Professional, Personal, Societal : The Detrimental Effects of Identity Revolving around Career in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day

In Kazuo Ishiguro’s Remains of the Day, Mr. Stevens immerses himself in his work as a butler until it becomes his identity. In Stevens’s quest to be superlative at his job, he accepts his role in society, adopting an extreme view of dignity that constrains him rather than providing him a sense of self. Although his interpretation of dignity and obedience to the social hierarchy helps him fulfill his desire to be a butler of the highest order, it hampers his development as a person. In discussing Stevens, critics have focused on his desire to fulfill his duties as the perfect butler; however, a key aspect not discussed is the British class system’s role in his decisions and how it affects his view of dignity. Stevens shapes this view through his place in the British social hierarchy, as he believes that dignity means never wavering from the role given to one in society. Through David Cannadine’s The Rise and Fall of Class in Britain (1999) and Lucy Lethbridge’s Servants: A Downstairs View of Twentieth-century Britain (2013), this thesis integrates ideas on the British hierarchy and the life of servants to understand the role they have in Stevens’s choice to have his identity revolve around his career. Raymond Williams’s notes on individuals, careers, and society are used to discuss how his decisions affect each aspect leading to Stevens’s mental stagnation and the damage society incurs when individuals adhere too closely to the status quo simply to maintain the hierarchy

Songbird dynamics under the sea : acoustic interactions between humpback whales suggest song mediates male interactions

© The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Royal Society Open Science 5 (2018): 171298, doi:10.1098/rsos.171298.The function of song has been well studied in numerous taxa and plays a role in mediating both intersexual and intrasexual interactions. Humpback whales are among few mammals who sing, but the role of sexual selection on song in this species is poorly understood. While one predominant hypothesis is that song mediates male–male interactions, the mechanism by which this may occur has never been explored. We applied metrics typically used to assess songbird interactions to examine song sequences and movement patterns of humpback whale singers. We found that males altered their song presentation in the presence of other singers; focal males increased the rate at which they switched between phrase types (p = 0.005), and tended to increase the overall evenness of their song presentation (p = 0.06) after a second male began singing. Two-singer dyads overlapped their song sequences significantly more than expected by chance. Spatial analyses revealed that change in distance between singers was related to whether both males kept singing (p = 0.012), with close approaches leading to song cessation. Overall, acoustic interactions resemble known mechanisms of mediating intrasexual interactions in songbirds. Future work should focus on more precisely resolving how changes in song presentation may be used in competition between singing males.D.M.C. was supported by an EPA Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Fellowship for PhD research

Global Distribution of Omura’s Whales (Balaenoptera omurai) and Assessment of Range-Wide Threats

When the Omura’s whale (Balaenoptera omurai) was first described in 2003, it was known from only three locations: the southern Sea of Japan, and the vicinities of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Solomon Islands. Work over the following decade suggested a range limited to the eastern Indo-Pacific, but more recent discoveries in the western Indian Ocean and Atlantic Ocean suggested a more widespread range than previously thought. Here we use all available sources of information, including published papers, unpublished reports, and internet-based accounts, substantiated through genetic, morphological, photographic and acoustic documentation, to compile accounts of Omura’s whales globally. Reports increased precipitously since 2015 after publication of the first detailed external description of the species, reflecting the impact of the recently elevated awareness of the species. We report 161 accounts from 95 locales in the waters of 21 range states, and found that the species is widely distributed in primarily tropical and warm-temperate locations. Currently it is known from all ocean basins with the exception of the central and eastern Pacific. The majority of accounts remain in the eastern Indo-Pacific suggesting a potentially recent range expansion from this region. There is a strong tendency toward a coastal and neritic distribution, although there are also several pelagic records. A predominantly near-coastal distribution places Omura’s whale at risk from anthropogenic activities throughout its range, and its tropical distribution in often remote and poorly monitored areas makes adequately documenting and assessing threats challenging. We assess documented threats in light of the reported species’ range, and found threats from, at minimum, ship strikes, fisheries bycatch and entanglement, local directed hunting, petroleum exploration (seismic surveys), and coastal industrial development. Current evidence indicates that at least some populations are non-migratory with local, potentially restricted ranges. Furthermore, there is low genetic diversity documented throughout its global distribution. Given the species may be characterized by small local populations, it may be particularly vulnerable to impacts from existing regional anthropogenic threats. We recommend that focused work be conducted to locate and study local populations, assess potential population isolation, and determine conservation status and specific anthropogenic threats across the species’ range

Killer whales and marine mammal trends in the North Pacific : a re-examination of evidence for sequential megafauna collapse and the prey-switching hypothesis

This paper is not subject to U.S. copyright. The definitive version was published in Marine Mammal Science 23 (2007): 766–802, doi:10.1111/j.1748-7692.2006.00093.x.Springer et al. (2003) contend that sequential declines occurred in North Pacific populations of harbor and fur seals, Steller sea lions, and sea otters. They hypothesize that these were due to increased predation by killer whales, when industrial whaling's removal of large whales as a supposed primary food source precipitated a prey switch. Using a regional approach, we reexamined whale catch data, killer whale predation observations, and the current biomass and trends of potential prey, and found little support for the prey-switching hypothesis. Large whale biomass in the Bering Sea did not decline as much as suggested by Springer et al., and much of the reduction occurred 50–100 yr ago, well before the declines of pinnipeds and sea otters began; thus, the need to switch prey starting in the 1970s is doubtful. With the sole exception that the sea otter decline followed the decline of pinnipeds, the reported declines were not in fact sequential. Given this, it is unlikely that a sequential megafaunal collapse from whales to sea otters occurred. The spatial and temporal patterns of pinniped and sea otter population trends are more complex than Springer et al. suggest, and are often inconsistent with their hypothesis. Populations remained stable or increased in many areas, despite extensive historical whaling and high killer whale abundance. Furthermore, observed killer whale predation has largely involved pinnipeds and small cetaceans; there is little evidence that large whales were ever a major prey item in high latitudes. Small cetaceans (ignored by Springer et al.) were likely abundant throughout the period. Overall, we suggest that the Springer et al. hypothesis represents a misleading and simplistic view of events and trophic relationships within this complex marine ecosystem

Movements and Population Structure of Humpback Whales in the North Pacific

Despite the extensive use of photographic identification methods to investigate humpback whales in the North Pacific, few quantitative analyses have been conducted. We report on a comprehensive analysis of interchange in the North Pacific among three wintering regions (Mexico, Hawaii, and Japan) each with two to three subareas, and feeding areas that extended from southern California to the Aleutian Islands. Of the 6,413 identification photographs of humpback whales obtained by 16 independent research groups between 1990 and 1993 and examined for this study, 3,650 photographs were determined to be of suitable quality. A total of 1,241 matches was found by two independent matching teams, identifying 2,712 unique whales in the sample (seen one to five times). Site fidelity was greatest at feeding areas where there was a high rate of resightings in the same area in different years and a low rate of interchange among different areas. Migrations between winter regions and feeding areas did not follow a simple pattern, although highest match rates were found for whales that moved between Hawaii and southeastern Alaska, and between mainland and Baja Mexico and California. Interchange among subareas of the three primary wintering regions was extensive for Hawaii, variable (depending on subareas) for Mexico, and low for Japan and reflected the relative distances among subareas. Interchange among these primary wintering regions was rare. This study provides the first quantitative assessment of the migratory structure of humpback whales in the entire North Pacific basin