Search results for "InVEST"
showing 10 items of 2596 documents
Does beak coloration of male blackbirds play a role in intra and/or intersexual selection?
2002
In many bird species, males may show brightly coloured traits and variance in male mating success may be explained by female preference and/or competition between males favouring the most coloured males. Male beak coloration has been suggested to play an important role in the pairing pattern of European blackbirds. Here, we investigate female preference and male-male interactions in relation to male beak coloration in this species. We used a field experiment to measure female and male responses toward stuffed decoys showing either of two beak coloration representing the extremes of the natural variation from yellow to orange. Decoys were situated on the centre of plots and behaviours of mal…
Enforced monoandry over generations induces a reduction of female investment into reproduction in a promiscuous bird.
2021
Abstract While uncovering the costs and benefits of polyandry has attracted considerable attention, assessing the net effect of sexual selection on population fitness requires the experimental manipulation of female mating over generations, which is usually only achievable in laboratory populations of arthropods. However, knowing if sexual selection improves or impairs the expression of life‐history traits is key for the management of captive populations of endangered species, which are mostly long‐lived birds and mammals. It might therefore be questionable to extrapolate the results gathered on laboratory populations of insects to infer the net effect of sexual selection on populations of …
Differential expression and costs between maternally and paternally derived immune priming for offspring in an insect
2011
1. When parasitized, both vertebrates and invertebrates can enhance the immune defence of their offspring, although this transfer of immunity is achieved by different mechanisms. In some insects, immune-challenged males can also initiate trans-generational immune priming (TGIP), but its expressions appear qualitatively different from the one induced by females similarly challenged. 2. The existence of male TGIP challenges the traditional view of the parental investment theory, which predicts that females should invest more into their progeny than males. However, sexual dimorphism in life-history strategies and the potential costs associated with TGIP may nevertheless lead to dissymmetric in…
Distribution of sea urchins living near shallow water CO2 vents is dependent upon species acid-base and ion-regulatory abilities.
2013
To reduce the negative effect of climate change on Biodiversity, the use of geological CO2 sequestration has been proposed; however leakage from underwater storages may represent a risk to marine life. As extracellular homeostasis is important in determining species' ability to cope with elevated CO2, we investigated the acid-base and ion regulatory responses, as well as the density, of sea urchins living around CO2 vents at Vulcano, Italy. We conducted in situ transplantation and field-based laboratory exposures to different pCO2/pH regimes. Our results confirm that sea urchins have some ability to regulate their extracellular fluid under elevated pCO2. Furthermore, we show that even in cl…
Is maternal thyroid hormone deposition subject to a trade-off between self and egg because of iodine?
2021
ABSTRACT Maternal hormones constitute a key signalling pathway for mothers to shape offspring phenotype and fitness. Thyroid hormones (THs; triiodothyronine, T3; and thyroxine, T4) are metabolic hormones known to play crucial roles in embryonic development and survival in all vertebrates. During early developmental stages, embryos exclusively rely on exposure to maternal THs, and maternal hypothyroidism can cause severe embryonic maldevelopment. The TH molecule includes iodine, an element that cannot be synthesised by the organism. Therefore, TH production may become costly when environmental iodine availability is low. This may yield a trade-off for breeding females between allocating the …
Characterization of Legal Psychology through psychology journals included in Criminology & Penology and Law categories of Web of Science
2017
The objective of this work is to learn about the most relevant aspects that characterize contemporary Legal Psychology throughout the study of journals included in the WoS between the years 2009 and 2014 related with the area of Psychology. The number of selected publications is 16, mainly from the USA and Great Britain. The results show an increase in the number of works and authors, a greater collaboration and a growth in medium productors. It exists a major presence of men in editorial boards and as authors, outstanding the figures of T. Ward in 2009 and A. Vrij in 2014. According to the analysis of key words the most relevant themes during these years have been Crime, Conduct, Woman and…
A new rationale for not picking low hanging fruits: The separation of ownership and control
2019
Recent attempts at explaining the energy-efficiency gap rely on considerations related to organizational and behavioral/cognitive failures. In this paper, we build on the strategic delegation literature to advance a complementary explanation. It is shown that strategic market interaction may encourage business owners to instill a bias against energy efficiency in managerial compensation contracts. Since managers respond to financial incentives, their decisions will reflect this bias, resulting in lack of investment.
Male bill colour and age are associated with parental abilities and breeding performance in blackbirds
2005
9 pages; International audience; In monogamous bird species, male parental investment may influence offspring fitness and females may gain advantages through mating with males providing extensive paternal care. However, paternal care is a benefit that can only be assessed indirectly because mate choice precedes paternal activities. Individual quality and age, both signalled by morphological characteristics, may reflect parental abilities. Because they may reflect individual foraging abilities, carotenoid-based colorations have been proposed to honestly signal parental quality. The blackbird (Turdus merula), a socially monogamous species, exhibits biparental care and males show bills that va…
Key Economic Characteristics of Italian Trawl Fisheries and Management Challenges
2017
Two key measures of economic performance are calculated and analyzed for three important Italian trawl fisheries (Northern Thyrrenian Sea, South of Sicily, Northern Adriatic Sea): the Net Economic Returns (NER), which informs on the economic performance and is considered a proxy of resource rent in fisheries and the Return on Fixed Tangible Assets (ROFTA), which is used as an approximation of the Return on Investment (ROI) and is a key financial and performance indicator for a fisherman in order to take a decision to operate in a fishery. The trend of these indicators over the last decade highlights a poor economic performance that is associated with an overall poor condition of the state o…
Could male tergal secretions be considered as a nuptial gift in the Madeira cockroach?
2008
International audience; Many male insects provide somatic nuptial gifts that may strongly influence reproductive fitness, ensuring effective copulation or mediating paternal resource benefits in offspring. Although the courtship feeding behaviour on tergal gland secretions has been described in numerous cockroaches, studies on the function of these so-called nuptial gifts are lacking in this group. In this study, we examined, in the Madeira cockroach, Leucophaea maderae, the functional significance of tergal secretions by manipulating their availability on the back of males. We tested whether male tergal secretions function as a form of mating effort, and/or as a form of paternal investment…