Tests for attraction to prey and predator avoidance by chemical cues in spiders of the beech forest floor

Spiders leave draglines, faeces and other secretions behind when traveling through their microhabitat. The presence of these secretions may unintentionally inform other animals, prey as well as predators, about a recent and possible current predation risk or food availability. For a wolf spider, other spiders including smaller conspecifics, form a substantial part of their prey, and larger wolf spiders, again including conspecifics, are potential predators. We tested two hypotheses: that large wolf spiders may locate patches of potential spider prey through the presence of silk threads and/or other secretions; and that prey spiders may use secretions from large wolf spiders to avoid patches with high predation risk. We used large (subadult or adult) Pardosa saltans to provide predator cues and mixed dwarf spiders or small (juvenile) P. saltans to provide prey cues. Subadult wolf spiders were significantly attracted to litter contaminated by dwarf spiders or small conspecifics after 6 hours but no longer after 24 hours. In contrast, neither dwarf spiders nor small P. saltans showed significant avoidance of substrate contaminated by adult P. saltans. However, small P. saltans showed different activity patterns on the two substrates. The results indicate that wolf spiders are able to increase the efficiency of foraging by searching preferentially in patches with the presence of intraguild prey. The lack of a clear patch selection response of the prey in spite of a modified activity pattern may possibly be associated with the vertical stratification of the beech litter habitat: the reduced volume of spaces in the deeper layers could make downward rather than horizontal movement a fast and safe tactic against a large predator that cannot enter these spaces

The Neuroscience of Prions

Prions are becoming a highly researched field of study, with increased prevalence as modern society has meshed with indigenous tribes. This paper inquires into the history of prions, from initial discovery to current understanding, in order to bring light to these relatively new physiological terrors

The Polypeptide Structure of Immunoglobulin: Experimental Studies on the Recombination of Radiolabelled Myeloma Polypeptide Chains

Peer Reviewe

Rhetoric Means of a Didactic Amharic Poem from Wärrä Babbo

This article describes aspects of an Amharic manuscript from Wärrä Babbo written in aǧäm, i.e. in the Arabic script. Since this kind of literature is quite widespread in the eastern parts of Wällo and in Yifat, the article begins with an introductive overview of aǧäm literature in Ethiopia and the special position of eastern Wällo as centre of Islamic scholarship and its role for the development of religiously inspired literacy. The philological and linguistic aspects of this type of Amharic literature are exemplified with a tawḥīd poem from eastern Wällo. Besides a detailled treatment of peculiar linguistic feature of the language used in the poem the analysis of the linguistics means that are used by the author to convey his intentions, i.e. the teaching of the basic Islamic tenets to his illiterate co-religionists, form the central content of the article

I Deny Your Authority to Try My Conscience: Conscription and Conscientious Objectors In Britain During the Great War

During the Great War, the Military Service Act was introduced on January 27, 1916 and redefined British citizenship. Moreover, some men objected to the state’s military service mandate, adamant that compliance violated their conscience. This thesis investigates how the introduction of conscription reshaped British society, dismantled the “sacred principle” of volunteerism, and replaced it with conscription, resulting in political and popular debates, which altered the individual’s relationship with the state. British society transformed from a polity defined by the tenets of Liberalism and a free-will social contract to a society where citizenship was correlated to duty to the state. Building off Lois Bibbings’ research on conscientious objectors, this thesis nuances the analysis with the case studies of David Blelloch and Norman Gaudie. Framed by two theories—Benedict Anderson’s imagined community and Barbara Rosenwein’s emotional community—these case studies demonstrate how conscientious objectors exposed the incongruence of the British imagined and emotional community, and the redefinition of citizenship. By weaving these theories into the British Great War tapestry, this thesis contends that the British nation was imagined differently before the war than it was after the war because of the introduction of conscription. Drawing from parliamentary debate transcripts, newspaper articles, and archival material from the Imperial War Museum in London, and the Liddle Personal Collection at the University of Leeds, Blelloch’s and Gaudie’s respective case studies ultimately bait the question: “What does it mean to be British?