A complete record from colonization to extinction reveals density dependence and the importance of winter conditions for a population of the silvery blue, Glaucopsyche lygdamus.

Butterflies in the family Lycaenidac are often the focus of conservation efforts. However, our understanding of lycaenid population dynamics has been limited to relatively few examples of long-term monitoring data that have been reported. Here, factors associated with population regulation are investigated using a complete record of a single population of the silvery blue, Glaucopsyche lygdamus Doubleday (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae). Adults of G. lygdamus were first observed in an annual grassland near Davis, California, in 1982 and were last seen in 2003. Relationships between inter-annual variation in abundance and climatic variables were examined, accounting for density dependent effects. Significant effects of both negative density dependence and climatic variation were detected, particularly precipitation and temperature during winter months. Variation in precipitation, the strongest predictor of abundance, was associated directly and positively with butterfly abundance in the same year. Winter temperatures had a negative effect in the same year, but had a lagged, positive effect on abundance in the subsequent year. Mechanistic hypotheses are posed that include climatic effects mediated through both larval and adult plant resources

Relatedness and Population Differentiation in a Colonial Butterfly, Eucheira socialis (Lepidoptera: Pieridae)

Eucheira socialis (Westwood) occurs above 1,800 m in mountains throughout Mexico and has a remarkable suite of autapomorphies, including communal larval nests and a mean primary sex ratio of 70% males. We gathered allozyme data for 31 loci from individuals within nests within populations and used hierarchical F statistics to assess population structure and relatedness at these levels. Allozyme variation was far lower than reported in most Lepidoptera, and was absent from the populations sampled from southern Mexico. Among 5 sample sites distributed throughout Mexico, differentiation was high (FST = 0.54), which is consistent with a history of interrupted gene flow. At lower hierarchical levels in the variable populations, we found significant excess heterozygotes within nests (FIN = −0.15) and evidence for structuring within subpopulations (FIS =0.015, significantly greater than FIN). Average relatedness among nestmates was rNS = 0.28, which is significantly less than r = 0.5. This is probably caused largely by interchange among nests on multinest trees. ADAM H. PORTE

Exploration and exploitation in the presence of network externalities

This paper examines the conditions under which exploration of a new, incompatible technologyis conducive to firm growth in the presence of network externalities. In particular, this studyis motivated bythe divergent evolutions of the PC and the workstation markets in response to a new technology: reduced instruction set computing (RISC). In the PC market, Intel has developed new microprocessors bymaintaining compatibilitywith the established architecture, whereas it was radicallyr eplaced byRISC in the workstation market. History indicates that unlike the PC market, the workstation market consisted of a large number of power users, who are less sensitive to compatibilitythan ordinaryusers. Our numerical analysis indicates that the exploration of a new, incompatible technologyis more likelyto increase the chance of firm growth when there are a substantial number of power users or when a new technologyis introduced before an established technologytakes off. (; ; ;

Global Jacquet-Langlands correspondence, multiplicity one and classification of automorphic representations

In this paper we show a local Jacquet-Langlands correspondence for all unitary irreducible representations. We prove the global Jacquet-Langlands correspondence in characteristic zero. As consequences we obtain the multiplicity one and strong multiplicity one theorems for inner forms of GL(n) as well as a classification of the residual spectrum and automorphic representations in analogy with results proved by Moeglin-Waldspurger and Jacquet-Shalika for GL(n).Comment: 49 pages; Appendix by N. Grba

Entanglement between Demand and Supply in Markets with Bandwagon Goods

Whenever customers' choices (e.g. to buy or not a given good) depend on others choices (cases coined 'positive externalities' or 'bandwagon effect' in the economic literature), the demand may be multiply valued: for a same posted price, there is either a small number of buyers, or a large one -- in which case one says that the customers coordinate. This leads to a dilemma for the seller: should he sell at a high price, targeting a small number of buyers, or at low price targeting a large number of buyers? In this paper we show that the interaction between demand and supply is even more complex than expected, leading to what we call the curse of coordination: the pricing strategy for the seller which aimed at maximizing his profit corresponds to posting a price which, not only assumes that the customers will coordinate, but also lies very near the critical price value at which such high demand no more exists. This is obtained by the detailed mathematical analysis of a particular model formally related to the Random Field Ising Model and to a model introduced in social sciences by T C Schelling in the 70's.Comment: Updated version, accepted for publication, Journal of Statistical Physics, online Dec 201