
Published: September 2018

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is a term coined in the People's Republic of China of the 1950s in an effort to approximate the Chinese termzhongyi. It refers to a form of medical learning where reasoning in terms of systemic correspondences prevails, including the so‐called five agents or five phases (wuxing), and where philosophical concepts such asyinyangandqiplay a central role. This entry discusses first the history of TCM and then aspects of its practice. Neither can be fully understood without some knowledge of its philosophical foundations.
Sex and Gender Roles, Critiques of
Authors: Robinson Kathryn
Published: September 2018

The term “sex roles” refers to the social functions that are ascribed to individuals based on their sex. Role theory was initially the dominant paradigm to explain sexual inequality in second‐wave feminism; and its feminist scholarship was role theory. Role theory focused on practices of socialization into male and female roles, for example, different expectations and behaviors toward male and female infants.
Senses, Anthropology of
Authors: Cox Rupert
Published: September 2018

The anthropology of the senses is based on Constance Classen's deceptively simple proposition that sensory perception is a cultural as well as a physical act, but it derives from modern theses about their determination by the forces of history, ocularcentrism, and technological mediation and from anthropological debates about the role of the body, the representation of experience, the philosophy of phenomenology, and the material role of the senses in the politics of perception. Anthropological research on the senses has stressed their centrality in the shaping of social practice and culture and also their role in the conduct and reflexive experience of fieldwork, raising questions about and suggesting alternatives to ethnographic forms of representation. Debates about the nature of the “separation” and the “relationship” between the senses have had implications for the representation of sensory experience and embodied phenomena in anthropology and for what has become known as sensory ethnography.
Constitutive Crises: Radical Practice and the Definition of the Centre
Authors: Murphy Douglas
Published: September 2018

Calls to reinvent architectural practice have been a steady part of the profession from its inception. Widely published cultural writer Douglas Murphy, who teaches in the architecture departments of the Royal College of Art and Central Saint Martins in London, tracks the variety of forms they have taken: from reactions to specific historical and technical developments, to perennial concerns regarding the architect's standing in society and on the building site.
Down by the River: Design for Organising
Authors: Shin Jae , Rich Damon
Published: September 2018

Design is not always about imposing creativity; sometimes vision is the problem! Finding ways to weave together conflicting agendas can be precisely what brings energy to a project – as with the new riverfront park for Newark, New Jersey. Jae Shin and Damon Rich, who lead the Newark‐based urban design studio Hector, describe how it came about: from negotiations with the local mayor, the US Army Corps and environmental advocates, to community engagement work with neighbourhood organisations.
Living Matter: Mesoscopic Active Materials
Authors: Bernheim‐Groswasser Anne , Gov Nir S. , Safran Samuel A. , Tzlil Shelly
Published: September 2018

An introduction to the physical properties of living active matter at the mesoscopic scale (tens of nanometers to micrometers) and their unique features compared with “dead,” nonactive matter is presented. This field of research is increasingly denoted as “biological physics” where physics includes chemical physics, soft matter physics, hydrodynamics, mechanics, and the related engineering sciences. The focus is on the emergent properties of these systems and their collective behavior, which results in active self‐organization and how they relate to cellular‐level biological function. These include locomotion (cell motility and migration) forces that give rise to cell division, the growth and form of cellular assemblies in development, the beating of heart cells, and the effects of mechanical perturbations such as shear flow (in the bloodstream) or adhesion to other cells or tissues. An introduction to the fundamental concepts and theory with selected experimental examples related to the authors’ own research is presented, including red‐blood‐cell membrane fluctuations, motion of the nucleus within an egg cell, self‐contracting acto‐myosin gels, and structure and beating of heart cells (cardiomyocytes), including how they can be driven by an oscillating, mechanical probe.
Facilitating high‐dimensional transparent classification via empirical Bayes variable selection
Authors: Bar Haim , Booth James , Wells Martin T. , Liu Kangyan
Published: September 2018

We present a two‐step approach to classification problems in the “largeP, smallN” setting, where the number of predictors may be larger than the sample size. We assume that the association between the predictors and the class variable has an approximate linear‐logistic form, but we allow the class boundaries to be nonlinear. We further assume that the number of true predictors is relatively small. In the first step, we use a binomial generalized linear model to identify which predictors are associated with each class and then restrict the data set to these predictors and run a nonlinear classifier, such as a random forest or a support vector machine. We show that, without the variable screening step, the classification performance of both the random forest and support vector machine is degraded when many among thePpredictors are not related to the class.
The P element invaded rapidly and caused hybrid dysgenesis in natural populations of Drosophila simulans in Japan
Authors: Yoshitake Yusaku , Inomata Nobuyuki , Sano Mai , Kato Yasuko , Itoh Masanobu
Published: September 2018

Transposable elements not only can change genomic positions and disperse across the gene pool, but also can jump to another species through horizontal transmission. Of late, the P element, a DNA transposon in insects, was shown to cross the genetic boundary from Drosophila melanogaster to D. simulans in Europe around 2006. To understand the dynamics of transposable elements, especially in the early stages of invasion, we examined 63 lines of D. simulans from 11 natural populations in Japan established in 1976–2015. Based on PCR analyses, P elements were demonstrated to exist in Japan in 2008 and later. One copy of the full‐length P element was identified and mapped to a site on chromosome 3 L in a genome. All of 18 copies of P elements examined shared “A” at the nucleotide position 2040, which is representative of the direct descendants of the original P element that invaded in D. simulans. We also found that some lines having P elements can induce intensive gonadal dysgenesis in D. simulans at 29°C. Our present results imply that P elements in D. simulans arrived at the east end of Asia just a few years later than or almost simultaneously to the initial invasion in Europe, Africa, and North America, suggesting a more astonishingly rapid spread than previously assumed.
Are Ponto‐Caspian species able to cross salinity barriers? A case study of the gammaridPontogammarus maeoticus
Authors: Pauli Nora‐Charlotte , Paiva Filipa , Briski Elizabeta
Published: September 2018

Recently, Ponto‐Caspian species (i.e., area of Azov, Black, and Caspian Seas) have invaded brackish and freshwater habitats of the North and Baltic Seas and the Laurentian Great Lakes in much higher numbers than expected based on shipping frequency and environmental conditions among these regions. Therefore, it has been suggested that Ponto‐Caspian species may have inherent advantages over other species in colonizing new habitats, or that they are of freshwater origin. Artificial selection offers the possibility to investigate phenotypic plasticity, shifts in environmental tolerance, and heritability of environmentally sensitive traits; therefore, in this study, we conducted artificial selection experiments on Ponto‐Caspian amphipodPontogammarus maeoticuscollected from 10 PSUto evaluate adaptation capacity of this species to different salinities, and to shed additional light on a possible freshwater origin of Ponto‐Caspian invaders. Our results indicated that selection to lower salinity than that of the population's ambient salinity is possible within few generations due to a likely existence of standing polymorphic variation for selection to act on. In contrast, selection to higher salinity was unsuccessful because the phenotypic variation was mainly caused by environmental variance and therefore might depend on new mutations. Consequently, the results of our study suggest that the tested species might be of freshwater origin and lacks necessary genetic background for adaptation to fully marine conditions. Further selection studies using more species and populations, as well as molecular techniques, should be conducted to elucidate if other Ponto‐Caspian invaders are of freshwater origin as well.
Genetic analyses reveal cryptic introgression in secretive marsh bird populations
Authors: Coster Stephanie S. , Welsh Amy B. , Costanzo Gary , Harding Sergio R. , Anderson James T. , McRae Susan B. , Katzner Todd E.
Published: September 2018

Hybridization is common in bird populations but can be challenging for management, especially if one of the two parent species is of greater conservation concern than the other. King rails (Rallus elegans) and clapper rails (R. crepitans) are two marsh bird species with similar morphologies, behaviors, and overlapping distributions. The two species are found along a salinity gradient with the king rail in freshwater marshes and the clapper in estuarine marshes. However, this separation is not absolute; they are occasionally sympatric, and there are reports of interbreeding. In Virginia, USA, both king and clapper rails are identified by the state as Species of Greater Conservation Need, although clappers are thought to be more abundant and king rails have a higher priority ranking. We used a mitochondrial DNA marker and 13 diagnostic nuclear single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to identify species, classify the degree of introgression, and explore the evolutionary history of introgression in two putative clapper rail focal populations along a salinity gradient in coastal Virginia. Genetic analyses revealed cryptic introgression with site‐specific rates of admixture. We identified a pattern of introgression where clapper rail alleles predominate in brackish marshes. These results suggest clapper rails may be displacing king rails in Virginia coastal waterways, most likely as a result of ecological selection. As introgression can result in various outcomes from outbreeding depression to local adaptation, continued monitoring of these populations would allow further exploration of hybrid fitness and inform conservation management.
Behavioral differences following ingestion of large meals and consequences for management of a harmful invasive snake: A field experiment
Authors: Siers Shane R. , Yackel Adams Amy A. , Reed Robert N.
Published: September 2018

Many snakes are uniquely adapted to ingest large prey at infrequent intervals. Digestion of large prey is metabolically and aerobically costly, and large prey boluses can impair snake locomotion, increasing vulnerability to predation. Cessation of foraging and use of refugia with microclimates facilitating digestion are expected to be strategies employed by free‐ranging snakes to cope with the demands of digestion while minimizing risk of predation. However, empirical observations of such submergent behavior from field experiments are limited. The brown treesnake (Serpentes: Colubridae: Boiga irregularis) is a nocturnal, arboreal, colubrid snake that was accidentally introduced to the island of Guam, with ecologically and economically costly consequences. Because tools for brown treesnake damage prevention generally rely on snakes being visible or responding to lures or baits while foraging, cessation of foraging activities after feeding would complicate management. We sought to characterize differences in brown treesnake activity, movement, habitat use, and detectability following feeding of large meals (rodents 33% of the snake's unfed body mass) via radio telemetry, trapping, and visual surveys. Compared to unfed snakes, snakes in the feeding treatment group showed drastic decreases in hourly and nightly activity rates, differences in refuge height and microhabitat type, and a marked decrease in detectability by trapping and visual surveys. Depression of activity lasted approximately 5–7 days, a period that corresponds to previous studies of brown treesnake digestion and cycles of detectability. Our results indicate that management strategies for invasive brown treesnakes need to account for cycles of unavailability and underscore the importance of preventing spread of brown treesnakes to new environments where large prey are abundant and periods of cryptic behavior are likely to be frequent. Characterization of postfeeding behavior changes provides a richer understanding of snake ecology and foraging models for species that consume large prey.
Biodiversity explains maximum variation in productivity under experimental warming, nitrogen addition, and grazing in mountain grasslands
Authors: Liu Jiajia , Liu Detuan , Xu Kun , Gao Lian‐ming , Ge Xue‐jun , Burgess Kevin S. , Cadotte Marc W.
Published: September 2018

Anthropogenic global warming, nitrogen addition, and overgrazing alter plant communities and threaten plant biodiversity, potentially impacting community productivity, especially in sensitive mountain grassland ecosystems. However, it still remains unknown whether the relationship between plant biodiversity and community productivity varies across different anthropogenic influences, and especially how changes in multiple biodiversity facets drive these impacts on productivity. Here, we measured different facets of biodiversity including functional and phylogenetic richness and evenness in mountain grasslands along an environmental gradient of elevation in Yulong Mountain, Yunnan, China. We combined biodiversity metrics in a series of linear mixed‐effect models to determine the most parsimonious predictors for productivity, which was estimated by aboveground biomass in community. We examined how biodiversity–productivity relationships were affected by experimental warming, nitrogen addition, and livestock‐grazing. Species richness, phylogenetic diversity, and single functional traits (leaf nitrogen content, mg/g) represented the most parsimonious combination in these scenarios, supporting a consensus that single‐biodiversity metrics alone cannot fully explain ecosystem function. The biodiversity–productivity relationships were positive and strong, but the effects of treatment on biodiversity–productivity relationship were negligible. Our findings indicate that the strong biodiversity–productivity relationships are consistent in various anthropogenic drivers of environmental change.
The effects of warming and nitrogen addition on ecosystem respiration in a Tibetan alpine meadow: The significance of winter warming
Authors: Zong Ning , Geng Shoubao , Duan Cheng , Shi Peili , Chai Xi , Zhang Xianzhou
Published: September 2018

In recent decades, global warming has become an indisputable fact on the Tibetan Plateau. Alpine ecosystems are very sensitive to global warming, and the impact may depend on the degree of atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition. The previous studies have paid more attention to year‐round warming, but the effect of winter warming has been unstudied. In this study, a manipulative experiment was conducted, consisting of warming and N addition. It was carried out since 2010 in an alpine meadow, and three types of warming treatments were set up: no warming (NW), year‐round (YW), and winter warming (WW). Warming significantly increased air and soil temperature, but decreased soil moisture. Under no N addition, YW showed significantly decreased ecosystem respiration (Reco) in 2012, and WW decreased Reco in 2014. Under N addition, neither YW nor WW had significant effects on Reco, indicating that N addition compensated the negative effect of warming on Reco. Annually, YW and WW decreased ecosystem carbon (C) emissions, and the extent of the reduction was even larger under WW. Under no N addition, both YW and WW significantly decreased aboveground biomass. Moreover, especially under no N, YW and WW significantly decreased soil inorganic N. WW also had negative effects on soil microbial biomass C. Structure equation modeling showed that soil moisture was the most important factors controlling Reco, and soil inorganic N content and microbial biomass C could explain 46.6% and 16.8% of the variation of Reco. The findings indicate that soil property changes under warming had substantial effects on ecosystem C efflux. The inhibitory effects of winter warming on ecosystem C efflux were mainly attributed to the decline of soil N and microbial biomass. Thus, the effects of winter warming on ecosystem C emissions in this semiarid alpine meadow are not as serious as expected and largely depend on N deposition.
Limited introgression supports division of giraffe into four species
Authors: Winter Sven , Fennessy Julian , Janke Axel
Published: September 2018

All giraffe (Giraffa) were previously assigned to a single species (G. camelopardalis) and nine subspecies. However, multi‐locus analyses of all subspecies have shown that there are four genetically distinct clades and suggest four giraffe species. This conclusion might not be fully accepted due to limited data and lack of explicit gene flow analyses. Here, we present an extended study based on 21 independent nuclear loci from 137 individuals. Explicit gene flow analyses identify less than one migrant per generation, including between the closely related northern and reticulated giraffe. Thus, gene flow analyses and population genetics of the extended dataset confirm four genetically distinct giraffe clades and support four independent giraffe species. The new findings support a revision of the IUCN classification of giraffe taxonomy. Three of the four species are threatened with extinction, and mostly occurring in politically unstable regions, and as such, require the highest conservation support possible.
Morphometric characteristics and time to hatch as efficacious indicators for potential nanotoxicity assay in zebrafish
Authors: Samaee Seyed-Mohammadreza , Manteghi Nafiseh , Yokel Robert A. , Mohajeri-Tehrani Mohammad Reza
Published: September 2018

Although the effects of nano-sized titania (nTiO2) on hatching events (change in hatching time and total hatching) in zebrafish have been reported, additional consequences of nTiO2 exposure (i.e., the effects of nTiO2-induced changes in hatching events and morphometric parameters on embryo-larvae development and survivability) have not been reported. To address this knowledge gap, embryos 4 h postfertilization were exposed to nTiO2 (0, 0.01, 10, and 1000 μg/mL) for 220 h. Hatching rate (58, 82, and 106 h postexposure [hpe]), survival rate (8 times from 34 to 202 hpe), and 21 morphometric characteristics (8 times from 34 to 202 hpe) were recorded. Total hatching (rate at 106 hpe) was significantly and positively correlated to survival rate, but there was no direct association between nTiO2-induced change in hatching time (hatching rate at 58 and 82 hpe) and survival rate. At 58, 82, and 106 hpe, morphometric characteristics were significantly correlated to hatching rate, suggesting that the nTiO2-induced change in hatching time can affect larval development. The morphometric characteristics that were associated with change in hatching time were also significantly correlated to survival rate, suggesting an indirect significant influence of the nTiO2-induced change in hatching time on survivability. These results show a significant influence of nTiO2-induced change in hatching events on zebrafish embryo-larvae development and survivability. They also show that morphometric maldevelopments can predict later-in-life consequences (survivability) of an embryonic exposure to nTiO2. This suggests that zebrafish can be sensitive biological predictors of nTiO2 acute toxicity. Environ Toxicol Chem 2018;37:3063–3076. © 2018 SETAC
Perspectives on the Application of Unmanned Aircraft for Freshwater Fisheries Census
Authors: Tyler S. , Jensen O. P. , Hogan Z. , Chandra S. , Galland L. M. , Simmons J. ,   The 2017 Taimen Research Team
Published: September 2018

This work provides an overview of the use of small unmanned aircraft systems for freshwater fisheries survey and fish identification. As an example, a series of river reaches in Mongolia was surveyed for identification and sizing of the endangered Taimen Hucho taimen, the world's largest salmonid. Using polarized video imagery, Taimen were positively identified in depths of over 2 m. River reaches were chosen for survey to include likely Taimen holding grounds as well as areas that were unlikely Taimen habitat. Large areas of river reaches were quickly surveyed with video imagery stored for analysis. Using land‐based targets for sizing and flying autonomous search patterns, we found that Taimen were easily identifiable based on their swimming patterns and could be remotely sized; furthermore, the fish did not appear to be disturbed by the presence of overhead aircraft. Lessons learned from the experiments and recommendations for future advances are provided. The use of small unmanned aircraft systems for fisheries is shown to be a novel and inexpensive alternative to traditional fisheries survey methods.
Brainstem enlargement in preschool children with autism: Results from an intermethod agreement study of segmentation algorithms
Authors: Bosco Paolo , Giuliano Alessia , Delafield‐Butt Jonathan , Muratori Filippo , Calderoni Sara , Retico Alessandra
Published: September 2018

The intermethod agreement between automated algorithms for brainstem segmentation is investigated, focusing on the potential involvement of this structure in Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Inconsistencies highlighted in previous studies on brainstem in the population with ASD may in part be a result of poor agreement in the extraction of structural features between different methods. A sample of 76 children with ASD and 76 age‐, gender‐, and intelligence‐matched controls was considered. Volumetric analyses were performed using common tools for brain structures segmentation, namely FSL‐FIRST, FreeSurfer (FS), and Advanced Normalization Tools (ANTs). For shape analysis SPHARM‐MAT was employed. Intermethod agreement was quantified in terms of Pearson correlations between pairs of volumes obtained by the different methods. The degree of overlap between segmented masks was quantified in terms of the Dice index. Both Pearson correlations and Dice indices, showed poor agreement between FSL‐FIRST and the other methods (ANTs and FS), which by contrast, yielded Pearson correlations greater than 0.93 and average Dice indices greater than 0.76 when compared with each other. As with volume, shape analyses exhibited discrepancies between segmentation methods, with particular differences noted between FSL‐FIRST and the others (ANT and FS), with under‐ and over‐segmentation in specific brainstem regions. These data suggest that research on brain structure alterations should cross‐validate findings across multiple methods. We consistently detected an enlargement of brainstem volume in the whole sample and in the male cohort across multiple segmentation methods, a feature particularly driven by the subgroup of children with idiopathic intellectual disability associated with ASD.