Paleoecological Study of Unguja: Can Past Environments be Inferred from Fossilized Corals and Mollusks?

A study was conducted on Unguja, an island off the eastern coast of Tanzania, to provide an overview of the paleoecology found in the cliff shelves across the island. It is known that Zanzibar was a submerged reef from the Neogene, approximately 23 million years ago (Ma). Two tests were carried out in 16 sites around the island. One test looked at coral fossils, while the other studied fossilized shells. Both tests measured biodiversity, with one specifically studying patterns of ocean currents, and the other studying nutrient levels and deposition rates. Biodiversity tests were inconclusive but coral diversity showed a decrease in trend from west to east, while mollusk diversity showed a decrease from east to west. The coral tests showed that the ocean current might have been transporting coral spores from the northeast part of the island. The mollusk test can be used to show how the depositional rates on the eastern part of the island were lower than the western, as well as that the nutrient availability was greater on the eastern side. Appendix I can be used to show what the reef may have looked like in the past, and can set a precedent for future studies of global climate change and show patterns of reef life in Unguja

The Role of Dispersal and School Attendance on Reproductive Dynamics in Small, Dispersed Populations: \u3cem\u3eChoyeros\u3c/em\u3e of Baja California Sur, Mexico

Individuals from small populations face challenges to initiating reproduction because stochastic demographic processes create local mate scarcity. In response, flexible dispersal patterns that facilitate the movement of individuals across groups have been argued to reduce mate search costs and inbreeding depression. Furthermore, factors that aggregate dispersed peoples, such as rural schools, could lower mate search costs through expansion of mating markets. However, research suggests that dispersal and school attendance are costly to fertility, causing individuals to delay marriage and reproduction. Here, we investigate the role of dispersal and school attendance on marriage and reproductive outcomes using a sample of 54 married couples from four small, dispersed ranching communities in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Our analyses yield three sets of results that challenge conventional expectations. First, we find no evidence that dispersal is associated with later age at marriage or first reproduction for women. For men, dispersal is associated with younger ages of marriage than those who stay in their natal area. Second, in contrast to research suggesting that dispersal decreases inbreeding, we find that female dispersal is associated with an increase in genetic relatedness among marriage partners. This finding suggests that human dispersal promotes female social support from genetic kin in novel locales for raising offspring. Third, counter to typical results on the role of education on reproductive timing, school attendance is associated with younger age at marriage for men and younger age at first birth for women. While we temper causal interpretations and claims of generalizability beyond our study site given our small sample sizes (a feature of small populations), we nonetheless argue that factors like dispersal and school attendance, which are typically associated with delayed reproduction in large population, may actually lower mate search costs in small, dispersed populations with minimal access to labor markets

Community voices: Achieving real diversity in STEM requires the ability to transform institutions

Resilience is often invoked to address systemic marginalization (e.g. racism) in academia but inadvertently maintains harmful systems. We argue that the ability to transform systems, as opposed to persevering within them, must be prioritized to make real, lasting change