Material Benefits (material + benefit)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


POLYANDRY PROMOTES ENHANCED OFFSPRING SURVIVAL IN DECORATED CRICKETS

EVOLUTION, Issue 1 2005
Tracie M. Ivy
Abstract Although female multiple mating is ubiquitous in insects, its adaptive significance remains poorly understood. Benefits to multiple mating can accrue via direct material benefits, indirect genetic benefits, or both. We investigated the effects of multiple mating in the decorated cricket, Gryllodes sigillatus, by simultaneously varying the number of times that females mated and the number of different males with which they mated, measuring aspects of female fecundity and elements of offspring performance and viability. Multiple matings resulted in enhanced female fitness relative to single matings when females mated with differnt partners, but not when females mated repeatedly with the same male. Specifically, polyandrous females produced significantly more offspring surviving to reproductive maturity than did monogamous females mating once or mating repeatedly with the same male. These results suggest that the benefit females gain from multiple mating is influenced primarily by genetic and not material benefits. [source]


Tools for Financial Innovation: Neoclassical versus Behavioral Finance

FINANCIAL REVIEW, Issue 1 2006
Robert J. Shiller
B41; G28 Abstract The behavioral finance revolution in academic finance in the last several decades is best described as a return to a more eclectic approach to financial modeling. The earlier neoclassical finance revolution that had swept the finance profession in the 1960s and 1970s represented the overly-enthusiastic pursuit of only one model. Freed from the tyranny of just one model, financial research is now making faster progress, and that progress can be expected to show material benefits. An example of the application of both behavioral finance and neoclassical finance is discussed: the reform of Social Security and the introduction of personal accounts. [source]


Rewarding Lula: Executive Power, Social Policy, and the Brazilian Elections of 2006

LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 1 2007
Wendy Hunter
ABSTRACT This article analyzes Luiz Inácio da Silva's resounding reelection victory in the wake of corruption scandals implicating his party and government. Voters with lower levels of economic security and schooling played a critical role in returning Lula to the presidency. Least prone to punish the president for corruption, poorer Brazilians were also the most readily persuaded by the provision of material benefits. Minimum wage increases and the income transfer program Bolsa Família expanded the purchasing power of the poor. Thus, executive power and central state resources allowed Lula to consolidate a social base that had responded only weakly to his earlier, party-based strategy of grassroots mobilization for progressive macrosocietal change. Although Lula won handily, the PT's delegation to Congress shrank for the first time, and the voting bases of president and party diverged. The PT benefited far less than the president himself from government investment in social policy. [source]


Female house wrens (Troglodytes aedon) increase the size, but not immunocompetence, of their offspring through extra-pair mating

MOLECULAR ECOLOGY, Issue 16 2008
ANNA M. FORSMAN
Abstract House wrens are typically socially monogamous, but frequently engage in extra-pair matings leading to multisired broods. Because females do not appear to acquire direct material benefits from their extra-pair mates, we tested the hypothesis that female house wrens derive indirect genetic benefits, such as enhanced immunocompetence (cutaneous immune activity, humoral immunity, and plasma bactericidal activity) and condition (size and haematoserological traits) for their offspring, by mating polyandrously. We predicted that extra-pair young (EPY) should show greater immune responsiveness and better body condition than their within-pair maternal half-siblings (WPY). Contrary to our prediction, WPY had higher cutaneous immune activity than their EPY brood-mates in two of three years, and EPY and WPY did not differ in measures of innate and humoral immunity. WPY also had higher albumin to ,-globulin ratios than EPY; however, they were not in better condition based on other measures. EPY had consistently longer tarsi (a measure of long-bone size) than their WPY half-siblings, suggesting that females engage in extra-pair copulations with larger males. The benefits of large structural size in the study population is unknown, but based on evidence from other passerines, we suggest that structural size may be an important fitness-related trait in house wrens. We conclude that our results are not consistent with the hypothesis that females gain immune-related benefits for their offspring by engaging in extra-pair matings. Further study of the fitness consequences of differences in tarsus length is needed to determine whether females acquire size-related benefits for their offspring from extra-pair mates. [source]


Multiple paternity occurs with low frequency in the territorial roe deer, Capreolus capreolus

BIOLOGICAL JOURNAL OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY, Issue 1 2009
C. VANPÉ
An explanation for female multiple mating when males offer no material benefits but sperm remains elusive, largely because of a lack of empirical support for the genetic benefits hypothesis. We used 21 microsatellite markers to test for multiple paternities among 88 litters of roe deer, Capreolus capreolus, and to investigate the inbreeding avoidance hypothesis as a potential mechanism for the evolution of female multiple mating. From paternity analyses, we found that 13.5% of polytocous litters were sired by more than one male. We also found that a half-sib relationship was more likely than a full-sib relationship for 20.5% of all litters. This is the first report of multiple paternities in a territorial ungulate species. In support of the inbreeding avoidance hypothesis, we found that parents who were strongly related produced offspring with lower individual heterozygosity that survived less well during their first summer than fawns with unrelated parents. In addition, fawns from multiple paternity litters survived their first summer better than fawns from single paternity litters. However, it remains unclear whether all female multiple paternity events in this species are provoked by an initial consanguineous mating. © 2009 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society 2009, 97, 128,139. [source]


Imagining Europe: political identity and British television coverage of the European economy

BRITISH JOURNAL OF POLITICS & INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, Issue 3 2000
Neil T. Gavin
The article considers European economic news coverage on British television and its relationship with the UK public's perceptions of and identity with Europe. Stress is placed on the symbolic content of news about Europe; stories about the economic entitlements offered to citizens within the European Union; and portrayal of material benefits or losses for Britain. The results suggest that coverage offers mixed signals about Europe. As yet, they offer an unlikely platform for the development in the United Kingdom of European solidarity or identity. The results are assessed in the light of the way journalists approach political issues. The implications for statistical modelling of the media's relationship with attitudes towards Europe are also considered. [source]