8 research outputs found

    Mimetic butterflies support Wallace's model of sexual dimorphism

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    Theoretical and empirical observations generally support Darwin's view that sexual dimorphism evolves due to sexual selection on, and deviation in, exaggerated male traits. Wallace presented a radical alternative, which is largely untested, that sexual dimorphism results from naturally selected deviation in protective female coloration. This leads to the prediction that deviation in female rather than male phenotype causes sexual dimorphism. Here I test Wallace's model of sexual dimorphism by tracing the evolutionary history of Batesian mimicry—an example of naturally selected protective coloration—on a molecular phylogeny of Papilio butterflies. I show that sexual dimorphism in Papilio is significantly correlated with both female-limited Batesian mimicry, where females are mimetic and males are non-mimetic, and with the deviation of female wing colour patterns from the ancestral patterns conserved in males. Thus, Wallace's model largely explains sexual dimorphism in Papilio. This finding, along with indirect support from recent studies on birds and lizards, suggests that Wallace's model may be more widely useful in explaining sexual dimorphism. These results also highlight the contribution of naturally selected female traits in driving phenotypic divergence between species, instead of merely facilitating the divergence in male sexual traits as described by Darwin's model

    Invoking spirits in the material world: Spiritualism, surrealism, and spirituality at work

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    This paper considers the recent upsurge of interest in workplace spirituality through an analysis of three cultural movements – late nineteenth century spiritualism, early twentieth century surrealism, and late twentieth/early twenty-first century 'spirituality at work'. These movements share a common interest in harnessing the power of the human spirit in the transformation and 'betterment' of social life. It is argued that these movements have successively adopted and de-radicalised invocations of the spirit world such that the proto-feminism and utopianism of spiritualism and the revolutionary pretensions of surrealism have been usurped by a strongly managerialist discourse of workplace spirituality. The paper ends with a consideration of the implications of these developments for the critical study of spirituality, management and organisation
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