THE INFLUENCE OF LARVAL DENSITY ON LARVAL GROWTH, AND THE CONSEQUENCES FOR ADULT SURVIVAL AND REPRODUCTIVE SUCCESS IN THE DAMSELFLY CALOPTERYX VIRGO (ODONATA)

This study of a population of C.virgo at Burrator, Dartmoor looks for signs of a population regulation mechanism acting through the effects of larval density on larval growth. The consequences of adult body size and emergence time for survival and reproductive success are also examined to look for further regulation mechanisms, and opportunities for natural and sexual selection; in particular the importance of body size to territorial males. Although there were significant differences in patterns of growth and body size within and between year classes of larvae, the differences were were not related to density. Smaller, later developing larvae were present, and the possibility that this was related to late hatching is discussed. Smaller, later developing larvae emerged later as smaller sized adults. Survival to maturity was not influenced by body size. Density-triggered bird predation was a regular feature of the population, and could result in early emergers experiencing higher survival to maturity. The advantage of early emergence could, however, easily be countered by adverse weather patterns. A field experiment showed that ovipositing females were highly aggregated, and that mature males were able to predict and profit from the aggregated distribution of females. Consequently male daily reproductive success was very variable, and was by far the most important component of their lifetime reproductive success. A large body size was an advantage to mature males when levels of competition were high, but not when competition was reduced as a result of bird predation and poor weather. Mature females produced between 85 and 1,615 eggs in their lifetime. The number of sunny days females survived to see was the most important component of their lifetime reproductive success, and was influenced by random predation and weather patterns. Body size was not related to either survival or clutch size. Early emerging females had higher lifetime reproductive success, but only as a result of the timing of the density-triggered bird predation, and this advantage could easily be lost through random weather patterns. The lack of evidence for density dependent feeding competition in larvae, and for a relationship between female body size and fecundity in adults, suggests that feeding competition is not a regulatory mechanism in this population. The difficulties of detecting density dependence in short term studies is discussed. The strong influence of environmental variables on the importance of adult body size and emergence time indicates that the opportunity for selection of these characteristics would be variable and hence weak in the short term. Over the long term, however, there would be a persistent selective pressure, and the possible consequences for larval growth are discussed.Devon Wildlife Trus

Spatial memory shapes density dependence in population dynamics

Most population dynamics studies assume that individuals use space uniformly, and thus mix well spatially. In numerous species, however, individuals do not move randomly, but use spatial memory to visit renewable resource patches repeatedly. To understand the extent to which memorybased foraging movement may affect density-dependent population dynamics through its impact on competition, we developed a spatially explicit, individual-based movement model where reproduction and death are functions of foraging efficiency. We compared the dynamics of populations of with- and without-memory individuals. We showed that memory-based movement leads to a higher population size at equilibrium, to a higher depletion of the environment, to a marked discrepancy between the global (i.e. measured at the population level) and local (i.e. measured at the individual level) intensities of competition, and to a nonlinear density dependence. These results call for a deeper investigation of the impact of individual movement strategies and cognitive abilities on population dynamics

Belonging and becoming: voices of harmonious being. Young women Steiner students explore their Lifeworlds through Goethean conversation

There are two central strands to this study, the voice of Steiner (or 'Waldorf') education and the voice of young women - voices rarely heard in the mainstream educational arena. Together they are the voice of 'harmonious being', a phrase which I have used to describe the phenomenon of the Steiner education experience which aims for harmonisation of the whole human being. Who the young person becomes is central to this experience yet there is little in-depth research exploring the Steiner student's voice. By addressing this gap and inviting young women Steiner students to explore this phenomenon through conversation this study achieves three significant visions. First, it raises the social voice of young women and challenges the negative stereotype of 'adolescent girl' proffered by the media. Second, it illuminates the living experience of an educational initiative that fosters connectedness and humankind's spiritual wisdom. Third, it demonstrates the value of simply talking and 'listening with spirit' to stay present in conversation and 'experience the other' through empowered and heart-centred relationships. As a consequence of doing this research, a fourth vision has emerged showing the value of love as methodology. Over one school year (9 months) I met regularly with twelve young women secondary students (14-18 years of age) from a New Zealand Steiner school to explore the phenomenon of harmonious being through conversations about their lives. Our conversations advance an intuitive methodology of love, connectedness and wholeness, which is encapsulated in a new methodological mix combining Goethean phenomenology with Carol Gilligan's relational psychology. Together they invoke the recognition of our innate connectedness. Goethe's is an artistic science of withness and wholeness ('one voice resonates with all voices') focusing on the epiphany experience of the archetypal phenomenon. Gilligan's voice-centred relational psychology has provided a humanistic feminist lens through which women and men come together as 'human' as heard in the layers of conversations with these young women. In this study, epiphany moments were unfolded in detail in six conversations series through a four stage process of Goethean layered listening. The themes of 'Belonging and Becoming' that emerged were explored through the collective voices of the twelve young women. The young women in this study offer insightful and rare views of their lifeworlds; voices rich with wisdom constructing 'adolescence' as a time of creative development. These young women show a remarkable interest in the world and a keen awareness of their social, cultural and physical environments locally, nationally and internationally. As evocative social agents they recreate the conventional 'moody adolescent' to a meaningful picture of what matters to a young woman as she authors her own life. What Gilligan calls 'the voice of resistance' is alive and well in these young women. Their experiences of 'harmonious being' transcribe a fluid lemniscate path of discovery between voice as self and their world-relationships: a structure with ribbon, says Laura. They describe an awakening to 'who they are' as a 'self-belonging', which creates space to become and belong more fully to 'who they will be'. Through the voices of young women Steiner students this study tells that the living spirit of Steiner education is alive and well in the 21st Century. This research became the very experience of the phenomenon we were exploring, unfolding a natural human science that has shifted the voice of phenomenology from 'lived' to 'living' experience and revealed a relational methodology of an embodied dynamic voice, epitomised in the phrase: belonging and becoming

Environmental predictability as a cause and consequence of animal movement

The impacts of environmental predictability on the ecology and evolution of animal movement have been the subject of vigorous speculation for several decades. Recently, the swell of new biologging technologies has further stimulated their investigation. This advancing research frontier, however, still lacks conceptual unification and has so far focused little on converse effects. Populations of moving animals have ubiquitous effects on processes such as nutrient cycling and seed dispersal and may therefore shape patterns of environmental predictability. Here, we synthesise the main strands of the literature on the feedbacks between environmental predictability and animal movement and discuss how they may react to anthropogenic disruption, leading to unexpected threats for wildlife and the environment

Communal and efficient movement routines can develop spontaneously through public information use

Animal aggregations occur in almost all taxa and can be strongly influential for consumer-resource dynamics and population health. Their adaptive value and underlying mechanisms are thus fundamental questions. Many animals use information about resource locations inadvertently broadcasted by other individuals through visual, acoustic, or olfactory cues. Such simple, involuntary information transfer is commonly employed in groups of social animals. However, it remains unknown whether public information use could have been the initial cause of social aggregations. Here, using agent-based modeling, in the absence of inclusive fitness benefits or direct conspecific attraction, we show that the use of ephemeral public information about resource locations can cause memory-based foragers to spontaneously and permanently aggregate into communal home ranges that take the form of movement circuits (also called traplines) along which individuals travel asynchronously. Even though experienced individuals only rely on their personal memory to inform their movement decisions, we find that the use of public information during the learning phase is very beneficial in the long term because the communal circuits are more efficient than those established by individuals that do not use public information. Our results reveal how simple, inadvertent information transfer between naïve, selfish foragers can cause the emergence of long-term aggregations, which are a prerequisite for the evolution of more complex social behaviors. They also suggest that individuals may not necessarily need to witness the entire sequences of actions performed by others to converge to the same behavioral routines

Les droits moraux des artistes interprètes de l’audiovisuel, perspectives internationales

Les droits moraux, aujourd’hui encore, ne jouissent pas d’une reconnaissance égale à travers le monde. Ce qui vaut pour les auteurs d’œuvres artistiques vaut à plus forte raison pour les artistes-interprètes de l’audiovisuel dont le statut varie entre deux systèmes principaux : le système en vigueur aux États-Unis, où leurs droits ne sont le fruit que de la négociation de contrats en l’absence de toute garantie minimum légale, et le système plus civiliste des droits voisins, qui veut que la loi garantisse un minimum de droits aux artistes-interprètes sans pour autant que cela s’apparente à des droits d’auteur. Le droit international, par la force des choses, a dû se saisir de cette question des droits reconnus aux artistes-interprètes et élaborer des réponses ayant pour vocation de pallier les divergences nationales. La réponse la plus simple et la plus rapide était évidemment de passer par le droit international privé, mais la solution posée par les conventions internationales ne permet pas de garantir des droits pérennes aux artistes- interprètes. La réponse matérielle donnée par la seule convention internationale, le Traité de Beijing, qui traite de ces artistes de l’audiovisuel n’est pas plus de nature à nous rassurer. Pour revenir sur ces faiblesses du système international, il a paru envisageable de procéder à une requalification de l’artiste-interprète en auteur, mais cette solution est en réalité pure chimère.Moral rights, nowadays, are not equally protected in the different countries. Performers in the audiovisual industry do not benefit from an equal protection either. Indeed, two systems prevail concerning the recognition of rights for performers. On one side, the USA does not recognize any legal protection for them and leave wide open the doors to negotiations between performers and producers. On the other side, the “civil law” system of neighbouring rights gives legal protection to performers, but it must not be confused with the copyright protection for authors. Because the issue continued to grow, international law was called upon to decide what should be the preferable protection for performers in the audiovisual industry in a century that knows technological progress and had to deal with the many disparities among the existing systems in force. The easiest answer was to choose private international law and not to go into the material provisions. But there is no doubt that this answer, if it offers the advantage of dealing with the difficulties very quickly, was not the ideal one and that a real material law embracing the issue of the protection of performers’ rights in the audiovisual industry was needed. This material answer was procided recently in the Beijing Treaty. Some concerns still remain about the emergence of as effective protection for performers’ rights and their qualification as authors is not the providential answer we thought it could be

The introduction of sustainability into competitive design network (CDN)

Competitive Design Network International (CDN) a design consultancy based in Barcelona, Spain is considering the move towards making their business processes more sustainable. This concept was initiated with the encouragement of Cranfield University, by the realisation of Antoni Flores the CEO, and Menno Marien the head of the Innovation department. This study was conducted to discover firstly if and why CDN would want to introduce sustainability, how it could be effectively brought into their practices and what action CDN would need to take. At the close of the project CDN had decided that sustainability would be an important aspect for their business particularly for competitively and market differentiation. CDN being an innovative, adaptable and influential business, it was identified that they are in an advantageous position to do this. Through continuous researcher involvement in the company, a process of education and discussion was initiated. The observations from involvement in the Flores Valles furniture project will be presented, among other implementation issues. The reactions from CDN to the internal seminars carried out will be described and conclusions will be drawn out for other design consultancies.MRe