Are personalities genetically determined? Inferences from subsocial spiders.

BACKGROUND:Recent research has revealed that polymorphic behavioral strategies shape intra-and interspecific interactions and contribute to fitness in many animal species. A better understanding of the proximate mechanisms underlying these behavioral syndromes will enhance our grasp this phenomenon. Spiders in the genus Anelosimus exhibit inter-individual behavioral variation on several axes: individuals have consistent responses to stimuli (e.g. bold vs. shy individuals) and they are subsocial (exhibiting extended maternal care and sibling cooperation) across most of their range, but they sometimes form permanent social groups in northern temperate regions. Here, we seek genetic variants associated with boldness and with social structure in a socially polymorphic population of the spider Anelosimus studiosus. We also develop preliminary genomic resources, including a genome assembly and linkage map, that support this and future genomic research on this group. RESULTS:Remarkably, we identify a small genomic scaffold (~ 1200 bp) that harbors seven single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with boldness. Moreover, heterozygotes are less common than expected based on Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, suggesting that either assortative mating or selection against heterozygotes may be occurring in this system. We find no loci significantly associated with social organization. Our draft genome assembly allows us to localize SNPs of interest in this study and to carry out genetic comparisons with other published genomes, although it remains highly fragmented. CONCLUSIONS:By identifying a locus associated with a well-studied animal personality trait, this study opens up avenues for future research to link behavioral studies of animal personality with genotype and fitness

An Analysis of Bachelor\u27s Degree Production by Kentucky Public 4-year Universities: Before and After the Kentucky Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997

With the passage of the Postsecondary Education Improvement Act of 1997, Governor Paul Patton and the Kentucky General Assembly sought to improve the standard of living and quality of life in the state through increasing the educational attainment of its citizens. The production of bachelor’s degrees by the state’s public four-year universities is a key driver in increasing educational attainment and, therefore, meeting the goals of the legislation. This paper uses interrupted time series regression analysis to evaluate whether Kentucky public four-year universities have increased the rate at which bachelor’s degrees are produced in the period of time since the passage of reform. For purposes of comparison, the paper also uses the same methods to evaluate the other forty nine states. The results of the interrupted time series analysis show that public four-year universities in Kentucky significantly increased the rate at which bachelor’s degrees were produced in the period of time after passage of the reform legislation. An analysis of the other states revealed that twenty-one other states showed an increase over the same time period greater than Kentucky’s. Further study is recommended to better understand the variables that are driving the increases in bachelor’s degree production at public four year universities in Kentucky and the other states

Joy Beyond the Walls of the World: How Christianity Ably Explains the Moral Facts

I argue that Christianity ably explains the moral facts of moral goodness, intrinsic human value, moral rationality, and moral transformation. Chapter 1 provides an explanation of the thesis, a historical overview of the moral argument, a defense of the method, a critique of William Lane Craig’s deductive argument, and a response to some challenges to abduction from a Christian worldview. In chapter 2, I explain how Christianity ably explains moral goodness. I first give some reason to think God should be identified with the Good, following Robert Adams. Next, I summarize some of the issues related to moral goodness. Then, I argue that being loving is an important way of being good. The Bible and Christian reflection upon revelation rightly understand God as consistent with the good. Finally, I suggest that given the importance of love to the good, the specifically Christian understanding of God as a single God in three persons powerfully accounts for this. Chapter 3 argues that the Christian worldview strongly affirms the intrinsic value of human beings because they are made in “the image of God.” I offer a functional account over an ontological one, suggesting that the functional account includes the ontological one and offers an even higher view of human value. Second, I show that the incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity in Jesus of Nazareth implies a high view of intrinsic human value, both because of the function of the incarnation and the ontological implications for human beings. In chapter 4, I argue that Christianity ably explains moral rationality because it provides a plausible account of how morality and self-interest are reconciled and because of the natural connection between morality and rationality on the Christian view. Specifically, I develop the idea that the Great White Throne judgment is not about moral rationality, but about the choice between life and death and that moral rationality is only ensured once one enters into life with God. In the penultimate chapter, I argue that Christianity ably explains why there is a moral gap and how to overcome it. Specifically, Christianity offers a realistic depiction of human incapacity. It also reinforces and heightens the moral demand. Finally, Christianity explains how we can overcome the moral gap by addressing moral guilt through God’s forgiveness and through the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit, who graciously cooperates with man in his moral transformation. Finally, I consider the practical import of the moral argument on offer, suggesting it has a potentially eternal consequence and transformative power. I also clarify the force of the argument, proposing that it is more suggestive than coercive

Evidence of social niche construction: persistent and repeated social interactions generate stronger personalities in a social spider.

While there are now a number of theoretical models predicting how consistent individual differences in behaviour may be generated and maintained, so far, there are few empirical tests. The social niche specialization hypothesis predicts that repeated social interactions among individuals may generate among-individual differences and reinforce within-individual consistency through positive feedback mechanisms. Here, we test this hypothesis using groups of the social spider Stegodyphus mimosarum that differ in their level of familiarity. In support of the social niche specialization hypothesis, individuals in groups of spiders that were more familiar with each other showed greater repeatable among-individual variation in behaviour. Additionally, individuals that were more familiar with each other exhibited lower within-individual variation in behaviour, providing one of the first examples of how the social environment can influence behavioural consistency. Our study demonstrates the potential for the social environment to generate and reinforce consistent individual differences in behaviour and provides a potentially general mechanism to explain this type of behavioural variation in animals with stable social groups

Insights from the study of complex systems for the ecology and evolution of animal populations

D.N.F. thanks Jack W. Bradbury and Sandra L. Vehrencamp for writing the article that originally stimulated his thoughts in this area. The authors are also grateful to Simon Denomme-Brown, Gustavo Betini and Elizabeth Hobson for reviewing drafts of this article, and Andrew G. McAdam for allowing D.N.F. to pursue this project despite employing him to study squirrels. Four anonymous reviewers provided useful comments that helped improve the manuscript. We have no conflicting interests.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Animal behaviour: task differentiation by personality in spider groups

Dispatch: In social animals, group efficiency is often assumed to increase with task differentiation, but this requires that individuals are better than generalists at the task they specialize in. A new study finds that individual Anelosimus studiosus spiders do predominantly perform the task they excel at, in line with their individual personality type, when they are placed in groups

The Possibility of Buddhist Virtue: A Christian Response

The heart of Buddhism is ethics. This is evident even in the legendary accounts of the Buddha\u27s life. The Buddha first encountered the problem of suffering after he finally escaped the isolation of the palace he had grown up in. His father, a powerful ruler, wanted to force his son into a life of politics and war. He had been warned that if his son was exposed to the kind of life people experience every day, a life marked by suffering, that his son would likely become a great teacher instead of a ruler. However, despite his father\u27s best efforts, the Buddha eventually ventured outside the palace walls. There he was faced with illness, old age, and death. As a result, the Buddha became a renunciate; he gave up his royal lifestyle and began searching for a way to bring an end to suffering. In his search, the Buddha tried all the available philosophies and religions; whether they be hedonistic or ascetic. Whatever he tried, the Buddha excelled beyond his teachers, but in each case, he found that suffering still remained. Eventually, while under the Bodhi tree, and after much effort, the Buddha attained enlightenment. He saw reality as it really is and was able to formulate a solution. The solution he came up with was an entirely practical one: cultivate happiness. This was to be achieved by taking the appropriate action: seeking nirvana. This emphasis on action means that Buddhism is primarily an orthopraxy rather than orthodoxy. What is important is the harmony of behavior, not harmony of doctrines. What this means is that Buddhism as a worldview is in a unique position. Since it is primarily a particular set of practices, essentially an ethic, the validity of the Buddhist worldview rises and falls on whether or not Buddhism succeeds as an ethical system. This provides an opportunity to test Buddhism to see whether it is a coherent worldview. There are two leading interpretations of Buddhist ethics. The first and most popular interpretation understands Buddhism as a kind of utilitarianism. Proponents of this view argue that Buddhist ethics are merely provisional and ought to be disregarded once nirvana is attained. Damien Keown, as well as several others, suggests that Buddhism is a kind of virtue ethic, very much similar to the kind taught by Aristotle. A Buddhist version of virtue ethics offers the possibility of a complete, substantive account of ethics. Whether or not virtue ethics can be meaningfully understood in a Buddhist context is the first problem that thesis will seek to solve. The second problem concerns whether a Christian worldview might accommodate a virtue view of ethics better than a Buddhist one. Increasingly, Christians are adopting a blended approach to ethics, usually holding to a combination of deontological and virtue ethics. This thesis will put the possibility of a Christian virtue ethic to the test. If it turns out that Christianity can, in fact, provide a more robust context for a virtue ethic, then in order to be a fulfilled virtue ethicist, one ought to abandon the Buddhist worldview and adopt a Christian one

Individual and Group Performance Suffers from Social Niche Disruption.

The social niche specialization hypothesis predicts that animal personalities emerge as a result of individuals occupying different social niches within a group. Here we track individual personality and performance and collective performance among groups of social spiders where we manipulated the familiarity of the group members. We show that individual personalities, as measured by consistent individual differences in boldness behavior, strengthen with increasing familiarity and that these personalities can be disrupted by a change in group membership. Changing group membership negatively impacted both individual and group performance. Individuals in less familiar groups lost weight, and these groups were less successful at performing vital collective tasks. These results provide a mechanism for the evolution of stable social groups by demonstrating that social niche reestablishment carries a steep cost for both individuals and groups. Social niche specialization may therefore provide a potential first step on the path toward more organized social systems

Systematic Fragmentation Method and the Effective Fragment Potential: An Efficient Method for Capturing Molecular Energies

The systematic fragmentation method fragments a large molecular system into smaller pieces, in such a way as to greatly reduce the computational cost while retaining nearly the accuracy of the parent ab initio electronic structure method. In order to attain the desired (sub-kcal/mol) accuracy, one must properly account for the nonbonded interactions between the separated fragments. Since, for a large molecular species, there can be a great many fragments and therefore a great many nonbonded interactions, computations of the nonbonded interactions can be very time-consuming. The present work explores the efficacy of employing the effective fragment potential (EFP) method to obtain the nonbonded interactions since the EFP method has been shown previously to capture nonbonded interactions with an accuracy that is often comparable to that of second-order perturbation theory. It is demonstrated that for nonbonded interactions that are not high on the repulsive wall (generally \u3e2.7 Å), the EFP method appears to be a viable approach for evaluating the nonbonded interactions. The efficacy of the EFP method for this purpose is illustrated by comparing the method to ab initio methods for small water clusters, the ZOVGAS molecule, retinal, and the α-helix. Using SFM with EFP for nonbonded interactions yields an error of 0.2 kcal/mol for the retinal cis−trans isomerization and a mean error of 1.0 kcal/mol for the isomerization energies of five small (120−170 atoms) α-helices