Long-distance dispersal explains the bipolar disjunction in Carex macloviana

PREMISE OF THE STUDY: The sedge Carex macloviana d’Urv presents a bipolar distribution. To clarify the origin of its distribution, we consider the four main hypotheses: long-distance dispersal (either by mountain hopping or by direct dispersal), vicariance, parallel evolution, and human introduction. METHODS: Phylogenetic, phylogeographic, and divergence time estimation analyses were carried out based on two nuclear ribosomal (ETS and ITS) regions, one nuclear single copy gene (CATP), and three plastid DNA regions (rps 16 and 5′ trn K introns, and psb A-trn H spacer), using Bayesian inference, maximum likelihood, and statistical parsimony. Bioclimatic data were used to characterize the climatic niche of C. macloviana. KEY RESULTS: C arex macloviana constitutes a paraphyletic species, dating back to the Pleistocene (0.62 Mya, 95% highest posterior density: 0.29–1.00 Mya). This species displays strong genetic structure between hemispheres, wiThtwo different lineages in the Southern Hemisphere and limited genetic differentiation in Northern Hemisphere populations. Also, populations from the Southern Hemisphere show a narrower climatic niche wiThregards to the Northern Hemisphere populations. CONCLUSIONS: C arex macloviana reached its bipolar distribution by long-distance dispersal, although it was not possible to determine whether it was caused by mountain hopping or by direct dispersal. While there is some support that Carex macloviana might have colonized the Northern Hemisphere by south-to-norThtranshemisphere dispersal during the Pleistocene, unlike the southwards dispersal pattern inferred for other bipolar Carex L. species, we cannot entirely rule out north-to-souThdispersion.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad CGL2016-77401-

Ecology good, aut-ecology better; Improving the sustainability of designed plantings

© 2015 European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools (ECLAS). This paper explores how contemporary ecological science, and aut-ecology in particular, can improve the sustainability of designed vegetation. It is proposed that ecological understanding can be applied to design at three levels: 1) as representation, 2) as process, and 3) as aut-ecology, representing a gradient from the least to the most profound. Key ecological interactions that determine the success of designed plantings are explored via a review of relevant ecological research, challenging some widely held but unhelpful constructs about how both semi-natural and designed vegetation actually function. The paper concludes that there are real benefits to integrating aut-ecological understanding in the design of vegetation at all scales but that this will require ecological theory to be taught as a design toolkit rather than largely as descriptive knowledge

Exploring language as the “in-between”

Assuming a performative notion of language, this contribution addresses how language functions as a symbolic means and asks for its function for the dialogical self. In accordance with a non-individualistic notion, individuals are related to each other within and by virtue of an in-between. This in-between is called “spacetime of language”: a dynamic evolving across time, perceived as linguistic forms with their chronotopology and the positionings of the performers (self as-whom to other as-whom). With respect to the linguistic forms, the specificity of language functioning is described by Bühler’s term of displacement. The effect of displacement is to generate sharedness by inducing a movement the partners follow, going beyond their actual, sensitive contact. Symbolic displacement, expanding Bühler’s notion, is particularly interesting with regard to the dialogical self: it permits the social construction of several perspectives on self, other, and reality—positions and voices informing the self’s performances

Landscape science: a Russian geographical tradition

The Russian geographical tradition of landscape science (landshaftovedenie) is analyzed with particular reference to its initiator, Lev Semenovich Berg (1876-1950). The differences between prevailing Russian and Western concepts of landscape in geography are discussed, and their common origins in German geographical thought in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are delineated. It is argued that the principal differences are accounted for by a number of factors, of which Russia's own distinctive tradition in environmental science deriving from the work of V. V. Dokuchaev (1846-1903), the activities of certain key individuals (such as Berg and C. O. Sauer), and the very different social and political circumstances in different parts of the world appear to be the most significant. At the same time it is noted that neither in Russia nor in the West have geographers succeeded in specifying an agreed and unproblematic understanding of landscape, or more broadly in promoting a common geographical conception of human-environment relationships. In light of such uncertainties, the latter part of the article argues for closer international links between the variant landscape traditions in geography as an important contribution to the quest for sustainability

Academic freedom: in justification of a universal ideal

This paper examines the justification for, and benefits of, academic freedom to academics, students, universities and the world at large. The paper surveys the development of the concept of academic freedom within Europe, more especially the impact of the reforms at the University of Berlin instigated by Wilhelm von Humboldt. Following from this, the paper examines the reasons why the various facets of academic freedom are important and why the principle should continue to be supported

Rise and demise of the global silver standard

In the early modern period, the world economy gravitated around the expansion of long-distance commerce. Together with navigation improvements, silver was the prime commodity which moved the sails of such trade. The disparate availability and the particular demand for silver across the globe determined the participation of producers, consumers, and intermediaries in a growing global economy. American endowments of silver are a known feature of this process; however, the fact that the supply of silver was in the form of specie is a less known aspect of the integration of the global economy. This chapter surveys the production and export of silver specie out of Spanish America, its intermediation by Europeans, and the reexport to Asia. It describes how the sheer volume produced and the quality and consistency of the coin provided familiarity with, and reliability to, the Spanish American peso which made it current in most world markets. By the eighteenth century, it has become a currency standard for the international economy which grew together with the production and coinage of silver. Implications varied according to the institutional settings to deal with specie and foreign exchange in each intervening economy of that trade. Generalized warfare in late eighteenth-century Europe brought down governance in Spanish America and coinage fragmented along with the political fragmentation of the empire. The emergence of new sovereign republics and the end of minting as known meant the cessation of the silver standard that had contributed to the early modern globalization

Microfoundations

The paper argues that the microfoundations programme can be understood as an implementation of an underlying methodological principle, methodological individualism, and that it therefore shares a fundamental ambiguity with that principle, viz, whether the macro must be derived from and therefore reducible to, or rather consistent with micro-level behaviours. The pluralist conclusion of the paper is not that research guided by the principle of microfoundations is necessarily wrong, but that the exclusion of approaches not guided by that principle is indeed necessarily wrong. The argument is made via an examination of the advantages claimed for dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, the relationship between parts and wholes in social science, and the concepts of reduction, substrate neutrality, the intentional stance, and hypostatisation

Microfoundations

This paper argues that the microfoundations programme can be understood as an implementation of an underlying methodological principle—methodological individualism—and that it therefore shares a fundamental ambiguity with that principle, viz, whether the macro must be derived from and therefore reducible to, or rather consistent with, micro-level behaviours. The pluralist conclusion of the paper is not that research guided by the principle of microfoundations is necessarily wrong, but that the exclusion of approaches not guided by that principle is indeed necessarily wrong. The argument is made via an examination of the advantages claimed for dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, the relationship between parts and wholes in social science, and the concepts of reduction, substrate neutrality, the intentional stance, and hypostatisation

Combinatoriality in the vocal systems of nonhuman animals

A key challenge in the field of human language evolution is the identification of the selective conditions that gave rise to language's generative nature. Comparative data on nonhuman animals provides a powerful tool to investigate similarities and differences among nonhuman and human communication systems and to reveal convergent evolutionary mechanisms. In this article, we provide an overview of the current evidence for combinatorial structures found in the vocal system of diverse species. We show that considerable structural diversity exits across and within species in the forms of combinatorial structures used. Based on this we suggest that a fine‐grained classification and differentiation of combinatoriality is a useful approach permitting systematic comparisons across animals. Specifically, this will help to identify factors that might promote the emergence of combinatoriality and, crucially, whether differences in combinatorial mechanisms might be driven by variations in social and ecological conditions or cognitive capacities