Emergent global patterns of ecosystem structure and function from a mechanistic general ecosystem model

Anthropogenic activities are causing widespread degradation of ecosystems worldwide, threatening the ecosystem services upon which all human life depends. Improved understanding of this degradation is urgently needed to improve avoidance and mitigation measures. One tool to assist these efforts is predictive models of ecosystem structure and function that are mechanistic: based on fundamental ecological principles. Here we present the first mechanistic General Ecosystem Model (GEM) of ecosystem structure and function that is both global and applies in all terrestrial and marine environments. Functional forms and parameter values were derived from the theoretical and empirical literature where possible. Simulations of the fate of all organisms with body masses between 10 µg and 150,000 kg (a range of 14 orders of magnitude) across the globe led to emergent properties at individual (e.g., growth rate), community (e.g., biomass turnover rates), ecosystem (e.g., trophic pyramids), and macroecological scales (e.g., global patterns of trophic structure) that are in general agreement with current data and theory. These properties emerged from our encoding of the biology of, and interactions among, individual organisms without any direct constraints on the properties themselves. Our results indicate that ecologists have gathered sufficient information to begin to build realistic, global, and mechanistic models of ecosystems, capable of predicting a diverse range of ecosystem properties and their response to human pressures

Essex girls’ in the comedy club : stand-up, ridicule and ‘value struggles’

This article presents findings from a qualitative study carried out on how audiences of stand-up comedy are entangled in ‘value struggles’. It focuses on a group who through classed and gendered ridicule are often drawn as valueless – women from Essex or ‘Essex girls’. The article explores how a group of women from Essex negotiate their value in the face of Essex girl–based ridicule, experienced while part of a live comedy audience in a London comedy club. The analysis reveals an ambivalence in how the group utilise and view their ‘Essex girl’ status, which challenges the view that this is a valueless identification. They oscillate between the joy of revelling in the Essex girl role and disidentification from the shame of this disreputable status. It concludes by highlighting how ridicule does not necessarily perform a disciplinary function and considers if the joy of ‘being Essex’ has any hope of escaping into everyday life

"You feel dirty a lot of the time" : policing 'dirty work', contamination and purification rituals

Following the controversial adoption of spit-hoods by some UK police forces, most recently by the London Metropolitan Police in February 2019, this article contributes to and extends debates on physical and symbolic contamination by drawing on established considerations of ‘dirty work’. The article argues that, for police officers, cleansing rituals are personal and subjective. As a relatively high-prestige occupation, police officers occupy a unique position in that they are protected by a status shield. Reflections from this ethnographic study suggest that the police uniform can be used as a vehicle for contamination and staff employ purification rituals and methods of taint management