Are Autonomously Motivated University Instructors More Autonomy-Supportive Teachers?

We extended the research on autonomy-supportive teaching to universities and examined the relationships between autonomous motivation to teach and autonomy-supportive teaching. Autonomously motivated university instructors were more autonomy-supportive instructors. The freedom to make pedagogical decisions was negatively correlated with external motivation towards teaching. Participants indicated that large class sizes, high teaching loads, publication pressures, and a culture that undervalues effective undergraduate teaching undermined both student learning and their feelings of autonomy. Together these results presents a picture of a subset of university instructors who remained autonomously motivated to teach, irrespective of barriers they experienced from university administrators or policies

Successful breeding predicts divorce in plovers

When individuals breed more than once, parents are faced with the choice of whether to re-mate with their old partner or divorce and select a new mate. Evolutionary theory predicts that, following successful reproduction with a given partner, that partner should be retained for future reproduction. However, recent work in a polygamous bird, has instead indicated that successful parents divorced more often than failed breeders (Halimubieke et al. in Ecol Evol 9:10734–10745, 2019), because one parent can benefit by mating with a new partner and reproducing shortly after divorce. Here we investigate whether successful breeding predicts divorce using data from 14 well-monitored populations of plovers (Charadrius spp.). We show that successful nesting leads to divorce, whereas nest failure leads to retention of the mate for follow-up breeding. Plovers that divorced their partners and simultaneously deserted their broods produced more offspring within a season than parents that retained their mate. Our work provides a counterpoint to theoretical expectations that divorce is triggered by low reproductive success, and supports adaptive explanations of divorce as a strategy to improve individual reproductive success. In addition, we show that temperature may modulate these costs and benefits, and contribute to dynamic variation in patterns of divorce across plover breeding systems

Multiple effects of weather on the starvation and predation risk trade-off in choice of feeding location in redshanks

1. Animals should choose the feeding habitat that allows them to meet their energy requirements while minimizing predation risk, but as weather becomes more severe, animals may choose riskier, but more profitable, feeding habitats.2. At the Tyninghame estuary, Scotland, Redshanks (Tringa totanus) chose to feed on either a mudflat or saltmarsh. Energy intake rates were 23% higher and thermoregulatory costs were 40% lower on the saltmarsh, but predation risk from sparrowhawks (Accipiter nisus) was 21 times higher.3. The investigation tested whether the riskier habitat was chosen only when weather conditions were such that individuals were unable to meet their energy requirements in the safer habitat, and how any additional effects of weather affected this choice.4. When starvation risk increased on the mudflat, more Redshanks selected the saltmarsh where energy budgets alone accounted for 22% of the variation in habitat choice. Temperature and wind may have had smaller additional, independent effects that were probably related to their effects on vigilance behaviour and predator detection.5. The results show that weather may be crucial in determining habitat choice through its direct effects on starvation and predation risk, and the importance of considering a wide range of weather conditions when determining habitat requirements.</p

Hindsight in marine protected area selection: a comparison of ecological representation arising from opportunistic and systematic approaches

Systematic approaches to site selection for marine protected areas (MPAs) are often favored over opportunistic approaches as a means to meet conservation objectives efficiently. In this study, we compared analytically the conservation value of these two approaches. We locate this study in Danajon Bank, central Philippines, where many MPAs were established opportunistically based on community preference, with few if any contributions from biophysical data. We began by identifying the biophysical data that would have been available when the first MPA was created in Danajon Bank (1995). We next used these data with the reserve selection software Marxan to identify MPAs that covered the same area as is protected under the current set of MPAs (0.32% of the total study area) and that would protect the greatest number of conservation targets at the lowest cost. We finally compared the conservation value of the current MPAs to the value of those selected by Marxan. Because of the dearth of biophysical data available in 1995 and the small area currently under protection, Marxan identified multiple configurations of MPAs that would protect the same percentage of conservation targets, with little differentiation among sites. Further, we discovered that the costs of obtaining and analyzing these data to be used for conservation planning would have been large relative to resources typically available to conservation planners in developing countries. Finally, we found that the current set of MPAs protected more ecological features than would be expected by chance, although not as many as could be protected using a systematic approach. Our results suggest that an opportunistic approach can be a valuable component of conservation planning, especially when biophysical data are sparse and community acceptance is a critical factor affecting the success of an MPA

Author Correction: Successful breeding predicts divorce in plovers (Scientific Reports, (2020), 10, 1, (15576), 10.1038/s41598-020-72521-6)

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.</jats:p