What's in a Dedication? On Being a Warlpiri DJ

This article reports on the operation of the Pintupi Anmatyerre Warlpiri radio network, established by the Warlpiri Media Association in the north‐west of Central Australia in late 2001. It traces the history out of which the network emerged and considers the distinctive approach taken to broadcasting by a group of young Warlpiri women. In exploring the on‐air invocation of particular forms of social relations, I argue that radio has come to play an important role in facilitating expressions of Warlpiri sociality across an expanding social field. At once a driver of social transformation and the transcendence of localism, as well as the glue that might bind people to each other in a changing world, the activity occurring around the Warlpiri Media Association provides a window onto the multiple challenges and choices faced by Warlpiri people in the present. This article is most particularly interested in how Warlpiri youth are negotiating these challenges and choices. The final section considers whether this new radio network might be understood in terms of the emergence of a new public sphere.     

Shown but not Shared,Presented but not Proffered: Redefining Ritual Identity among Warlpiri Ritual Performers, 1990–2000

Little has been written on the construction and projection of indigenous social identity in public (‘non‐restricted’) ritual among Aboriginal Australians. Elsewhere, I have analysed nearly half a century of such public rituals (1946–1990) among the Warlpiri of Yuendumu in Central Australia, concentrating on the shifting forces of gender and kinship. This paper focuses on the key moments motivating senior Warlpiri women, since the 1990s, to reconfigure their ritual participation and roles in inter‐indigenous ceremonial events. I analyse how these women participate in inter‐Aboriginal performances, exhibiting the iconic and sensory virtues of the Dreaming and weaving new forms of political identity, shaped by the pressures of neo‐colonialism, with female ambassadors of other Aboriginal groups. I argue that in this performative process women are reconfiguring the meanings of Aboriginalities and rearticulating their connectedness to one another, a connectedness rooted in their beliefs and responsibilities towards the Dreaming.     

Factors affecting party size and composition of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) Bossou,Guinea

I studied the party sizes of western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus)and factors assumed to affect them at Bossou, Republic of Guinea, West Africa. Party size is negatively correlated with feeding ratio, and larger parties tend to be formed in more dangerous situations (i.e. crossing roads with much traffic). When parties included estrous females, young (i.e., late juvenile and adolescent) males tended to forage with them, independently from their mothers. Lactating females with infants tended to spend more time alone, but the trend was not as apparent as it is in P. t. schweinfurthiat Gombe, Tanzania. These facts suggest that several factors, in addition to food availability, affect party formation, or fission-fusion, of chimpanzees. I also briefly discuss comparatively the pattern of party formation in P. paniscus.     

Transgenerational effects of nutrition are different for sons and daughters

Food shortage is an important selective factor shaping animal life‐history trajectories. Yet, despite its role, many aspects of the interaction between parental and offspring food environments remain unclear. In this study, we measured developmental plasticity in response to food availability over two generations and tested the relative contribution of paternal and maternal food availability to the performance of offspring reared under matched and mismatched food environments. We applied a cross‐generational split‐brood design using the springtail Orchesella cincta, which is found in the litter layer of temperate forests. The results show adverse effects of food limitation on several life‐history traits and reproductive performance of both parental sexes. Food conditions of both parents contributed to the offspring phenotypic variation, providing evidence for transgenerational effects of diet. Parental diet influenced sons’ age at maturity and daughters’ weight at maturity. Specifically, being born to food‐restricted parents allowed offspring to alleviate the adverse effects of food limitation, without reducing their performance under well‐fed conditions. Thus, parents raised on a poor diet primed their offspring for a more efficient resource use. However, a mismatch between maternal and offspring food environments generated sex‐specific adverse effects: female offspring born to well‐fed mothers showed a decreased flexibility to deal with low‐food conditions. Notably, these maternal effects of food availability were not observed in the sons. Finally, we found that the relationship between age and size at maturity differed between males and females and showed that offspring life‐history strategies in O. cincta are primed differently by the parents.     

Humans shape the year‐round distribution and habitat use of an opportunistic scavenger

Research focused on evaluating how human food subsidies influence the foraging ecology of scavenger species is scarce but essential for elucidating their role in shaping behavioral patterns, population dynamics, and potential impacts on ecosystems. We evaluate the potential role of humans in shaping the year‐round distribution and habitat use of individuals from a typical scavenger species, the yellow‐legged gull (Larus michahellis), breeding at southwestern Spain. To do this, we combined long‐term, nearly continuous GPS‐tracking data with spatially explicit information on habitat types and distribution of human facilities, as proxied by satellite imagery of artificial night lights. Overall, individuals were mainly associated with freshwater habitats (mean proportion, 95% CI: 40.6%, 36.9%–44.4%) followed by the marine‐related systems (40.3, 37.7%–42.8%), human‐related habitats (13.5%, 13.2%–13.8%), and terrestrial systems (5.5%, 4.6%–6.5%). However, these relative contributions to the overall habitat usage largely changed throughout the annual cycle as a likely response to ecological/physiological constraints imposed by varying energy budgets and environmental constraints resulting from fluctuations in the availability of food resources. Moreover, the tight overlap between the year‐round spatial distribution of gulls and that of human facilities suggested that the different resources individuals relied on were likely of anthropogenic origin. We therefore provide evidence supporting the high dependence of this species on human‐related food resources throughout the annual cycle. Owing to the ability of individuals to disperse and reach transboundary areas of Spain, Portugal, or Morocco, international joint efforts aimed at restricting the availability of human food resources would be required to manage this overabundant species and the associated consequences for biodiversity conservation (e.g., competitive exclusion of co‐occurring species) and human interests (e.g., airports or disease transmission).     

Another decade of advances in research on primary cilia,porosomes and neosis: Some passing thoughts at 70

This editorial contains some of my reflections on a career spanning almost 50 years in biomedical research at the cellular level and over 12 years as Editor‐in‐Chief of Cell Biology International, at the time of my 70th birthday. It is gratifying that I have been involved in some of the more important organelles and processes that have come to the forefront of cell research today, and I have chosen just three examples to illustrate this point.     

Post‐conflict third‐party affiliation in chimpanzees: what's in it for the third party?

Affiliative behavior after conflicts between conflict participants and other group members is common in many primate species. The proposed functions for such triadic interactions are numerous, mostly concerning the benefit for the former conflict opponents. We investigated post‐conflict third‐party affiliation (TPA) in captive chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) with the aim of assessing what the affiliating third parties may gain from affiliation. Specifically, we tested whether third‐party‐initiated affiliation protects the third parties from further aggression by conflict opponents. We found support for this “self‐protection hypothesis,” in that third parties selectively directed affiliation to those opponents who more often gave further aggression to them, and affiliation effectively decreased their chance of receiving aggression from these opponents. However, a subset of affiliation, provided to conflict victims by their own kin, appeared to not be self‐protective and the function of it remained open. We conclude that chimpanzee third‐party‐initiated affiliation is a more heterogeneous behavior than thus far assumed. Am. J. Primatol. 71:409–418, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Feeding ecology of the long-tailed macaque(Macaca fascicularis) in Kalimantan Tengah,Indonesia

I studied long- tailed macaque (Macaca fascicularis)feeding behavior and ecology as part of a larger behavioral ecological study at the Natai Lengkuas Station, Tanjung Puting National Park, Kalimantan Tengah, Indonesia. I collected data on feeding behavior via scan sampling of all visible individuals in the focal group (approximately 800 observation hours). I established vegetational plots and monitored them monthly to determine food availability and abundance. I found long- tailed macaques to be primarily frugivorous;leaves, flowers, insects and bark provided the remainder of the diet. They used at least 33 plant species as food sources, but >60% of the diet was provided by only 5 species. Based on previous vegetational analyses, these tree species were among the highest in relative density. However, selection ratios for 19 food species indicate that 13 of them were selected more often than expected. Long- tailed macaques appear to be selective feeders but can exploit a variety of food sources during periods of food scarcity.     

Life History of Learning: Performance Curves of Honeybees in the Wild

Learning is probably a major contributor to fitness in most animals yet it has not been well integrated into life history research. To quantify the role of learning in shaping lifetime patterns of performance, we must measure learning in natural settings as well as in controlled experimental conditions. As a part of a long‐term project measuring the relative contributions of learning, physiology, and effort to observed patterns of lifetime performance, I quantified the foraging success of worker honeybees in the wild. Bees exhibited a four‐fold increase in the net rate of food delivery to the colony over their first 4 d as foragers. The major contributors to that pattern were decreases in departure weights and increases in arrival weights. Combined with previous research, this study suggests that learning is the major contributor to the observed increases in lifetime performance, whereas age‐specific changes in physiology and effort have a significant though lesser role.     

On food preference in the Red fox

• 1 Foxes treat different prey species in a variety of ways, eating, burying, or discarding them on the basis of preference.
• 2 Because foxes often utilize cached food and because they can remember which prey species is in a given cache the preference effect can be longstanding.
• 3 Evidence from the literature suggests that comparable effects of preference for different species of small mammals affects the diet of wild foxes and their behaviour in the same way as demonstrated in these experiments.
• 4 Certain distastes appear common to all foxes and most carnivores, for instance, insectivore and carnivore meat, in particular that of their own species.
• 5 An incidence of active cannibalism by a fox is reported.
• 6 The effect of food preference is shown to change during the course of one individual's life perhaps as a consequence of such factors as rearing cubs and competition for food.
• 7 One effect of the behavioural consequences of food preference is to defer the decision of what to eat.
• 8 That the fox will kill animals that it does not eat means that populations of animals that are not strictly fox prey are still at risk from fox predatory activity.

     

Chimpanzee arrival pant-hoots: Do they signify food or status?

When adult male chimpanzees arrive at fruiting trees they commonly give long-distance pant-hoot vocalizations (arrival pant-hoots; APHs). Previous hypotheses suggested that APHs benefit listeners by informing them about large food patches and that they benefit callers by attracting allies or mates or both. We examined these ideas using data from 272 party arrivals at food sources over a 16-month period in the Kibale Forest, Uganda. To standardize for social context, we focused on arrivals at unoccupied trees. APHs at unoccupied trees were given only by parties containing at least one high-ranking adult male. In contrast to previous studies, the probability of calling was not correlated with the amount of ripe fruit in the tree, and APHs did not influence the probability of other parties arriving. Lower-ranking individuals that arrived at unoccupied trees without calling were not punished, i.e., they were not charged more often than expected. We suggest that, instead of providing information about the quality or quantity of food, APHs mark status.     

Food availability as a major driver in the evolution of life‐history strategies of sibling species

Life‐history theory predicts trade‐offs between reproductive and survival traits such that different strategies or environmental constraints may yield comparable lifetime reproductive success among conspecifics. Food availability is one of the most important environmental factors shaping developmental processes. It notably affects key life‐history components such as reproduction and survival prospect. We investigated whether food resource availability could also operate as an ultimate driver of life‐history strategy variation between species. During 13 years, we marked and recaptured young and adult sibling mouse‐eared bats (Myotis myotis and Myotis blythii) at sympatric colonial sites. We tested whether distinct, species‐specific trophic niches and food availability patterns may drive interspecific differences in key life‐history components such as age at first reproduction and survival. We took advantage of a quasi‐experimental setting in which prey availability for the two species varies between years (pulse vs. nonpulse resource years), modeling mark‐recapture data for demographic comparisons. Prey availability dictated both adult survival and age at first reproduction. The bat species facing a more abundant and predictable food supply early in the season started its reproductive life earlier and showed a lower adult survival probability than the species subjected to more limited and less predictable food supply, while lifetime reproductive success was comparable in both species. The observed life‐history trade‐off indicates that temporal patterns in food availability can drive evolutionary divergence in life‐history strategies among sympatric sibling species.     

Post‐fledging survival of Little Owls Athene noctua in relation to nestling food supply

Among the range of determinants of post‐fledging survival in altricial birds, the energy supply to the growing juveniles is likely to play a central role. However, the exact mechanisms shaping post‐fledging survival are poorly understood. Using a food supplementation experiment, we determined the effect of variation in food supply on the survival of juvenile Little Owls Athene noctua from hatching to 2 months post‐fledging. Experimental broods were food‐supplemented for 36 days during the nestling and the early post‐fledging period. The fate of 307 juveniles (95 of them provided with extra food) was determined by nest monitoring and radiotelemetry. In unsupplemented birds, the rates of survival measured at 5‐day intervals were lowest during the nestling stage, remained low during the early post‐fledging stage and steadily increased after about 2 weeks post‐fledging. Food supplementation substantially increased nestling survival, but we detected no direct treatment effect on post‐fledging survival. Instead, we found a strong indirect effect of food supplementation, in that fledglings of good physical condition had markedly higher chances of surviving the post‐fledging period compared with those in poor condition. Experimental food supplementation increased survival over the first 3 months from 45% to 64.6%. This suggests that energy reserves built up during the nestling stage influence post‐fledging survival and ultimately parental reproductive output. The low nestling and post‐fledging survival shows that the early life‐history stages constitute a crucial bottleneck of reproductive ecology in Little Owls. The strong treatment effects on the number of independent offspring indicate that natural variation in food supply is an important determinant of spatio‐temporal patterns in Little Owl demography.     

Differential risk effects of wolves on wild versus domestic prey have consequences for conservation

Predators play integral roles in shaping ecosystems through cascading effects to prey and vegetation. Such effects occur when prey species alter their behavior to avoid predators, a phenomenon called the risk effects of predators. Risk effects of wild predators such as wolves are well documented for wild prey, but not for free ranging domestic animals such as cattle despite their importance for ecosystem function and conservation. We compared risk effects of satellite‐collared wolves (n = 16) on habitat selection by global‐positioning‐system‐collared elk (n = 10) and cattle (n = 31). We calculated resource selection functions (RSFs) in periods before, during and after wolf visits in elk home ranges or cattle pastures. The habitat variables tested included: distance to roads and trails, terrain ruggedness, food‐quality and distance to forest. When wolves were present, elk stayed closer to forest cover and selected less for high‐quality‐food habitat. Thus, the risk effects of wolf presence on elk produced a change in the tradeoff between food and cover selection. Cattle responded by avoiding high‐quality‐food habitat and selecting areas closer to roads and trails (where people likely provided security), but these effects manifested only after wolves had left. Artificial selection in cattle may have attenuated natural anti‐predator behaviors. The effects of predators on ecosystems are likely different when mediated through risk effects on domestic compared to wild animals. Furthermore, predator control in response to livestock predation, an important conservation issue, may produce broad ecosystem effects triggered by decrease of an important predator species. Conservation planners should consider these effects where domestic herbivores are dominant species in the ecosystem.     

Splitting the Difference? Principled Compromise and Assisted Dying

Compromise on moral matters attracts ambivalent reactions, since it seems at once laudable and deplorable. When a hotly‐contested phenomenon like assisted dying is debated, all‐or‐nothing positions tend to be advanced, with little thought given to the desirability of, or prospects for, compromise. In response to recent articles by Søren Holm and Alex Mullock, in this article I argue that principled compromise can be encouraged even in relation to this phenomenon, provided that certain conditions are present (which I suggest they are). In order to qualify as appropriately principled, the ensuing negotiations require disputants to observe three constraints: they should be suitably reflective, reliable and respectful in their dealings with one another. The product that will result from such a process will also need to split the difference between the warring parties. In assisted dying, I argue that a reduced offence of ‘compassionate killing’ can achieve this. I acknowledge, however, that splitting the difference can induce splitting headaches, as there remain certain questions to be answered. Hopefully, however, sufficient work is done here to defend attempts to occupy the middle ground, whether these relate to assisted dying specifically or to other disputed moral matters.     

How feeding competition determines female chimpanzee gregariousness and ranging in the Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire

Socioecological theory suggests that feeding competition shapes female social relationships. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) live in fission–fusion societies that allow them to react flexibly to increased feeding competition by forming smaller foraging parties when food is scarce. In chimpanzees at Gombe and Kibale, female dominance rank can crucially influence feeding competition and reproductive success as high‐ranking females monopolize core areas of relatively high quality, are more gregarious, and have higher body mass and reproductive success than low‐ranking females. Chimpanzee females in Taï National Park do not monopolize core areas; they use the entire territory as do the males of their community and are highly gregarious. Although female chimpanzees in Taï generally exhibit a linear dominance hierarchy benefits of high rank are currently not well understood. We used a multivariate analysis of long‐term data from two Taï chimpanzee communities to test whether high‐ranking females (1) increase gregariousness and (2) minimize their travel costs. We found that high‐ranking females were more gregarious than low‐rankers only when food was scarce. During periods of food scarcity, high rank allowed females to enjoy benefits of gregariousness, while low‐ranking females strongly decreased their gregariousness. High‐ranking females traveled more than low‐ranking females, suggesting that low‐rankers might follow a strategy to minimize energy expenditure. Our results suggest that, in contrast to other chimpanzee populations and depending on the prevailing ecological conditions, female chimpanzees at Taï respond differently to varying levels of feeding competition. Care needs to be taken before generalizing results found in any one chimpanzee population to the species level. Am. J. Primatol. 73:305–313, 2011. © 2010 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

Ecological volatility and human evolution: A novel perspective on life history and reproductive strategy

Humans are characterized by a suite of traits that seem to differentiate them profoundly from closely related apes such as the gorilla, chimpanzee, and orang‐utan. These traits include longevity, cooperative breeding, stacking of offspring, lengthy maturation, and a complex life‐course profile of adiposity. When, how, and why these traits emerged during our evolutionary history is currently attracting considerable attention. Most approaches to life history emphasize dietary energy availability and the risk of mortality as the two key stresses shaping life‐history variability between and within species. The high energy costs of the large Homo brain are also seen as the central axis around which other life‐history traits were reorganized. I propose that ecological volatility may have been a key stress, selecting in favor of the suite of traits in order to tolerate periods of energy scarcity, and increase reproductive output during periods of good conditions. Theses life‐history adaptations may have preceded and enabled the trend toward encephalization. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Surfies versus Westies: Kinship,Mateship and Sexuality in the Cronulla Riot

In the predominantly affluent and Anglo Sutherland Shire in southern suburban Sydney, neighbourhood and extended kinship ties continue to exert powerful forces shaping local identities. During the riot of 11 December 2005 these identities were brought into relief by being pitted against the Lebanese immigrant youth who have been spatially and morally separated from Anglo‐Australians. I argue that the strong homosociality exhibited in several different contexts by young Anglo‐Australian men (the barbecue area, a sports team's ‘gang bang’, the violent defence of a neighbourhood controlled beach) and young Lebanese Australian men (paternal cousin and fraternal solidarities, an infamous series of gang rapes, their response to the White riot at Cronulla) are forms of separation that produce particular kinds of male sexual, class and ethnic subjects. I propose that a study of the role of kinship and cohort relationships in Anglo‐Australian and Lebanese‐Australian male groups should include the nature of incestophobia as an essential component of the precipitating fantasies leading to the riot and the subsequent retaliation.     

Human activities as a driver of spatial variation in the trophic structure of fish communities on Pacific coral reefs

Anthropogenic activities such as land‐use change, pollution and fishing impact the trophic structure of coral reef fishes, which can influence ecosystem health and function. Although these impacts may be ubiquitous, they are not consistent across the tropical Pacific Ocean. Using an extensive database of fish biomass sampled using underwater visual transects on coral reefs, we modelled the impact of human activities on food webs at Pacific‐wide and regional (1,000s–10,000s km) scales. We found significantly lower biomass of sharks and carnivores, where there were higher densities of human populations (hereafter referred to as human activity); however, these patterns were not spatially consistent as there were significant differences in the trophic structures of fishes among biogeographic regions. Additionally, we found significant changes in the benthic structure of reef environments, notably a decline in coral cover where there was more human activity. Direct human impacts were the strongest in the upper part of the food web, where we found that in a majority of the Pacific, the biomass of reef sharks and carnivores were significantly and negatively associated with human activity. Finally, although human‐induced stressors varied in strength and significance throughout the coral reef food web across the Pacific, socioeconomic variables explained more variation in reef fish trophic structure than habitat variables in a majority of the biogeographic regions. Notably, economic development (measured as GDP per capita) did not guarantee healthy reef ecosystems (high coral cover and greater fish biomass). Our results indicate that human activities are significantly shaping patterns of trophic structure of reef fishes in a spatially nonuniform manner across the Pacific Ocean, by altering processes that organize communities in both “top‐down” (fishing of predators) and “bottom‐up” (degradation of benthic communities) contexts.