'Leaves and Eats Shoots': Direct Terrestrial Feeding Can Supplement Invasive Red Swamp Crayfish in Times of Need

PMCID: PMC3411828This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Self-Regulation and School Success

Some children fare better academically than others, even when family background and school and teacher quality are controlled for (Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005 ). Variance in performance that persists when situational variables are held constant suggests that individual differences play an important role in determining whether children thrive or fail in school. In this chapter, we review research on individual differences in self-regulation and their relation to school success

A secure base from which to regulate: Attachment security in toddlerhood as a predictor of executive functioning at school entry

In light of emerging evidence suggesting that the affective quality of parent-child relationships may relate to individual differences in young children's executive functioning (EF) skills, the aim of this study was to investigate the prospective associations between attachment security in toddlerhood and children's EF skills in kindergarten. Mother-child dyads (N = 105) participated in 2 toddlerhood visits in their homes, when children were 15 months and 2 years of age. Mother-child attachment security was assessed with the Attachment Q-Sort during both these visits. When children were in kindergarten (ages 5-6), they were administered a battery of EF tasks, and their teachers completed the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function to assess children's EF problems. The results indicated that kindergarteners who were more securely attached to their mothers in toddlerhood showed better performance on all EF tasks, and were considered by their teachers to present fewer EF problems in everyday school situations. These results held above family socioeconomic status (SES) and child age, sex, and general cognitive functioning. The fact that early attachment security uniquely predicted both teacher reports and children's objective EF task performance suggests that parent-child attachment may be a promising factor to consider in the continuing search for the social antecedents of young children's EF

Stability of executive function and predictions to adaptive behavior from middle childhood to pre-adolescence

The shift from childhood to adolescence is characterized by rapid remodeling of the brain and increased risk-taking behaviors. Current theories hypothesize that developmental enhancements in sensitivity to affective environmental cues in adolescence may undermine executive function (EF) and increase the likelihood of problematic behaviors. In the current study, we examined the extent to which EF in childhood predicts EF in early adolescence. We also tested whether individual differences in neural responses to affective cues (rewards/punishments) in childhood serve as a biological marker for EF, sensation-seeking, academic performance, and social skills in early adolescence. At age 8, 84 children completed a gambling task while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. We examined the extent to which selections resulting in rewards or losses in this task elicited (i) the P300, a post-stimulus waveform reflecting the allocation of attentional resources toward a stimulus, and (ii) the SPN, a pre-stimulus anticipatory waveform reflecting a neural representation of a hunch about an outcome that originates in insula and ventromedial PFC. Children also completed a Dimensional Change Card-Sort (DCCS) and Flanker task to measure EF. At age 12, 78 children repeated the DCCS and Flanker and completed a battery of questionnaires. Flanker and DCCS accuracy at age 8 predicted Flanker and DCCS performance at age 12, respectively. Individual differences in the magnitude of P300 (to losses vs. rewards) and SPN (preceding outcomes with a high probability of punishment) at age 8 predicted self-reported sensation seeking (lower) and teacher-rated academic performance (higher) at age 12. We suggest there is stability in EF from age 8 to 12, and that childhood neural sensitivity to reward and punishment predicts individual differences in sensation seeking and adaptive behaviors in children entering adolescence

High Time for Conservation: Adding the Environment to the Debate on Marijuana Liberalization

The liberalization of marijuana policies, including the legalization of medical and recreational marijuana, is sweeping the United States and other countries. Marijuana cultivation can have significant negative collateral effects on the environment that are often unknown or overlooked. Focusing on the state of California, where by some estimates 60% -- 70% of the marijuana consumed in the United States is grown, we argue that (a) the environmental harm caused by marijuana cultivation merits a direct policy response, (b) current approaches to governing the environmental effects are inadequate, and (c) neglecting discussion of the environmental impacts of cultivation when shaping future marijuana use and possession policies represents a missed opportunity to reduce, regulate, and mitigate environmental harm

The “Batman Effect”: Improving Perseverance in Young Children

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138336/1/cdev12695.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/138336/2/cdev12695_am.pd

Unnatural selection of salmon life histories in a modified riverscape

Altered river flows and fragmented habitats often simplify riverine communities and favor non‐native fishes, but their influence on life‐history expression and survival is less clear. Here, we quantified the expression and ultimate success of diverse salmon emigration behaviors in an anthropogenically altered California river system. We analyzed two decades of Chinook salmon monitoring data to explore the influence of regulated flows on juvenile emigration phenology, abundance, and recruitment. We then followed seven cohorts into adulthood using otolith (ear stone) chemical archives to identify patterns in time‐ and size‐selective mortality along the migratory corridor. Suppressed winter flow cues were associated with delayed emigration timing, particularly in warm, dry years, which was also when selection against late migrants was the most extreme. Lower, less variable flows were also associated with reduced juvenile and adult production, highlighting the importance of streamflow for cohort success in these southernmost populations. While most juveniles emigrated from the natal stream as fry or smolts, the survivors were dominated by the rare few that left at intermediate sizes and times, coinciding with managed flows released before extreme summer temperatures. The consistent selection against early (small) and late (large) migrants counters prevailing ecological theory that predicts different traits to be favored under varying environmental conditions. Yet, even with this weakened portfolio, maintaining a broad distribution in migration traits still increased adult production and reduced variance. In years exhibiting large fry pulses, even marginal increases in their survival would have significantly boosted recruitment. However, management actions favoring any single phenotype could have negative evolutionary and demographic consequences, potentially reducing adaptability and population stability. To recover fish populations and support viable fisheries in a warming and increasingly unpredictable climate, coordinating flow and habitat management within and among watersheds will be critical to balance trait optimization versus diversification

Recent Shifts in the Occurrence, Cause, and Magnitude of Animal Mass Mortality Events

Mass mortality events (MMEs) are rapidly occurring catastrophic demographic events that punctuate background mortality levels. Individual MMEs are staggering in their observed magnitude: re- moving more than 90% of a population, resulting in the death of more than a billion individuals, or producing 700 million tons of dead biomass in a single event. Despite extensive documentation of individual MMEs, we have no understanding of the major features characterizing the occurrence and magnitude of MMEs, their causes, or trends through time. Thus, no framework exists for contextualizing MMEs in the wake of ongoing global and regional perturbations to natural systems. Here we present an analysis of 727 published MMEs from across the globe, affecting 2,407 animal populations. We show that the magnitude of MMEs has been intensifying for birds, fishes, and marine invertebrates; invariant for mammals; and decreasing for reptiles and amphibians. These shifts in magnitude proved robust when we accounted for an increase in the occurrence of MMEs since 1940. However, it remains unclear whether the increase in the occurrence of MMEs represents a true pattern or simply a perceived increase. Regardless, the increase in MMEs appears to be associated with a rise in disease emergence, biotoxicity, and events produced by multiple interacting stressors, yet temporal trends in MME causes varied among taxa and may be associated with increased de- tectability. In addition, MMEs with the largest magnitudes were those that resulted from multiple stressors, starvation, and disease. These results advance our understanding of rare demographic processes and their relationship to global and regional perturba- tions to natural systems

Autonomy-supportive parenting and associations with child and parent executive function

Autonomy-supportive parenting appears to play an important role in children's executive function (EF) development. However, few studies have accounted for parents' EF skills when examining the link between parenting and child EF in families from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. In the current study, parents and their 3- to 5-year-old children (N = 85 dyads) were assessed in the fall of preschool on well-validated behavioral assessments of EF and participated in a dyadic problem-solving task. We found that parent EF and child EF were correlated, both were associated with autonomy-supportive parenting, and these links were not moderated by socioeconomic status. Autonomy support was a predictor of child EF skills above and beyond parent EF, and boot-strapping mediational analyses confirmed that autonomy-supportive behaviors mediated the link between parent-child EF. These results provide initial evidence for the intergenerational transmission of EF through autonomy support