Limits to reproduction and seed size-number trade-offs that shape forest dominance and future recovery

International audienceThe relationships that control seed production in trees are fundamental to understanding the evolution of forest species and their capacity to recover from increasing losses to drought, fire, and harvest. A synthesis of fecundity data from 714 species worldwide allowed us to examine hypotheses that are central to quantifying reproduction, a foundation for assessing fitness in forest trees. Four major findings emerged. First, seed production is not constrained by a strict trade-off between seed size and numbers. Instead, seed numbers vary over ten orders of magnitude, with species that invest in large seeds producing more seeds than expected from the 1:1 trade-off. Second, gymnosperms have lower seed production than angiosperms, potentially due to their extra investments in protective woody cones. Third, nutrient-demanding species, indicated by high foliar phosphorus concentrations, have low seed production. Finally, sensitivity of individual species to soil fertility varies widely, limiting the response of community seed production to fertility gradients. In combination, these findings can inform models of forest response that need to incorporate reproductive potential

Limits to reproduction and seed size-number tradeoffs that shape forest dominance and future recovery

The relationships that control seed production in trees are fundamental to understanding the evolution of forest species and their capacity to recover from increasing losses to drought, fire, and harvest. A synthesis of fecundity data from 714 species worldwide allowed us to examine hypotheses that are central to quantifying reproduction, a foundation for assessing fitness in forest trees. Four major findings emerged. First, seed production is not constrained by a strict trade-off between seed size and numbers. Instead, seed numbers vary over ten orders of magnitude, with species that invest in large seeds producing more seeds than expected from the 1:1 trade-off. Second, gymnosperms have lower seed production than angiosperms, potentially due to their extra investments in protective woody cones. Third, nutrient-demanding species, indicated by high foliar phosphorus concentrations, have low seed production. Finally, sensitivity of individual species to soil fertility varies widely, limiting the response of community seed production to fertility gradients. In combination, these findings can inform models of forest response that need to incorporate reproductive potential

Guilt, Greed, and Furniture: Using Mel Brooks\u27s The Twelve Chairs to Teach Dying Declarations

Nothing beats a good story. We understand our own lives through story. Whether relating the story of our day to friends or family, or reflecting on a lifetime spanning many years, humans use stories to help understand and make sense of our experiences of living in the world. In the legal arena, the best accepted theory explaining how jurors decide a case is the Story Model, which identifies story construction as the cognitive process central to juror decision making. And of course, we know that good lawyers have to be good storytellers (words are our tools, and our craft involves becoming master wordsmiths). What’s true in life, and in law, is also true in learning. Learning the law through the case method involves what James Boyd White describes as an “imaginative reconstruction of the process by which the text was made,” a process of reading a story and imagining oneself participating in its telling and re-telling.4 The process of teaching and learning statutory law (such as the Federal Rules of Evidence) in particular requires the use of stories. A skeletal outline of a hearsay exception only acquires meaning in the context of a story. When I teach the dying declarations hearsay exception in my Evidence course, I always show the opening scene from Mel Brooks’ darkly comedic film, The Twelve Chairs. A film clip is a particularly dense piece of storytelling, in that it presents story information in a visually and aurally rich manner (including such varied aspects as images, colors, tone, soundtracks, special effects, edits, montage, etc.). Yet, we are able to take in and process a whole series of nuanced and complex messages in a film clip in a relatively efficient manner. Simply put, we are good at “reading” visual stories from television and film. Further, showing the excerpt from The Twelve Chairs not only is fun, it’s good learning pedagogy. This short scene enhances class discussion in three principal ways. First, the scene serves as an engaging mini-review of the elements of the hearsay exception for dying declarations. Second, it serves as a springboard for the class to think critically and articulate some unspoken assumptions underpinning the rationale for the rule (the short scene raises issues about our assumptions governing family dynamics, gender, class, politics, and religion, among other matters) and consider the possibility of drafting a different (and perhaps better) rule. Third, the nature of the example (a film clip, and a comedic one at that), surprises and delights the students who are used to the usually bleak and violent fact patterns in many evidence casebooks. Thus, their attention level is high and they are very engaged in the analysis. A more full discussion of each of these three aspects follows

The Socratic Screenplay: Law, Allegory and Science Fiction in John and Joyce Corrington\u27s Screenplays for The Omega Man and Battle for The Planet of The Apes

The law-oriented short stories and novels of lawyer/English professor John William Corrington are receiving increasing attention from legal scholars. However; no one has analyzed the science fiction screenplays he co-wrote with his wife, Joyce, from a legal perspective. This article analyzes two such screenplays and concludes that they are Socratic texts whose narrative structures and epistemological processes work in much the same way that the traditional participatory exchange works in law school. My analysis explores the links between law, allegory and science fiction as intersecting methods to imagine the possibilities for the future

Children\u27s Picture Books and the Rule of Law: The Jurisprudence of The Poky Little Puppy

Book: Human Flourishing: The End of Law Chapter Description: In exploring the jurisprudence of the Poky Little Puppy, this article will first provide some brief background on children\u27s picture books and the publication history of The Poky Little Puppy (including its long-running best-seller status, its place within the Little Golden Books publishing imprint, and a summary of the plot and illustrations). Second, this article will interrogate the jurisprudence of the text, including analysis of the text\u27s construction of responsible citizens and its sometimes puzzling message about the nature of rights and duties under the rule of law. Finally, we will conclude by exploring the relationship between law and love in the text. The dialogic possibilities inherent in the way in which picture books are consumed (typically, an adult reads the picture book to a young child, in an act of loving engagement) means that stories about rules have potential to be part of an ongoing conversation about law and justice between adult and child.https://scholarship.stu.edu/faculty_book_chapters/1039/thumbnail.jp

Storytelling And Contracts

This review will proceed as follows: (1) a description of the organization and content of the casebook and the Student Workbook, and (2) an evaluation of the text\u27s pedagogical features, with particular emphasis on the casebook\u27s attention to narrative and storytelling as lawyering skills. I conclude that this is the most literary of the present-day contracts casebooks, and that this literary quality, with its attendant focus on experience, details, back story, and voice also make it by far the most multicultural and feminist contracts casebook. Let me hasten to add that it also does a dam good job of presenting doctrine (particularly through the problems and exercises in the Student Workbook) and of keeping students engaged and energized through one of the most difficult first year subjects

Common Sense, Contracts, and Law and Literature: Why Lawyers Should Read Henry James

There are at least two ways that Law and Literature methodologies can provide insight into the vexed space that is common sense: (1) Common Sense as the Failure of Imagination, and (2) Common Sense and the Problem of Ambiguity. Generally, failure of imagination occurs in connection with contract formation issues, and ambiguity with contract interpretation issues. To help elaborate these issues in the contractual universe of Gateway 2000 pay now, terms later contracts, I will first draw on the etymology of the phrase common sense to discuss the failure of imagination in the contract formation issues in that case and second, I will utilize Henry James\u27 The Turn of the Screw to discuss ambiguity and contract interpretation issues.

Diaries And Hearsay: Gender, Selfhood, And The Trustworthiness of Narrative Structure

In the first of four parts, this Article begins with some literary and legal definitions of a diary, including a discussion of the significance of the diary form in the metaphysics of selfhood. Next, this Article explores the issue of gender and diaries. Third, this Article examines the interplay between narrative structure and truth by analyzing the juridical rhetoric concerning diaries in case law and in the Federal Rules of Evidence. This latter analysis includes showing that diary evidence in criminal cases clusters in one of two logical categories: (1) Defendants\u27 Diaries-a defendant\u27s diary in a criminal case, where the defendant typically raises Fourth and Fifth Amendment arguments concerning the valued private enclave that is a diary, in order to keep out what would presumably be strong evidence against him ( him is accurate, since in these cases the defendants are generally male); or (2) Victims\u27 Diariesa victim\u27s diary in a criminal case, where the prosecutor tries to use a victim\u27s diary to show past abuse (overwhelmingly, the diaries in this category are of wives or girlfriends who have been murdered, or of young girls writing in their diaries about being sexually abused). Courts have been all over the map in making evidentiary rulings on diaries, partly, of course, because of different fact patterns and contexts, but also and significantly because of cultural assumptions about a form that has been heavily coded as feminine. Finally, this Article concludes that descriptions of abuse in diaries of now deceased battered women should be admissible, either under the California exception or under the residual exception in the Federal Rules, because such writings carry a heavy presumption of trustworthiness

Harry Potter Goes to Law School

Book: The Law and Harry Potter This volume considers the depiction of law and legal institutions in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels. It contains more than twenty chapters by legal academics from the U.S. and abroad. The chapters are organized in five sections: Legal Traditions and Institutions, Crimes and Punishments, Harry Potter and Identity, the Wizard Economy, and Harry Potter as an Archetype. Some chapters analyze the way law and legal institutions are portrayed, and what these portrayals teach us about concepts such as morality, justice, and difference. Other chapters use examples from the narratives to illustrate or analyze legal issues, such as human rights, actual innocence, and legal pedagogy. The volume is suitable for undergraduate or law school courses, and will be of interest to those Harry Potter fans who also have an interest in law and the legal profession.https://scholarship.stu.edu/faculty_book_chapters/1013/thumbnail.jp