From the Murray to the Mekong: Grant Evans' life and fieldwork

This article presents glimpses of the life and fieldwork of Grant Evans, the foremost anthropologist and historian to work on Laos in recent decades. It explores his youth in rural Australia, his tumultuous student years, and the challenges he faced as a professional scholar negotiating the Lao PDR bureaucracy. It draws insights from some of his early writing for alternative publications in Australia, as well as extensive discussions and correspondence with family, friends, professional counterparts and former students. It identifies factors in Grant's early life that were instrumental in his ability to research the Lao PDR. Ultimately, Grant possessed wide‐ranging academic and non‐academic interests. He was highly respected as a scholar and was a very decent human being.     

A review of urban impacts on avian life‐history evolution: Does city living lead to slower pace of life?

The concept of a pace‐of‐life syndrome describes inter‐ and intraspecific variation in several life‐history traits along a slow‐to‐fast pace‐of‐life continuum, with long lifespans, low reproductive and metabolic rates, and elevated somatic defences at the slow end of the continuum and the opposite traits at the fast end. Pace‐of‐life can vary in relation to local environmental conditions (e.g. latitude, altitude), and here we propose that this variation may also occur along an anthropogenically modified environmental gradient. Based on a body of literature supporting the idea that city birds have longer lifespans, we predict that urban birds have a slower pace‐of‐life compared to rural birds and thus invest more in self maintenance and less in annual reproduction. Our statistical meta‐analysis of two key traits related to pace‐of‐life, survival and breeding investment (clutch size), indicated that urban birds generally have higher survival, but smaller clutch sizes. The latter finding (smaller clutches in urban habitats) seemed to be mainly a characteristic of smaller passerines. We also reviewed urbanization studies on other traits that can be associated with pace‐of‐life and are related to either reproductive investment or self‐maintenance. Though sample sizes were generally too small to conduct formal meta‐analyses, published literature suggests that urban birds tend to produce lower‐quality sexual signals and invest more in offspring care. The latter finding is in agreement with the adult survival hypothesis, proposing that higher adult survival prospects favour investment in fewer offspring per year. According to our hypothesis, differences in age structure should arise between urban and rural populations, providing a novel alternative explanation for physiological differences and earlier breeding. We encourage more research investigating how telomere dynamics, immune defences, antioxidants and oxidative damage in different tissues vary along the urbanization gradient, and suggest that applying pace‐of‐life framework to studies of variation in physiological traits along the urbanization gradient might be the next direction to improve our understanding of urbanization as an evolutionary process.     

Effect of acute stressor on reproductive behavior differs between urban and rural birds

The life‐history trade‐off between self‐maintenance and reproduction posits that investment in one function decreases investment in the other. Manipulating the costs and benefits of functions involved in a trade‐off may alter this interaction. Here we ask whether investment in self‐maintenance during a stress response alters territorial behavior in wild Dark‐eyed Juncos and whether rural and urban birds, which are known to differ in the magnitude of the stress response (greater in rural), also differ in the degree to which stress reduces territorial behavior. In rural and urban habitats, we measured territorial behavior using song playback, followed by either an acute stressor (capture and collection of a blood sample) or a nonstressful control situation. The following day, we again measured territorial behavior, predicting greater reduction in territorial behavior in individuals exposed to the stressor but a lesser reduction in territorial behavior in the urban as compared to the rural environment. We further assessed individual and population differences in response to stressors by measuring flight initiation distance, breath rate, and corticosterone levels in the blood. The rural population had a higher physiological and behavioral stress response than the urban population, and acute capture stress had a lasting (24 h) negative effect on territorial behavior, but only in the rural habitat. However, individual‐level differences in measures of the stress response did not explain variation in the impact of stress on territorial behavior. Our findings show that stressors can have a negative effect on territorial behavior, but that this effect may differ between populations that vary in their stress ecology.     

Negative Life Events and Attempted Suicide in Rural China

Objective

This study aimed to examine the association between negative life events (NLEs) and attempted suicide in rural China.

Methods

Six rural counties were selected from disease surveillance points in Shandong province, China. A total of 409 suicide attempters in rural areas between October 1, 2009, and March 31, 2011, and an equal number of matched controls were interviewed. We compared negative life events experienced within 1 month, 1–3 months, 3–6months, and 6–2 months prior to attempted suicide for cases and prior to interview for controls. We used multivariate logistic regression to examine the association between NLEs and attempted suicide.

Results

Suicide attempters experienced more NLEs within the last year prior to suicide attempt than controls prior to interview (83.1% vs. 33.5%). There was a significant dose-response relationship between NLEs experienced within the last year and increased risk of attempted suicide. Timing of NLEs analysis showed that NLEs experienced in the last month and 6–12 months prior to suicide attempt were significantly associated with elevated risk of attempted suicide, even after adjusting for mental disorders and demographic factors. Of NLEs, quarrelling with spouse, quarrelling with other family members, conflicting with friends or neighbors, family financial difficulty, and serious illness were independently related to attempted suicide.

Conclusion

NLEs are significantly associated with increased risk for attempted suicide in rural China. Stress management and intervention may be important to prevent suicidal behavior in rural China.     

Using behavior to determine immature life‐stages in captive western gorillas

Ontogenic development is divided into infant, juvenile, adolescent and adult life‐stages. Although the developmental trajectory of an individual is a flexible entity, which differs within species, environment and sex, life‐stage classifications are generally structured, age‐based systems. This invariably leads to rigidity within a dynamic system and consequently hampers our understanding of primate life history strategies. We propose that life‐stage classifications should be quantitative, flexible entities, which use a reliable measurement of development. Here, we provide a methodological example where placement into a life‐stage is based upon behavioral variance between other similar‐aged individuals. Behavioral data were collected from 12 male (3–11 years old) and 9 female (3–8 years old) captive immature western gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) housed in five family groups, using continuous focal sampling; 900 hr of data were collected over 131 days. Data were applied to four published life‐stage classifications for mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei), which showed variable ability to determine life‐stage in western gorillas. A new life‐stage classification (Hutchinson & Fletcher) was proposed specifically for western gorillas, whereby multiple co‐varying behavior provided a robust measure of linear development across immaturity. Each life‐stage was found to be a distinct ontogenic phase and the classification discriminated life‐stage with a high level of accuracy. Using the Hutchinson & Fletcher classification we provide evidence for disparity in developmental trajectories between the sexes from the juvenile period onwards. To expand the understanding of primate life histories, we propose that flexible classifications should be used to enable comparison of allometric life history traits within and between species, from birth onwards. Am. J. Primatol. 72:492–501, 2010. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Can differences in the structure of larval,juvenile and adult coral‐reef fish assemblages be detected at the family level?

Processes occurring at the end of the larval stage are of major importance in shaping spatial structure of fish assemblages in coral reefs. However, because of the difficulty in identifying larvae to species, many studies dealing with these stages are limited to the family level. It remains unknown if variation in the spatial structure of coral‐reef fish assemblages across life stages can be detected at such a coarse taxonomic level. Two different surveys conducted in a similar area of New Caledonia, Southwest Pacific, provided the opportunity to compare the structure of coral‐reef fish assemblages collected as pre‐settlement larvae, juveniles and adults along a coast to barrier reef gradient. Adult and juvenile fish were sampled using underwater visual counts (UVC) during the warm seasons of 2004 and 2005. Pre‐settlement larvae were sampled with light‐traps during the same seasons. In order to standardize data between sampling methods, analyses were conducted on the relative abundance (for larvae) and density (for juveniles and adults) of 21 families commonly collected with both methods. Relative abundances/densities of families were analysed as a function of life stage (larvae, juveniles or adults), large‐scale spatial location (coast, lagoon or barrier) and years (2004, 2005) using non‐parametric multidimensional scaling (nMDS) and permutational multivariate analysis of variance (permanova ). Kruskal–Wallis tests were then used to examine differences among life stages and locations for individual families. Different levels of spatial and temporal variability characterized fish assemblages from different life stages, and differences among life stages were detected at all locations and years. Differences among life stages were also significant at the level of individual families. Overall results indicate that studies conducted at the family level may efficiently reveal changes in coral‐reef fish spatial structure among successive life stages when large spatial scales are considered.     

Adiponectin and metabolic syndrome in middle-aged and elderly Chinese

Objective: Hypoadiponectinemia is an important risk factor for metabolic syndrome (MetS). However, little is known about its role in the Chinese population. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between plasma adiponectin levels and MetS in middle‐aged and elderly Chinese from both urban and rural areas of northern and southern China. Methods and Procedures: This population‐based cross‐sectional study included 3,193 subjects aged 50–70 from urban and rural areas of Beijing (northern China) and Shanghai (southern China). Plasma adiponectin concentrations were measured using a high‐throughput micro‐assay, Luminex. MetS was identified with the updated National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP ATP III) criteria. Results: Adiponectin levels were significantly higher in female, and rural subjects than in male or urban residents (P < 0.001). The prevalence and the number of MetS components progressively increased with declined adiponectin levels (P for trend <0.001). The participants in the lowest adiponectin quartile had a significantly increased risk for acquiring MetS (odds ratio (OR) 3.38, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.56–4.46) after adjustment for potential confounders. Subjects from Beijing or rural areas had a higher risk for MetS at the same given level of adiponectin than did their Shanghai or urban counterparts, respectively. Discussion: Adiponectin is negatively associated with MetS in the middle‐aged and elderly Chinese independent of known confounders such as BMI, physical activity and life habits. The urban–rural and northern–southern differences in susceptibility to MetS should be taken into consideration for the early detection and prevention of MetS.     

How birds colonize cities: genetic evidence from a common waterbird,the Eurasian coot

Much effort has been devoted to identify ecological and life‐history traits which facilitate urban colonization by wild avian species, but surprisingly little is known about the population‐level mechanisms of urbanization processes. In general, two different patterns of urban colonization have been proposed: 1) the model of independent colonization predicts that birds colonize cities independently in different geographical regions; 2) the model of leapfrog colonization assumes a single colonization event, while additional urban populations are established from the initial urban populations. The aim of this paper was to determine the pattern of urban colonization in a common waterbird, the Eurasian coot Fulica atra. For this purpose, we analysed microsatellite variation in three pairs of urban and rural coot populations from central Poland. We found that a newly‐established urban population was genetically more similar to neighbouring rural populations than to long‐established urban populations, as indicated by the analysis of fixation index, genetic distance and Bayesian assignment of individuals to genetic clusters. These results are consistent with the model of independent colonization, where neighbouring rural populations are a source of individuals that colonize new urban areas. However, our analysis also showed significant differentiation between long‐established urban populations and adjacent rural populations, suggesting that genetic connectivity between two types of habitat decreases with increasing time since urbanization. Our study shows high complexity of urbanization processes in wild animal populations, as well as it underpins utility of molecular tools in studying population‐level mechanisms of urbanization.     

The survivance of French Canadians in New England (1865–1930): History,geography and demography as destiny*

This article analyses the Urban Poverty and Family Life Survey of Chicago and an urban subsample of the National Survey of Families and Households to examine race and ethnic variation in the occurrence and consequences of birth versus marriage pathways to family formation. Results based on multiple‐decrement life table analysis and multi‐variate life table regression analysis reveal strong race and poverty effects on pathways to family formation, but Hispanic origin does not systematically influence the odds that women will enter family life via marriage versus birth. We show stronger race effects on pathways to family formation for the Chicago sample owing to the much higher incidence of teen parenting among black inner‐city residents. Results also suggest lasting economic consequences of non‐marital fertility, irrespective of whether women eventually marry or divorce subsequent to a premarital birth.     

Using biological traits to assess how urbanization filters plant species of small woodlands

Question: Which biological traits (persistence, regeneration, dispersion traits and resource requirements) may explain the distribution of woodland flora along an urban–rural gradient? Location: The study was carried out in three medium‐sized conurbations of north‐western France: Angers, Nantes and Rennes. Methods: We sampled the vegetation of 36 small woodlands of about 1.5 ha composed of non‐planted vegetation along an urban–rural gradient. We characterized the position of woodlands along the urban–rural gradient by examining adjacent land cover. By using an ordination analysis (RLQ), we analysed which traits out of –23 tested were related to the contrasted distribution of species along the urban–rural gradient. Results: Species that are more likely to be found in urban woodlands than rural woodlands have different persistence traits (higher specific leaf area, more often rosette or semi‐rosette form, less underground vegetative multiplication), resource requirements (affinity for base‐rich and fertile soils) and regeneration traits (short life‐span). Dispersion traits were not related to the distribution of species along the urban–rural gradient. Conclusions: Our approach identifies traits that can help to determine the vulnerability of forest species as a result of the environmental changes that follow urbanization. Limiting the influence of the urban environment on habitat quality (particularly disturbance and soil enrichment) is likely to be of major importance in maintaining the plant biodiversity in woodlands.     

Lao peasants on the move: Pathways of agrarian change in Laos

Grant Evans’ body of work on Laos consistently sought to understand how peasant society responded to political, social and economic change. As the Lao peasantry became ever more integrated both nationally and within the wider Southeast Asian region, and relations of market exchange came to dominate rural life, Evans maintained the need to reflect on Laos’ peasant roots to understand resulting pathways of agrarian change. This paper reconnects with this discussion in the contemporary Lao context, focusing on three dimensions of mobility: the widening spatial and sectoral ‘footprints’ of rural livelihoods; physical movement within and beyond rural settings in Laos; and reflections on issues of differentiation. We first track the political and policy changes that have most strongly influenced rural life since Evans’ early research on collectivisation, before exploring ways in which spatial integration, subsistence‐to‐commercial transition and migration have situated the remnants of Lao peasant society in a world of flows.     

Assessing changes in oral health‐related quality of life and its factors in community‐dwelling older Brazilians

doi: 10.1111/j.1741‐2358.2012.00656.x Assessing changes in oral health‐related quality of life and its factors in community‐dwelling older Brazilians Objective: To describe changes in oral health‐related quality of life and to evaluate the associations of these changes in community‐dwelling older people. Materials and methods: In this longitudinal study a representative sample of 872 older people, living in Brazil, was evaluated during 2004. The follow‐up was carried out during 2008, with 587 older persons evaluated. A questionnaire assessing socio‐demographic information, health history, oral health‐impact profile and number of natural teeth was used. Changes in oral health‐related quality of life were categorized as improvement or deterioration. Data analysis was performed using a hierarchical approach based in a conceptual framework. A hierarchal approach was carried out using Poisson regressions. Results: Older persons living in rural areas, those who reported brushing once a day or less and older persons with fewer natural teeth had an increased chance of reporting deterioration in oral health‐related quality of life. Women and participants who received a minimum wage of less than US$219.50 were more likely to report improvement in oral health‐related quality of life. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that changes in the oral health‐related quality of life are influenced by many of the variables that were included in the conceptual framework.     

Birth month associations with height,head circumference,and limb lengths among peruvian children

Associations between season of birth and body size, morbidity, and mortality have been widely documented, but it is unclear whether different parts of the body are differentially sensitive, and if such effects persist through childhood. This may be relevant to understanding the relationship between early life environment and body size and proportions. We investigated associations between birth month and anthropometry among rural highland (n = 162) and urban lowland (n = 184) Peruvian children aged 6 months to 8 years. Stature; head‐trunk height; total limb, ulna, tibia, hand, and foot lengths; head circumference; and limb measurements relative to head‐trunk height were converted to internal age‐sex‐specific z scores. Lowland and highland datasets were then analyzed separately for birth month trends using cosinor analysis, as urban conditions likely provide a more consistent environment compared with anticipated seasonal variation in the rural highlands. Among highland children birth month associations were significant most strongly for tibia length, followed by total lower limb length and stature, with a peak among November births. Results were not significant for other measurements or among lowland children. The results suggest a prenatal or early postnatal environmental effect on growth that is more marked in limb lengths than trunk length or head size, and persists across the age range studied. We suggest that the results may reflect seasonal variation in maternal nutrition in the rural highlands, but other hypotheses such as variation in maternal vitamin D levels cannot be excluded. Am J Phys Anthropol 154:115–124, 2014. © 2014 The Authors. American Journal of Physical Anthropology Published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Family cohesion vs. capitalist hegemony: Cultural accommodation on the north Dakota farm

Conclusion The economic domination of household agricultural production by agribusiness on a national scale has been so complete that for many years analysts have concluded that the independent family farm has more existence in myth than in reality. Given that most farmers are excluded from realizing the ideal of family owned operations sustaining generation after generation, and even the fortunate few are subject to structural economic domination by big capital, one may ask why it is that rural families have persisted in valuing this way of life. In the face of these contradictions between the family farm myth and the experience of family farmers, the persistence of agricultural individualism and its Jeffersonian ideals of rural free-enterprise is remarkable.What to make, then, of these values, of this tradition? Has the independent family farm in Mercer County (and in the rest of North America) become a mere fiction and its values merely ideology? Traditional rural society is in danger of passing from anachronism to illusion with the increasing contradictions between its values and the realities arising out of its relationship to industrial capital. These values have become more rhetorical and imaginary; they lose their substance when compromised by families and communities responding to economic crisis by binding themselves ever more tightly to the very market forces that undermine them, and they lose their traditional meaning when used in advertising to promote further industrialization.The transformation of the American heartland myth comes full circle when it is appropriated by mass media in sympathetic reports on the farm crisis. Such coverage typically highlights an individual farm couple's stoic grief as the old family place is put up on the auction block, with lamentation over the loss of this traditional institution and breaking of a farm family's continuity. Focus on these emotionally wrenching and symbolically loaded images romanticizes and obscures the historical realities of farm family life, by suggesting that family farmers as a class have ever been otherwise than economically threatened and broken-up. Media analysis mourns the passing of family farms without criticizing the structures which grind them to pieces, and so is simply another reflection of the nostalgic and individualistic ideology that supports the very fragmentation it laments.After more than a century of struggle for survival, family farmers continue to be, in the words of one exasperated activist, victims of their own suicidal assumption that individual effort, a free market and elimination of governmental intervention will solve their economic problems. Farmers in the United States are political conservatives, and are notoriously difficult to organize in cooperative associations. As petty capitalists, they have been subject to the laws of motion of capitalist society, that have made their's a competitive way of life that is destructive of their families. Nonetheless, the dialectic between the ideals and the practical experiences of farming has produced ideological acquiescence to the system that has caused them so much suffering.

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Choosing the right sigmoid growth function using the unified‐models approach

Growth of the young is an important part of the life history in birds. However, modelling methods have paid little attention to the choice of regression model used to describe its pattern. The aim of this study was to evaluate whether a single sigmoid model with an upper asymptote could describe avian growth adequately. We compared unified versions of five growth models of the Richards family (the four‐parameter U‐Richards and the three‐parameter U‐logistic, U‐Gompertz, U‐Bertalanffy and U4‐models) for three traits (body mass, tarsus‐length and wing‐length) for 50 passerine species, including species with varied morphologies and life histories. The U‐family models exhibit a unified set of parameters for all models. The four‐parameter U‐Richards model proved a good choice for fitting growth curves to various traits – its extra d‐parameter allows for a flexible placement of the inflection point. Which of the three‐parameter U‐models was the best performing varied greatly between species and between traits, as each three‐parameter model had a different fixed relative inflection value (fraction of the upper asymptote), implying a different growth pattern. Fixing the asymptotes to averages for adult trait value generally shifted the model preference towards one with lower relative inflection values. Our results illustrate an overlooked difficulty in the analysis of organismal growth, namely, that a single traditional three‐parameter model does not suit all growth data. This is mostly due to differences in inflection placement. Moreover, some biometric traits require more attention when estimating growth rates and other growth‐curve characteristics. We recommend fitting either several three‐parameter models from the U‐family, where the parameters are comparable between models, or only the U‐Richards model.     

Procreative and performative kinship among residents in Victorian caravan parks

Recent senior anthropologists have heralded a new era where performative social and cultural kinship may eclipse procreational ‘biological kinship’ in contemporary western society. This article takes research on permanent residents in caravan parks as an extreme case that may act as an exemplar for future western contexts. Between 2003 and 2008, interviews with caravan‐park managers, 50 interviews with park residents and short field stays at 17 outer Melbourne and rural Victorian caravan parks, provided multi‐sited ethnographic material for analysis. I argue that contemporary contexts for relatedness give scope for creative development of social performative ties with ‘ex’ spouses and in‐laws, friends and pets. ‘Biological’ kin and family with a material dimension remain central, however, and a response to family need or rupture is often the broadening of the procreative kin links between grandparent and grandchild and between siblings. Childhood institutionalisation and divorce in particular, contributed to pathways towards caravan park housing. Other kin‐based motivations include finding safe accommodation for wives; providing housing for young adult males after injury and family divorce; and arranging for housing succession for children. Ideas of blood and folk biology demonstrate considerable resilience in contemporary kinship arrangements.     

Rural Youth and Youth Culture in North China

This article describes how economic reforms have transformed the local world of village life in North China, specifically the emergence of a rural youth culture that reflects urban values and styles. This culture has both challenged and enriched rural China's tradition and its more recent communal structure, a change that reshapes the relations amongst family members of different age cohorts as well as between peasants and cadres. it is argued that this transformation in the Chinese countryside holds opportunities to improve living conditions and unmake the constraints of tradition and the modern nation-state on life chances and everyday experience. The sheer number of rural youth in China suggests that the future impact of this transformation on social realities could be enormous.     

Interspecific competition affects evolutionary links between cavity nesting,migration and clutch size in Old World flycatchers (Muscicapdae)

The ecology of cavity nesting in passerine birds has been studied extensively, yet there are no phylogenetic comparative studies that quantify differences in life history traits between cavity‐ and open‐nesting birds within a passerine family. We test existing hypotheses regarding the evolutionary significance of cavity nesting in the Old World flycatchers (Muscicapidae). We used a multi‐locus phylogeny of 252 species to reconstruct the evolutionary history of cavity nesting and to quantify correlations between nest types and life history traits. Within a phylogenetic generalized linear model framework, we found that cavity‐nesting species are larger than open‐nesting species and that maximum clutch sizes are larger in cavity‐nesting lineages. In addition to differences in life history traits between nest types, species that breed at higher latitudes have larger average and maximum clutch sizes and begin to breed later in the year. Gains and losses of migratory behaviour have occurred far more often in cavity‐nesting lineages than in open‐nesting taxa, suggesting that cavity nesting may have played a crucial role in the evolution of migratory behaviour. These findings identify important macro‐evolutionary links between the evolution of cavity nesting, clutch size, interspecific competition and migratory behaviour in a large clade of Old World songbirds.     

New Insights in the Systematics of the Phyllophoraceae (Gigartinales,Rhodophyta)

The Phyllophoraceae, consisting of about 100 species worldwide, stands out in exhibiting a wide spectrum of unique life history types that makes it unusually interesting for assessing the phylogenetic importance of reproductive traits relative to classification criteria. Type of life history and position of the reproductive structures on the thallus have traditionally formed the basis for separating 11 genera in the Phyllophoraceae; however, phylogenetic analyses inferred from three sets of DNA sequences [chloroplast‐encoded rbcL, nuclear large‐subunit ribosomal RNA gene (LSU rDNA), and internal transcribed spacer regions (ITS) of nuclear ribosomal DNA], instead indicate a lack of correlation between type of life history and phylogenetic relationships among the established taxa. This lack of correlation dramatically challenges all of the traditional taxonomy, and we will present a revised classification for the family that downplays life‐history features. The study will answer the question which morphological features can be used as meaningful indicators of phylogenetic relationships in the Phyllophoraceae. The results will also be addressed in light of global biogeographic hypotheses for the family.