Analysis of Social Dominance in the Green Anole

Dominance relationships are an important aspect of the social organization of many species. Male dominance often results in successful territory defense and/or access to potential mates, and thus is a central component in establishing social rank. In this study, I used mathematical models to consider social interactions of the green anole lizard (Anolis carolinensis) in both territorial and hierarchical contexts. I then identified the behavioral and morphological traits associated with dominance in this species. I first analyzed a series of ranking algorithms to evaluate their effectiveness as a novel approach to quantifying animal social status. I found that all eight systems considered in this analysis successfully reflected dominance relationships in the green anole; however, no one system consistently predicted ranks using the measured traits. Therefore ranking systems are a viable method of analyzing social hierarchies in anoles, yet multiple systems are required to effectively model these dominance relationships. I then performed three empirical studies using the eight ranking systems from the previous analysis. In the first study, I performed a tournament of arena trials using pairs of 18 male lizards to identify the traits most closely related to male social status in a dominance hierarchy. These arena trials stimulated aggressive interactions, often resulting in a clearly dominant male. I used the resulting win/loss/tie information in the ranking algorithms to rank the individuals. My results showed that behavioral displays and relative head length were the most predictive of rank in the majority of ranking systems. In my next study, I measured morphological traits, aggressive behavior, territory size, and female overlap (a proxy of territory quality) in 24 green anoles in Palmetto State Park, Gonzales, Texas, to determine how these traits were related to territory size and/or quality in a natural population. Results from this study indicated that body size and head length were important predictors of territory size, and head length was the only significant predictor of territory quality. Finally, I sought to validate my results by directly comparing male rank to territory size. In two replicate studies with 10 male lizards each, I first used a series of arena trials to determine individuals’ ranks. I then placed the 10 males into an enclosure with 10 females and measured the sizes of male territories over one week. Although I hypothesized that higher ranked males would have larger territories, I found no correlation between rank and territory size. Overall, these results suggest that head length is an important component of all aspects of dominance (rank, territory size, and territory quality) in the green anole. Head size is closely related to bite force in anoles and is an honest predictor of fighting ability in this species. This study demonstrates that combining animal-based studies with mathematical models is an effective method of analyzing vertebrate social dynamics

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

'Vernacular Voices: Black British Poetry'

ABSTRACT Black British poetry is the province of experimenting with voice and recording rhythms beyond the iambic pentameter. Not only in performance poetry and through the spoken word, but also on the page, black British poetry constitutes and preserves a sound archive of distinct linguistic varieties. In Slave Song (1984) and Coolie Odyssey (1988), David Dabydeen employs a form of Guyanese Creole in order to linguistically render and thus commemorate the experience of slaves and indentured labourers, respectively, with the earlier collection providing annotated translations into Standard English. James Berry, Louise Bennett, and Valerie Bloom adapt Jamaican Patois to celebrate Jamaican folk culture and at times to represent and record experiences and linguistic interactions in the postcolonial metropolis. Grace Nichols and John Agard use modified forms of Guyanese Creole, with Nichols frequently constructing gendered voices whilst Agard often celebrates linguistic playfulness. The borders between linguistic varieties are by no means absolute or static, as the emergence and marked growth of ‘London Jamaican’ (Mark Sebba) indicates. Asian British writer Daljit Nagra takes liberties with English for different reasons. Rather than having recourse to established Creole languages, and blending them with Standard English, his heteroglot poems frequently emulate ‘Punglish’, the English of migrants whose first language is Punjabi. Whilst it is the language prestige of London Jamaican that has been significantly enhanced since the 1990s, a fact not only confirmed by linguistic research but also by its transethnic uses both in the streets and on the page, Nagra’s substantial success and the mainstream attention he receives also indicate the clout of vernacular voices in poetry. They have the potential to connect with oral traditions and cultural memories, to record linguistic varieties, and to endow ‘street cred’ to authors and texts. In this chapter, these double-voiced poetic languages are also read as signs of resistance against residual monologic ideologies of Englishness. © Book proposal (02/2016): The Cambridge History of Black and Asian British Writing p. 27 of 4

Forging connections: anthologies, arts collectives, and the politics of inclusion

The changing social and political landscape of twentieth-century Britain catalysed a remarkable rise in collaborative activity by artists and activists of black and Asian heritage. Creative communities began to gather in both local and regional contexts, with the aim of sharing resources and securing an audience. This chapter records some of these many activities, tracing the groups’ genesis, manifest objectives, and key contributions. It argues that anthologising should be understood as a specifically motivated activity. Literary anthologies of poetry and fiction served to showcase the diversity of contemporary writing, while also suggesting its coherence. Drawing on the concept of “strategic essentialism” elucidated by Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, I show that the anthology acts to ensure the visibility of a group, bannered as a unified and singly-titled selection of texts, while also insisting on the differences within: the heterogeneous multiplicity of black and Asian British experiences and creative practices

How Do Lizards Determine Dominance? Applying Ranking Algorithms to Animal Social Behaviour

Dominance relationships are a defining feature of the social organization of many animal species. Populations structured by absolute dominance usually maintain a generally linear hierarchy, while relative dominance occurs, for example, within territorial populations where an animal is likely to be dominant within its territory. Because relative dominance is dependent on social context, the traits associated with it are often unclear. Green anole lizards, Anolis carolinensis, are an ideal system in which to determine dominance-related traits, as anoles use territorial defence in most natural environments, but establish a dominance hierarchy at high densities such as those that occur in captivity. We hypothesized that anoles use similar morphological and behavioural traits to determine social status under both forms of social organization. To test this, we studied a natural population of anoles to determine the traits most predictive of male territory size and quality (as measured by the number of females overlapping a male\u27s territory). While these measures of territory may be related, they measure different components of territorial success. We then used mathematical ranking algorithms to quantify dominance in a tournament of paired arena trials, and identified traits associated with rank. Our results showed that lizards with wider heads had higher social rank, while those with longer heads were more successful at territorial defence. We also found that, independently of morphology, lizards who behaved more aggressively ranked higher in dominance trials, although behaviour did not predict measures of territory. Together, our results indicate that different traits may determine absolute and relative dominance in the green anole