Multinational evaluation of the measurement invariance of the level of personality functioning scale–brief form 2.0: comparison of student and community samples across seven countries

DSM-5’s Level of Personality Functioning Scale (LPFS) was introduced as a dimensional rating of impairments in self- and interpersonal functioning, and the LPFS – Brief Form (LPFS-BF) was the first published corresponding self-report. The updated LPFS-BF 2.0 has been translated into several languages and international research supports many of the instrument’s psychometric properties; however, its measurement invariance has only been evaluated across a few countries. This study expands previous studies as an introductory step in a global evaluation of the LPFS-BF 2.0’s measurement invariance. Archival data (N = 5,618, 57% female) from seven countries (Canada, Chile, Denmark, Germany, Italy, United Arab Emirates, United States of America) were used for this study. Participants were recruited from both community (n = 4,677) and student (n = 941) populations. After confirming adequate model fit separately in the community and student samples, we evaluated a series of increasingly stringent model comparisons to test three aspects of measurement invariance (configural, metric, scalar) and then examined latent mean differences across countries. Full scalar invariance was supported in the community sample and partial scalar invariance was supported in the student sample. Evaluation of latent mean differences revealed multiple significant differences. Overall, the LPFS-BF 2.0 appears to assess self- and interpersonal functioning impairment similarly across the included countries. Findings are discussed through the lenses of the cultures from which participants were recruited, as well as in the context of alternative explanations. Limitations, plans for future research, and implications for both research and clinical practice are offered

Insect herbivores should follow plants escaping their relatives

Neighboring plants within a local community may be separated by many millions of years of evolutionary history, potentially reducing enemy pressure by insect herbivores. However, it is not known how the evolutionary isolation of a plant affects the fitness of an insect herbivore living on such a plant, especially the herbivore's enemy pressure. Here, we suggest that evolutionary isolation of host plants may operate similarly as spatial isolation and reduce the enemy pressure per insect herbivore. We investigated the effect of the phylogenetic isolation of host trees on the pressure exerted by specialist and generalist enemies (parasitoids and birds) on ectophagous Lepidoptera and galling Hymenoptera. We found that the phylogenetic isolation of host trees decreases pressure by specialist enemies on these insect herbivores. In Lepidoptera, decreasing enemy pressure resulted from the density dependence of enemy attack, a mechanism often observed in herbivores. In contrast, in galling Hymenoptera, enemy pressure declined with the phylogenetic isolation of host trees per se, as well as with the parallel decline in leaf damage by non-galling insects. Our results suggest that plants that leave their phylogenetic ancestral neighborhood can trigger, partly through simple density-dependency, an enemy release and fitness increase of the few insect herbivores that succeed in tracking these plants

Spatial Scale and Dispersion Pattern of Ant- and Bird-Dispersed Herbs in Two Tropical Lowland Rain Forests

The population level correlates of contrasting dispersal syndromes in closely related species are largely unknown. A family of tropical understory herbs, the Marantaceae, provides the opportunity for comparative studies as it contains many species with contrasting dispersal syndromes. As part of a study of the comparative population biology of ant- and bird-dispersed species, we test the hypothesis that spatial scale and dispersion pattern are related to dispersal type, proposing that bird-dispersed species will have a larger spatial scale than ant-dispersed species, and that, among bird-dispersed species, the scale will vary among three distinct dispersal types. We also propose that ant-dispersed species will show a more clumped dispersion pattern than the bird-dispersed species. Two types of spatial scale are examined: the amount of space occupied by individuals (maximum and actual) and the spacing among individuals within populations. The maximum size of plants showed a trend in the predicted direction. However, this trend was only of marginal statistical significance. The actual distribution of plant sizes, as measured by total leaf area and classified logarithmically, differed significantly among the dispersal types in the predicted direction. Spacing among individuals as measured by nearest neighbor distances also varied significantly by dispersal type, but not entirely in the predicted direction. Dispersion pattern analysis indicated that most study species in most populations had significantly clumped spatial patterning. The aggregation index varied 20-fold among study-plots, but did not vary significantly by dispersal type. We conclude that while spatial scale was related generally to type of dispersal, dispersion pattern was not

Effects of elevated soil copper on phenology, growth and reproduction of five ruderal plant species

International audienc

Host associations of braconid parasitoids (Hymenoptera: Braconidae) reared from Lepidoptera feeding on Oaks (Quercus sp.) in the Missouri Ozarks

Volume: 110Start Page: 225End Page: 23