Shade trees preserve avian insectivore biodiversity on coffee farms in a warming climate

Coffee is an important export in many developing countries, with a global annual trade value of $100 billion. Climate change is projected to drastically reduce the area where coffee is able to be grown. Shade trees may mitigate the effects of climate change through temperature regulation for coffee growth, temperature regulation for pest control, and increase in pest-eating bird diversity. The impact of shade on bird diversity and microclimate on coffee farms has been studied extensively in the Neotropics, but there is a dearth of research in the Paleotropics. I examined the local effects of shade on bird presence and temperature on coffee farms in Kenya and then created regional Maxent models for avian insectivores in East Africa. I adjusted current and future Bioclim layers based on mean differences in temperatures between shade and sun on coffee farms. I then projected models into the future and onto adjusted temperature layers to predict the impact of shade tree removal on climatic suitability for avian insectivores. I found that avian insectivore richness is projected to decrease significantly in the future, as is avian insectivore climatic suitability and suitable area, but shade trees on coffee farms can mediate this. Temperature is not currently a limiting factor for avian insectivores on Kenyan coffee farms, indicating that bird presence is determined by site-level factors. Future temperatures will become a regionally limiting factor for bird distribution in East Africa, but its effects can be potentially mediated through planting and maintaining shade trees on coffee farms

Pushing the Limits: Cognitive, Affective, and Neural Plasticity Revealed by an Intensive Multifaceted Intervention.

Scientific understanding of how much the adult brain can be shaped by experience requires examination of how multiple influences combine to elicit cognitive, affective, and neural plasticity. Using an intensive multifaceted intervention, we discovered that substantial and enduring improvements can occur in parallel across multiple cognitive and neuroimaging measures in healthy young adults. The intervention elicited substantial improvements in physical health, working memory, standardized test performance, mood, self-esteem, self-efficacy, mindfulness, and life satisfaction. Improvements in mindfulness were associated with increased degree centrality of the insula, greater functional connectivity between insula and somatosensory cortex, and reduced functional connectivity between posterior cingulate cortex (PCC) and somatosensory cortex. Improvements in working memory and reading comprehension were associated with increased degree centrality of a region within the middle temporal gyrus (MTG) that was extensively and predominately integrated with the executive control network. The scope and magnitude of the observed improvements represent the most extensive demonstration to date of the considerable human capacity for change. These findings point to higher limits for rapid and concurrent cognitive, affective, and neural plasticity than is widely assumed

Five principles for studying people's use of heuristics

Abstract: The fast and frugal heuristics framework assumes that people rely on an adaptive toolbox of simple decision strategies—called heuristics—to make inferences, choices, estimations, and other decisions. Each of these heuristics is tuned to regularities in the structure of the task environment and each is capable of exploiting the ways in which basic cognitive capacities work. In doing so, heuristics enable adaptive behavior. In this article, we give an overview of the framework and formulate five principles that should guide the study of people’s adaptive toolbox. We emphasize that models of heuristics should be (i) precisely defined; (ii) tested comparatively; (iii) studied in line with theories of strategy selection; (iv) evaluated by how well they predict new data; and (vi) tested in the real world in addition to the laboratory. Key words: fast and frugal heuristics; experimental design; model testing As we write this article, international financial markets are in turmoil. Large banks are going bankrupt almost daily. It is a difficult situation for financial decision makers — regardless of whether they are lay investors trying to make small-scale profits here and there or professionals employed by the finance industry. To safeguard their investments, these decision makers need to be able to foresee uncertain future economic developments, such as which investments are likely to be the safest and which companies are likely to crash next. In times of rapid waves of potentially devastating financial crashes, these informed bets must often be made quickly, with little time for extensive information search or computationally demanding calculations of likely future returns. Lay stock traders in particular have to trust the contents of their memories, relying on incomplete, imperfec

An Ecological Model of Memory and Inferences

In this paper, we develop a memory model that predicts retrieval characteristics of real-world facts. First, we show how ACT-R’s memory model can be used to predict people’s knowledge about real-world objects. The model assumes the probability of retrieving a chunk of information about an object and the time to retrieve this information depend on the pattern of prior environmental exposure to the object. Second, we use frequencies of information appearing on the Internet as a proxy for what information people would encounter in their natural environment, outside the laboratory. In two Experiments, we use this model to account for subjects’ associative knowledge about real-world objects as well as the associated retrieval latencies. Third, in a computer simulation, we explore how such model predictions can be used to understand the workings and performance of decision strategies that operate on the contents of declarative memory

Non-adaptive phenotypic plasticity: the effects of terrestrial and aquatic herbicides on larval salamander morphology and swim speed

Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USAPhenotypic plasticity, although ubiquitous, may not always be advantageous. Non-adaptive plasticity is likely to occur in response to novel environmental stress. Anthropogenic contaminants, such as herbicides, are novel stressors that are not present in the evolutionary history of most species. We investigated the pattern and consequences of phenotypic plasticity induced by four glyphosate-based herbicides (two terrestrial and two aquatic) in larvae of the spotted salamander, , by determining (1) whether the herbicides induced different morphologies; (2) if different morphologies translated to differences in burst swim performance; and (3) how induced individuals performed relative to non-induced controls. Different herbicide formulations led to the production of significantly different head and tail morphologies, and tail morphology correlated with fastest escape speed. However, escape speed did not vary among treatments. In addition, three out of four herbicide treatments experienced accelerated growth rates, in terms of the lateral size of tails, although the tail shapes were either similar to preliminary controls or intermediate between preliminary and final controls. These observations suggest that herbicide-induced morphology is a case of non-adaptive phenotypic plasticity, and that there is potentially a trade-off between growth and development for larvae exposed to different formulations. Understanding the functional significance of induced phenotypes is important for determining their importance in shaping an organism's ecological interactions and evolutionary trajectories. Furthermore, under different conditions, the morphological changes that we observed in response to exposure to herbicides might affect salamander fitness and influence population dynamics

T1ρ and T2 relaxation times predict progression of knee osteoarthritis

SummaryObjectiveTo evaluate whether T2 and T1ρ relaxation times of knee cartilage determined with 3T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) at baseline predict longitudinal progression of cartilage degenerative changes.MethodsQuantitative analysis of cartilage was performed using 3T MRI with both T2 and T1ρ mapping techniques in 55 subjects without evidence of severe osteoarthritis (OA) [Kellgren–Lawrence (KL) score of 0–3] at baseline. Morphological abnormalities of cartilage, menisci, ligaments and bone marrow were analyzed on sagittal fat-saturated intermediate-weighted fast spin echo (FSE) sequences. Progression of degenerative changes was analyzed over a period of 2 years. Progression was detected in 27 subjects while in 28 subjects no changes were found. Differences between T2 and T1ρ relaxation times in these two cohorts were compared using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and t tests.ResultsBaseline T2 and T1ρ values were significantly higher in the progression cohort in all compartments (P < 0.05) except the lateral tibia (LT) for T2 and the medial tibia (MT) for T1ρ. Progression of cartilage degenerative disease was most pronounced at the medial femoral condyles and at the femoro-patellar joint; differences between the two cohorts for T2 and T1ρ were also most significant in these compartments.ConclusionsT2 and T1ρ measurements were significantly higher at baseline in individuals that showed progression of cartilage abnormalities over a period of 2 years and may therefore serve as potential predictors for progression of degenerative cartilage abnormalities in knee OA

Pastoral Livelihoods in South Ethiopia - Value Chain Assessment of Gum & Resins in Moyale Area

This research assessed the value chain of gum and resins, which are available in four woreda in the southern lowlands of Ethiopia. They are Moyale Somali, Moyale Oromia, Dhas and Dire woreda. The output of this research is the elaboration of three value chains. The first is a general one for all the woreda, while the other two concern the Moyale and Dubluk markets. The assessed products are the gum arabic from Acacia trees and the resin exuded by the dunkhal tree - Boswellia family. The aim of this study was not only to understand the way in which resins and gum gain value through the chain and the profit each stakeholder gains, but more importantly how pastoralists use resin and gum collection to diversify their income. The first chapter analyses what it means to be a pastoralist in the Moyale area and its challenges. The second chapter describes how the policies of the central state influenced the pastoral access to rangelands and water and the way in which this contributed to the increase of conflict among the different groups. A particular focus is on the settlement. The third chapter describes the different ethnic groups living in the studied area and their management system to preserve resources and cope with the dry season. This chapter considers the dynamic evolution of the relations among the various groups in terms of negotiating access to resources while facing political and climatic challenges. The fourth chapter illustrates the physical context and the environment, and the way in which it has been managed in order to preserve the pastoral lifestyle. The fifth chapter describes the characteristics of gum and resins in the studied area. Finally, the sixth chapter describes how the value chain methodology was applied in this specific study and its outputs

Why you think Milan is larger than Modena: Neural correlates of the recognition heuristic

When ranking two alternatives by some criteria and only one of the alternatives is recognized, participants overwhelmingly adopt the strategy, termed the recognition heuristic (RH), of choosing the recognized alternative. Understanding the neural correlates underlying decisions that follow the RH could help determine whether people make judgments about the RH's applicability or simply choose the recognized alternative. We measured brain activity by using functional magnetic resonance imaging while participants indicated which of two cities they thought was larger (Experiment 1) or which city they recognized (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, increased activation was observed within the anterior frontomedian cortex (aFMC), precuneus, and retrosplenial cortex when participants followed the RH compared to when they did not. Experiment 2 revealed that RH decisional processes cannot be reduced to recognition memory processes. As the aFMC has previously been associated with self-referential judgments, we conclude that RH decisional processes involve an assessment about the applicability of the RH