Radar, Insect Population Ecology, and Pest Management

Discussions included: (1) the potential role of radar in insect ecology studies and pest management; (2) the potential role of radar in correlating atmospheric phenomena with insect movement; (3) the present and future radar systems; (4) program objectives required to adapt radar to insect ecology studies and pest management; and (5) the specific action items to achieve the objectives

Stability of Groups with Costly Beliefs and Practices

Costly signaling theory has been employed to explain the persistence of costly displays in a wide array of species, including humans. Henrich (2009) builds on earlier signaling models to develop a cultural evolutionary model of costly displays. Significantly, Henrich's model shows that there can be a stable equilibrium for an entire population committed to costly displays, persisting alongside a no-cost stable equilibrium for the entire population. Here we generalize Henrich's result to the more realistic situation of a population peppered with subgroups committed to high-cost beliefs and practices. The investigative tool is an agent-based model in which agents have cognitive capacities similar to those presupposed in Henrich's population-level cultural evolutionary model, and agents perform similar fitness calculations. Unlike in Henrich's model, which has no group differentiation within the population, our model agents use fitness calculations to determine whether to join or leave high-cost groups. According to our model, high-cost groups achieve long-term stability within a larger population under a wide range of circumstances, a finding that extends Henrich's result in a more realistic direction. The most important emergent pathway to costly group stability is the simultaneous presence of high charisma and consistency of the group leader and high cost of the group. These findings have strategic implications both for leading groups committed to costly beliefs and practices and for controlling their size and influence within wider cultural settings.Costly Signaling, Credibility Enhancing Displays, Cultural Transmission, Religion, Charismatic Leader, Agent-Based Model

Kinship, lineage identity, and an evolutionary perspective on the structure of cooperative big game hunting groups in Indonesia.

Work was conducted among traditional, subsistence whale hunters in Lamalera, Indonesia in order to test if kinship or lineage membership is more important for explaining the organization of cooperative hunting parties ranging in size from 8-14 men. Crew identifications were collected for all 853 hunts that occurred between May 3 and August 5, 1999. Lineage identity and genetic relatedness were determined for a sample of 189 hunters. Results of matrix regression show that kinship explains little of the hunters' affiliations independent of lineage identity. Crews are much more related amongst themselves than expected by chance. This is due, however, to the correlation between lineage membership and kinship. Lineage members are much more likely to affiliate in crews, but beyond r = 0.5 kin are just as likely not to affiliate. The results are discussed vis-à-vis the evolution of cooperation and group identity

The evolution of cooperation in a mobile population on random networks: Network topology matters only for low-degree networks

We consider a finite structured population of mobile individuals that strategically explore a network using a Markov movement model and interact with each other via a public goods game. We extend the model of Erovenko et al. (2019) from complete, circle, and star graphs to various random networks to further investigate the effect of network topology on the evolution of cooperation. We discover that the network topology affects the outcomes of the evolutionary process only for networks of small average degree. Once the degree becomes sufficiently high, the outcomes match those for the complete graph. The actual value of the degree when this happens is much smaller than that of the complete graph, and the threshold value depends on other network characteristics

Network topology and movement cost, not updating mechanism, determine the evolution of cooperation in mobile structured populations

Evolutionary models are used to study the self-organisation of collective action, often incorporating population structure due to its ubiquitous presence and long-known impact on emerging phenomena. We investigate the evolution of multiplayer cooperation in mobile structured populations, where individuals move strategically on networks and interact with those they meet in groups of variable size. We find that the evolution of multiplayer cooperation primarily depends on the network topology and movement cost while using different stochastic update rules seldom influences evolutionary outcomes. Cooperation robustly co-evolves with movement on complete networks and structure has a partially detrimental effect on it. These findings contrast an established wisdom in evolutionary graph theory that cooperation can only emerge under some update rules and if the average degree is low. We find that group-dependent movement erases the locality of interactions, suppresses the impact of evolutionary structural viscosity on the fitness of individuals, and leads to assortative behaviour that is much more powerful than viscosity in promoting cooperation. We analyse the differences remaining between update rules through a comparison of evolutionary outcomes and fixation probabilities.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figures, 1 tabl

Integrating Technologies for Scalable Ecology and Conservation

Integration of multiple technologies greatly increases the spatial and temporal scales over which ecological patterns and processes can be studied, and threats to protected ecosystems can be identified and mitigated. A range of technology options relevant to ecologists and conservation practitioners are described, including ways they can be linked to increase the dimensionality of data collection efforts. Remote sensing, ground-based, and data fusion technologies are broadly discussed in the context of ecological research and conservation efforts. Examples of technology integration across all of these domains are provided for large-scale protected area management and investigation of ecological dynamics. Most technologies are low-cost or open-source, and when deployed can reach economies of scale that reduce per-area costs dramatically. The large-scale, long-term data collection efforts presented here can generate new spatio-temporal understanding of threats faced by natural ecosystems and endangered species, leading to more effective conservation strategies

Language: The missing selection pressure

Human beings are talkative. What advantage did their ancestors find in communicating so much? Numerous authors consider this advantage to be "obvious" and "enormous". If so, the problem of the evolutionary emergence of language amounts to explaining why none of the other primate species evolved anything even remotely similar to language. What I propose here is to reverse the picture. On closer examination, language resembles a losing strategy. Competing for providing other individuals with information, sometimes striving to be heard, makes apparently no sense within a Darwinian framework. At face value, language as we can observe it should never have existed or should have been counter-selected. In other words, the selection pressure that led to language is still missing. The solution I propose consists in regarding language as a social signaling device that developed in a context of generalized insecurity that is unique to our species. By talking, individuals advertise their alertness and their ability to get informed. This hypothesis is shown to be compatible with many characteristics of language that otherwise are left unexplained.Comment: 34 pages, 3 figure

Non-local interactions in spatial evolutionary games

As a special case of symmetric game in which the players share a common payoff matrix, evolutionary game provides a suitable approach to model and explore the emergence of cooperative behavior in natural and social systems. The evolutionary spatial game (ESG) further specifies the payoff for each individual by both the payoff matrix $M$ and the spatial dependence structure of the population on a geophysical domain. Two players game serves as a foundation of modeling various biological/social interactive systems and provides a great amount of interesting game theoretical models such as prisoner\u27s dilemma game, snow drift game etc. We formulate a two players evolutionary spatial game under the framework of initialization, effective local payoff, and the Markov chain for strategy update. The spatial dependence structure is modeled by a probability distribution parameterized by the dependence geometry and strength in the neighborhood of each location. Particularly, we study the structure based on Gaussian process. Computational methods are proposed and applied to study the convergence of simulations. In addition, limiting non-local differential equation is introduced and analysed in terms of spreading speeds and traveling waves

Networks and regional economic growth: a spatial analysis of knowledge ties

In recent years, increased attention has been given to role of inter-organisational knowledge networks in promoting regional economic growth. Nevertheless, the empirical evidence base concerning the extent to which inter-organisational knowledge networks influence regional growth is at best patchy. This paper utilises a panel data regression approach to undertake an empirical analysis of economic growth across regions of the UK. Drawing on the concept of network capital, significant differences in the stocks of network capital and flows of knowledge within and across regions are found, which are significantly associated with regional rates of economic growth. The analysis finds that both inter- and intra-regional networks shape regional growth processes, highlighting the role of both embedded localised linkages and the importance of accessing more geographically distant knowledge. The study adds weight to the suggestion that one of the most interesting implications of endogenous growth theory relates to the impact of the spatial organisation of regions on flows of knowledge. It is concluded that the adoption of a relational approach to understanding differing economic geographies indicates that network systems are a key component of the regional development mix

Rodent Biology and Management; Abstracts of papers presented at the International Conference on Rodent Biology and Management, held at Beijing, China, 5-9 October 1998

Farm Management,