Interview with Dana Rooks

An oral history interview with Dana Rooks, who served as Dean of Libraries at the University of Houston from 1997-2014

Life Beneath Silk Walls: A Review of the Primitively Social Embiidina

I review and summarize the scattered information on embiids (Order Embiidina), with an emphasis on details of colony structure and maternal care. I summarize experimental and observational field results from a detailed study on parental and communal behavior of Antipaluria urichi, a Trinidadian webspinner. Topics discussed include the function of maternal behavior, interactions with egg parasitoids, antipredator attributes of communal living, and possible functions of silk. I also compare features of webspinner sociality to other communal insects and spiders. In addition, I discuss promising topics for future study, including male dimorphism, the possibility of higher sociality, and communication systems

Lichens, Sun, and Fire: A Search for an Embiid-Environment Connection in Australia (Order Embiidina: Australembiidae and Notoligotomidae)

This investigation is the first to quantify the degree of habitat specialization for any species within the little-known order Embiidina. The lichen and plant communities found in the habitats of two sympatric species, one living on lichens encrusted on granite and another feeding in leaf litter, were characterized using a process of ordination and cluster analysis. Differences among 40 samples and their relationships to environmental factors were probed statistically using Spearman’s coefficient of rank correlations generated by comparing rank similarity matrices of the census sites. The lichen eater, Notoligotoma hardyi (Friederichs), was more abundant in areas with strong southern exposures and was associated with higher lichen abundance. They preferentially grazed on particular lichens, the first indication that an embiid shows specialization in feeding. The detritivore, Australembia incompta Ross, was closely associated with particular plant communities, especially those less susceptible to fire. Their colonies were more common in rockier, coastal areas and less abundant in grasslands and habitats dominated by Eucalyptus. Insight into ecological variation within the order can guide further exploration of other traits (such as silk structure and function and primitive social behavior) in this rarely studied group of insects

Choreography of silk spinning by webspinners (Insecta: Embioptera) reflects lifestyle and hints at phylogeny

Silk spinning defines the morphologically constrained embiopterans. All individuals spin for protection, including immatures, adult males and the wingless females. Enlarged front tarsi are packed with silk glands and clothed with ejectors. They spin by stepping with their front feet and releasing silk against substrates and onto preexisting silk, often cloth-like. Spinning is stereotypical and appears to differ between species in frequency and probability of transition between two spin-step positions. This spinning choreography was assessed using thousands of spin-steps scored in the laboratory for 22 species to test: (1) the body size hypothesis predicting that spinning would be more complex for larger species; and (2) the phylogeny hypothesis which predicted that spinning would display phylogenetic signal. Tests relied on published phylogenies for the order Embioptera. Independent contrast analysis revealed relationships between five spin characteristics and body size, whereby, for example, larger webspinners invested in relatively larger prothoracic tarsi used for spinning and in spin-steps that would yield expansive silk coverings. Spin-step dynamics displayed a phylogenetic signal for the frequency of six spin-steps and for 16 spin-step transitions. Discussion focuses on patterns revealed by analysis of phylogenetic signal and the relationship to life style and to recently discovered chemical characteristics of silk

Picking Up the Pieces: Embodied Theory in Bessie Head’s A Question of Power

This article approaches Bessie Head's nove A Question of Power as a work of vernacular theory engaged with the interactions between power, identity, goodness and suffering. The text's difficulties are seen, first, as characterstics of embattled theory, in which there is no possibility of safe remove or calm reflection. Further, these difficulties are read as tactical, engaging the text and its reader in a form of madness which destablizes the realities formed by power. A fundamental tenent of Head's theory, 'be ordinary', is interrogated: how can ordinariness be disentangled from conformity? Being ordinary may be understood as becoming everyone--a process through which Elizabeth's identity is shattered. Schizophrenic breakdown becomes, then, a position from which Elizabeth can theorise the repressive operations of identity and the intimate functionings of power