Polar Research Education, Outreach and Communication during the fourth IPY: How the 2007–2008 International Polar Year has contributed to the future of education, outreach and communication.

One year after the launch of the International Polar Year (IPY) Education, Outreach and Communication (EOC) Assessment Project the task of inventorying and investigating the hundreds of IPY EOC programmes that occurred during the IPY 2007-08 is now complete. Supported by APECS, IASC and SCAR, this ICSU funded project is the only global examination of what happened in outreach during IPY. The latest IPY event was one of the most ambitious polar research programmes to date, tens of thousands of scientists and students participated, but IPY also set out to involve members of the general public in active polar science endeavours on a global scale. How successful was this part of the IPY plan? With over 550 IPY EOC activities, from more than 70 countries in 25 languages IPY EOC is one of the largest global investments in science outreach to date. The IPY EOC Assessment brought together educators, communications personnel and researchers and the resulting report examines the success of IPY EOC efforts, and discusses why IPY EOC was able to reach its goals and beyond. From the experience of IPY, the report also outlines a set of lessons learned on how to improve science outreach across a variety of disciplines. These lessons will be useful for other science outreach projects - large or small - regional, national or international. IPY EOC went to new heights, depths and extremes to take people to the poles and to take the poles to the people. Now the legacy of IPY outreach is helping to shape the future of science education and outreach. You can also search the online Polar Outreach Catalogue - a growing inventory of these IPY projects and new outreach efforts to help educate the world about the global importance of the polar regions. http://apecs.is/education-outreach/catalogu

Conspecific Brood Parasitism in Common Eiders (Somateria Mollissima): Do Brood Parasites Target Safe Nest Sites?

Several hypotheses have been proposed to explain the evolution of conspecific brood parasitism (CBP), and recent studies suggest that nest predation may be an important factor in shaping this behavior. We assessed whether individuals that engage in parasitic laying preferentially deposit their eggs in safe nest sites (i.e., risk assessment hypothesis). We tested the predictions of this hypothesis using a population of Common Eiders (Somateria mollissima dresseri) nesting at Table Bay, Labrador, Canada, in 2007. Common Eiders at this location nest in three habitats (dense woody vegetation, open grassy vegetation, and nest shelters) that vary in their exposure to avian predators. We used isoelectric focusing electrophoresis of egg albumen to quantify the frequency and distribution of CBP among habitats. Nest-site safety did not explain patterns of CBP among habitats, given that nests in dense woody vegetation had the highest probability of survival (0.70; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.50–0.89) yet had the lowest frequency of CBP(33%). There was also no indication that parasitized and nonparasitized nests differed in their probability of nest survival (0.65 [95% CI: 0.41–0.83] vs. 0.58 [95% CI: 0.33–0.80]). We propose explanations for why our data did not support the risk assessment hypothesis