Local and Sexual Divergence in Host-use Traits and Anti-predator Adaptations in the Marine Herbivore Idotea balthica

Siirretty Doriast

Linguistic Change and Biological Evolution

acceptedVersionPeer reviewe

User-centred design of multidisciplinary spatial data platforms for human-history research

The role of open spatial data is growing in human-history research. Spatiality can be utilized to bring together and seamlessly examine data describing multiple aspects of human beings and their environment. Web-based spatial data platforms can create equal opportunities to view and access these data. In this paper, we aim at advancing the development of user-friendly spatial data platforms for multidisciplinary research. We conceptualize the building process of such a platform by systematically reviewing a diverse sample of historical spatial data platforms and by piloting a user-centered design process of a multidisciplinary spatial data platform. We outline (1) the expertise needed in organizing multidisciplinary spatial data sharing, (2) data types that platforms should be able to handle, (3) the most useful platform functionalities, and (4) the design process itself. We recommend that the initiative and subject expertise should come from the end-users, i.e., scholars of human history, and all key end-user types should be involved in the design process. We also highlight the importance of geographic expertise in the process, an important link between subject, spatial and technical viewpoints, for reaching a common understanding and common terminology. Based on the analyses, we identify key development goals for spatial data platforms, including full layer management functionalities. Moreover, we identify the main roles in the user-centered design process, main user types and suggest good practices including a multimodal design workshop.</p

A comprehensive spatial model for historical travel effort - a case study in Finland

Contributing to multidisciplinary studies of human population history, this paper presents an analysis chain to comprehensively model the historical travel environment in Finland, based on a study of spatial patterns of overall accessibility within the country. We created a spatial historical travel environment model over the whole country using high-quality terrain and landscape spatial data, combined with information from historical sources that characterize the landscape in terms of travel effort given the environmental and human-related factors current up until the late 19th century. Spatial analyses of historical travel effort based on the travel environment model indicate travel speeds for different parts of the country, ranging from 0.6 to 5.3 km/h. This is nearly a tenfold range, potentially highly significant for studies relying on historical travel effort and contacts between population groups in Finland. The results show that the overall travel effort in southern Finland is significantly smaller than in the north: almost all areas in southern Finland have average travel speeds above 3 km/h, whereas the average travel speeds below 2.5 km/h are typical in the north. A more detailed study using random 100 km transects highlights the variability of the least-cost routes in different landscapes and between different source data combinations in each cost surface. The paper identifies great potential in combining the existing spatial data archives with archaeological, linguistic, and genetic data in a GIS analysis, to study the travel effort and its impact on the observed spatial patterns of languages, genetic traits, and archaeological findings

Habitat selection of the mud crab Rhithropanopeus harrisii in its newly invaded range

Information on the habitat selection by non-indigenous species is crucial for understanding their effects on the communities to which they are introduced, since the effects are often focused on the invaded habitats. The North American mud crab Rhithropanopeus harrisii is a new invader in the northern Baltic Sea, on the coasts of Finland and Estonia. In the Finnish Archipelago Sea, it has been found in two very distinct habitats: reed belts of Phragmites australis and algal zones with Fucus vesiculosus as the main habitat-forming species. In previous studies in the Baltic Sea, R. harrisii has preferred F. vesiculosus and has locally driven a shift in the structure of F. vesiculosus-associated invertebrate communities. Here, we disentangled whether habitat choice was determined by habitat structure or the availability of food. First, we conducted a habitat selection experiment with P. australis and F. vesiculosus habitats and varying food availability, and found that R. harrisii preferred F. vesiculosus, with food having no effect on the habitat choice. Second, we studied if the preference for F. vesiculosus was due to the alga itself or the rocks it grows on. We found that R. harrisii preferred the shelter of the rock habitat, indicating that R. harrisii choose their habitat based on habitat structure rather than food availability in the habitat. However, the preference for sheltered rocky bottom habitats also exposes the associated F. vesiculosus communities to the impacts of R. harrisii through predation.Peer reviewe

Applying Population Genetic Approaches within Languages: Finnish Dialects as Linguistic Populations

The adoption of evolutionary approaches to study language change as a type of non-biological evolution has gained increasing interest and introduced a variety of quantitative tools to linguistics. The focus has thus far mainly been on language families, or ‘linguistic macroevolution,’ and taken the shape of linguistic phylogenetics. Here we explore whether evolutionary methods could be applicable for studying intra-lingual variation (‘linguistic microevolution’) by testing a population genetic clustering method for analyzing the ‘population structure’ of Finnish dialects. We compare the results with traditional dialect divisions established in the literature and with K-medoids clustering, which is free from biological assumptions. The results are encouragingly similar to each other and agree with traditional views, suggesting that population genetic tools could be a useful addition to the dialectological toolkit. We also show how the results of the model-based clustering could serve as a basis for further study.</p

Best practices for spatial language data harmonization, sharing and map creation-A case study of Uralic

Despite remarkable progress in digital linguistics, extensive databases of geographical language distributions are missing. This hampers both studies on language spatiality and public outreach of language diversity. We present best practices for creating and sharing digital spatial language data by collecting and harmonizing Uralic language distributions as case study. Language distribution studies have utilized various methodologies, and the results are often available as printed maps or written descriptions. In order to analyze language spatiality, the information must be digitized into geospatial data, which contains location, time and other parameters. When compiled and harmonized, this data can be used to study changes in languages' distribution, and combined with, for example, population and environmental data. We also utilized the knowledge of language experts to adjust previous and new information of language distributions into state-of-the-art maps. The extensive database, including the distribution datasets and detailed map visualizations of the Uralic languages are introduced alongside this article, and they are freely available

Lack of anti-predator recognition in a marine isopod under the threat of an invasive predatory crab

The prey naivete hypothesis suggests that the failure of prey to recognize novel predators as a threat is caused by a lack of anti-predator adaptations. We tested this hypothesis in a unique natural setting, where the isopod Idotea balthica encountered the rapidly spreading invasive crab, Rhithropanopeus harrissii. Earlier research had indicated high mortality of the isopods during exposure to R. harrissii. The isopod exerted no co-evolutionary history with any littoral crabs and thus the strong impact could be caused by lack of pre-adaptations towards the new predator species. We tested this hypothesis by studying the anti-predator responses of the isopods with water-born cues of R. harrissii and of the native predatory fish Perca fluviatilis. Compared to control water, the isopods lowered their activity when exposed to the fish cue. Instead crab cue did not induce anti-predator behaviour. We also tested the hypothesis that mortality caused by novel predator, similar to predation by P. fluviatilis, would result in differential selection for the two sexes and contribute to the evolution of personalities. However, we found no differences in anti-predator behaviour nor in mortality between the sexes or personalities of the isopods. The outcomes reveal an interesting evolutionary scenario, where predation by a local predator induce soft selection on prey characteristics, but an invasive species cause hard selection without differentiating between prey individuals. Our study-conducted in the dawn of the population outbreak of R. harrissii-provides an excellent reference point for studies resolving the evolutionary impacts of invasive predators on naive prey

Best practices in justifying calibrations for dating language families

The use of computational methods to assign absolute datings to language divergence is receiving renewed interest, as modern approaches based on Bayesian statistics offer alternatives to the discredited techniques of glottochronology. The datings provided by these new analyses depend crucially on the use of calibration, but the methodological issues surrounding calibration have received comparatively little attention. Especially, underappreciated is the extent to which traditional historical linguistic scholarship can contribute to the calibration process via loanword analysis. Aiming at a wide audience, we provide a detailed discussion of calibration theory and practice, evaluate previously used calibrations, recommend best practices for justifying calibrations, and provide a concrete example of these practices via a detailed derivation of calibrations for the Uralic language family. This article aims to inspire a higher quality of scholarship surrounding all statistical approaches to language dating, and especially closer engagement between practitioners of statistical methods and traditional historical linguists, with the former thinking more carefully about the arguments underlying their calibrations and the latter more clearly identifying results of their work which are relevant to calibration, or even suggesting calibrations directly.</p