Back to the Future: revisiting the contact hypothesis at Turkish and mixed non-profit organizations in Amsterdam

This paper revisits the contact hypothesis by assessing differences in generalized trust among participants of Turkish non-profit organizations and ethnically mixed organizations in Amsterdam. Most voluntary sector research takes the contact hypothesis at its core and assumes that the concentration of ethnic minorities in non-profit organizations is detrimental to learning generalized trust. These studies assume that diversity within organizations is better for developing generalized norms without examining participation in ethnically homogenous organizations. I address this gap in the literature by analysing the variance of generalized trust among organizations and their participants. I achieve this through the analysis of purposively designed survey data. The findings suggest that a contact mechanism at voluntary organizations is problematic and should not be asserted uncritically.     

Reproductive seasonality in the Indian pygmy field mouse,Mus terricolor

The Indian pygmy field mouse, Mus terricolor, is a tiny, yet economically and ecologically important crop pest found throughout South-East Asia. There are no systematic reports exploring its reproductive physiology. We report the presence of distinct periods of annual reproductive activity and quiescence in M. terricolor. Body weight in males and females, relative weights of testis, epididymis and seminal vesicle in males, ovarian and uterine weight in females, gonadal histomorphic changes, testicular and ovarian cholesterol, sialic acid in epididymis, fructose in seminal vesicle, uterine protein content, melatonin in males and females, testosterone in males, estradiol, and progesterone in females were studied over a period of three years in both wild-caught and lab-acclimated mice. The number of Graafian follicles and corpora lutea, and plasma estradiol and progesterone, along with relative weights of ovary and uterus in females exhibited a peak in the months of October–January, compared to June. Based on histomorphic and hormonal status, the major reproductively active season is the winter (short-day breeding). There is a brief period of sub-maximal reproductive activity in April. M. terricolor is reproductively inactive in the summer, monsoons, and autumn. The results establish M. terricolor as a seasonal breeder in the field, with interesting implications for pest management.     

The biodiversity‐dependent ecosystem service debt

Habitat destruction is driving biodiversity loss in remaining ecosystems, and ecosystem functioning and services often directly depend on biodiversity. Thus, biodiversity loss is likely creating an ecosystem service debt: a gradual loss of biodiversity‐dependent benefits that people obtain from remaining fragments of natural ecosystems. Here, we develop an approach for quantifying ecosystem service debts, and illustrate its use to estimate how one anthropogenic driver, habitat destruction, could indirectly diminish one ecosystem service, carbon storage, by creating an extinction debt. We estimate that c. 2–21 Pg C could be gradually emitted globally in remaining ecosystem fragments because of plant species loss caused by nearby habitat destruction. The wide range for this estimate reflects substantial uncertainties in how many plant species will be lost, how much species loss will impact ecosystem functioning and whether plant species loss will decrease soil carbon. Our exploratory analysis suggests that biodiversity‐dependent ecosystem service debts can be globally substantial, even when locally small, if they occur diffusely across vast areas of remaining ecosystems. There is substantial value in conserving not only the quantity (area), but also the quality (biodiversity) of natural ecosystems for the sustainable provision of ecosystem services.     

山东近海生态资本价值评估——近海生物资源现存量价值

海洋生态资本是沿海地区社会经济活动的重要生产要素,海洋生物资源是海洋生态资本的关键构成要素之一。采用《海洋生态资本评估技术导则》中的方法,评估了山东近海生物资源现存量价值。结果表明,2006年山东近海生物资源现存量为100.20万吨,价值184.45亿元。生物资源以鱼类资源为主,资源量为76.50万吨,价值约131.73亿元,占全省近海生物资源总价值的71.4%;甲壳类资源量为13.98万吨,价值38.88亿元,占总价值的21.1%;头足类资源量为3.52万吨,价值4.47亿元,占总价值的2.4%;其他类海蜇资源量为6.46万吨,价值9.37亿元,占总价值的5.1%。全省近海生物资源现存量价值平均为58.4万元/km²。山东近海生物资源存量价值与近海供给服务价值、气候调节服务价值和物种多样性维持服务价值之间表现出互相促进的关系。本研究结果有助于提高人们对海洋生物资源重要性的认识,为海洋生物资源的可持续利用提供决策依据。     

Emerging Threats and Opportunities for Large‐Scale Ecological Restoration in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil

Over the past 150 years, Brazil has played a pioneering role in developing environmental policies and pursuing forest conservation and ecological restoration of degraded ecosystems. In particular, the Brazilian Forest Act, first drafted in 1934, has been fundamental in reducing deforestation and engaging private land owners in forest restoration initiatives. At the time of writing (December 2010), however, a proposal for major revision of the Brazilian Forest Act is under intense debate in the National Assembly, and we are deeply concerned about the outcome. On the basis of the analysis of detailed vegetation and hydrographic maps, we estimate that the proposed changes may reduce the total amount of potential areas for restoration in the Atlantic Forest by approximately 6 million hectares. As a radically different policy model, we present the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact (AFRP), which is a group of more than 160 members that represents one of the most important and ambitious ecological restoration programs in the world. The AFRP aims to restore 15 million hectares of degraded lands in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest biome by 2050 and increase the current forest cover of the biome from 17% to at least 30%. We argue that not only should Brazilian lawmakers refrain from revising the existing Forest Law, but also greatly step up investments in the science, business, and practice of ecological restoration throughout the country, including the Atlantic Forest. The AFRP provides a template that could be adapted to other forest biomes in Brazil and to other megadiversity countries around the world.     

Production of offspring using current income and reserves: size-number trade-off and optimal offspring size

To analyse the effects of current income on the nature of size-number trade-off and optimal offspring size, we developed a model in which offspring grow by absorbing current income and reserves. The offspring continue to grow while the current income is available or the reserves exist, and they cease to grow when the reserves are depleted and the current income ceases. We showed that the size-number trade-off is nonlinear in the region where the number of offspring is smaller than the critical number and linear in the region where the number of offspring is greater than the critical number. In the former region, the reserves are not depleted by the time the current income ceases and the offspring cease to grow when the reserves are depleted, whereas in the latter region, the reserves are depleted before the current income ceases and the offspring production is completed when the current income ceases. The optimal offspring size is the same as that shown in Sakai and Harada (Evolution 55 (2001) 467) if this optimal size is realized in the region of nonlinear trade-off, whereas the optimal offspring size is the same as that shown in Smith and Fretwell (Am. Natur. 108 (1974) 499) if this optimal size is realized in the region of linear trade-off.     

海洋生态资本价值结构要素与评估指标体系

针对海洋生态系统的特点,构建了海洋生态资本价值的结构要素及其评估指标体系。海洋生态资本的价值是指海洋生态资本的存量价值及其产生的收益流价值,包括各类海洋生态资源的现存量价值及其组成海洋生态系统整体而产生的生态系统服务价值。其中,海洋生态资源的现存量价值由海洋生物资源存量价值和海洋生境资源存量价值构成。海洋生态系统服务价值包含海洋供给服务、海洋调节服务、海洋文化服务和海洋支持服务等4个子要素的价值。     

Capital and income breeding and the evolution of colony founding strategies in ants

Ability to store resources that will be used for reproduction represents a potential life history adaptation because storage permits feeding and reproduction to be decoupled spatially and/or temporally. The two ends of a continuum involve acquiring all resources prior to reproduction (capital breeding) or acquiring all resources during the reproductive period (income breeding). Traditional life history theory examines tradeoffs between costs and benefits of such strategies, but this theory has not been integrated into life history studies of ants, even though founding queens have the analogous strategies of fully claustral (capital breeding) and semi-claustral (income breeding). This study demonstrates that facultatively semi-claustral queens of the seed-harvester ant Pogonomyrmex desertorum exhibit phenotypic plasticity during colony founding because unfed queens produced few, small minims, whereas ad libitum fed queens produced larger, heavier minims and additional brood. Fed queens also lost less mass than unfed queens despite their producing more brood. Overall, foraging provides queens with a suite of benefits that likely offset potential negative effects of foraging risk. Life history studies across a diverse array of taxa show that capital breeding is consistently associated with low availability and/or unpredictability of food, i.e., environmental conditions that favor prepackaging of reproductive resources. Such a broad and consistent pattern suggests that similar factors favored the evolution of fully claustral (capital breeding) colony founding in ants. Overall, these data suggest that ant researchers should revise their conventional view that fully claustral colony founding evolved because it eliminated the need for queens to leave the nest to forage. Instead, colony founding strategies should be examined from the perspective of environmental variation, i.e., availability and predictability of food. I also provide a functional scenario that could explain the evolution of colony founding strategies in ants. Received 16 November 2005; revised 1 March 2006; accepted 29 March 2006.     

Social capital externalities and mortality in Sweden

We conceptualize social capital as an aggregate factor affecting health production and analyze the effect of community social capital (CSC) externalities on individual mortality risk in Sweden. The study was based on a random sample from the adult Swedish population of approximately 95,000 individuals who were followed up for 4-21 years. Two municipality-level variable--registered election participation rate and registered crime rate--were used to be a proxy for CSC. The impact of CSC on mortality was estimated with an extended Cox model, controlling for the initial health status and a number of individual characteristics. The results indicate that both proxies of CSC were associated with individual risk from all-cause mortality for males older than 65+ (p=0.013 and p=0.008) but not for females. A higher election participation rate negatively and significantly associated with the mortality risk from cancer for males (p=0.007), and may also have exerted protective associations for cardiovascular mortality (p=0.134) and deaths due to "suicide" (p=0.186) or "other external causes" (p=0.055). Similar associations were observed for the crime rate variable. The findings were robust to alternative specifications examined in the sensitivity analysis.     

The "Other" Story of Model Minorities: Korean American High School Dropouts in an Urban Context

This article analyzes how socioeconomic backgrounds, social capital, and school resources affect Korean American youths' educational attainment and aspirations. In the context of limited social and economic support, students delineate differences within coethnic communities along class lines and adopt an oppositional cultural frame of reference to endure and resist institutional barriers. This study demonstrates the significance of distinguishing socioeconomic differences within Korean American communities and for whom the enclaves may be more beneficial.