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Distance Pattern (distance + pattern)
Selected AbstractsDistance patterns and disposal sites in rural area homicides committed in FinlandJOURNAL OF INVESTIGATIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND OFFENDER PROFILING, Issue 3 2007Helinä Häkkänen Abstract The present study examined offender characteristics, distance patterns, and the nature of disposal sites in rural area homicides. Pre-trial investigation files of cases where victims' bodies were found in rural areas in 1994,2005 (n,=,46) and forensic psychiatric examination reports of the offenders were content-analysed. Psychopathy Check List-Revised was used to assess psychopathy. Investigators of these homicides filled out a questionnaire on the offender's familiarity with the body disposal area, and MapInfo was used to measure offender/victim-residence-to-crime-to-body-disposal-site distances. Rural area homicides more frequently involved multiple offenders who were significantly younger than offenders in other homicides. Of the victims, 73% were found in woods and 27% in water. Offenders were familiar with disposal sites in over half of the cases. The victim's gender, close relationship with the offender, and the offender's violent crime history were associated with longer homicide-scene-to-body-disposal-site distances. The number of inhabitants and offender's violent crime history were related to longer offender-residence-to-body-disposal-site distances. Offender's age, intelligence, or psychopathology bore no significant association with the distance patterns. The results can be applied when searching missing persons in homicide investigations and in prioritising suspects in rural area homicides. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] ISOLATION BY DISTANCE IN EQUILIBRIUM AND NONEQUILIBRIUM POPULATIONS OF FOUR TALITRID SPECIES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN SEAEVOLUTION, Issue 5 2000Elvira De Matthaeis Abstract Allozymic variation at 21,23 loci was studied in 28 populations of Talitrus saltator, 23 populations of Orchestia montagui, 13 populations of O. stephenseni, and five populations of Platorchestia platensis from the Mediterranean Basin. Different levels of gene flow (Nm,) were detected within each species at the scale of the whole Mediterranean: O. montagui and P. platensis had low population structure, with levels of Nm, 1, whereas the T. saltator and O. stephenseni populations have values of Nm, < 1. The relationship between Nm, and geographic distance was analyzed to test for the presence of an isolation by distance pattern in the spatial genetic variation within each species. A model of isolation by distance is useful to describe the pattern of genetic structuring of study species at the scale of the whole Mediterranean: geographic distance explained from 28% to 70% of the variation in gene flow. In the Aegean area all species showed an island model of genetic structuring regardless of the levels of gene flow. [source] Contrasting mtDNA diversity and population structure in a direct-developing marine gastropod and its trematode parasitesMOLECULAR ECOLOGY, Issue 22 2009DEVON B. KEENEY Abstract The comparative genetic structure of hosts and their parasites has important implications for their coevolution, but has been investigated in relatively few systems. In this study, we analysed the genetic structure and diversity of the New Zealand intertidal snail Zeacumantus subcarinatus (n = 330) and two of its trematode parasites, Maritrema novaezealandensis (n = 269) and Philophthalmus sp. (n = 246), using cytochrome c oxidase subunit I gene (COI) sequences. Snails and trematodes were examined from 11 collection sites representing three regions on the South Island of New Zealand. Zeacumantus subcarinatus displayed low genetic diversity per geographic locality, strong genetic structure following an isolation by distance pattern, and low migration rates at the scale of the study. In contrast, M. novaezealandensis possessed high genetic diversity, genetic homogeneity among collection sites and high migration rates. Genetic diversity and migration rates were typically lower for Philophthalmus sp. compared to M. novaezealandensis and it displayed weak to moderate genetic structure. The observed patterns likely result from the limited dispersal ability of the direct developing snail and the utilization of bird definitive hosts by the trematodes. In addition, snails may occasionally experience long-distance dispersal. Discrepancies between trematode species may result from differences in their effective population sizes and/or life history traits. [source] Limited effect of anthropogenic habitat fragmentation on molecular diversity in a rain forest skink, Gnypetoscincus queenslandiaeMOLECULAR ECOLOGY, Issue 2 2004Joanna Sumner Abstract To examine the effects of recent habitat fragmentation, we assayed genetic diversity in a rain forest endemic lizard, the prickly forest skink (Gnypetoscincus queenslandiae), from seven forest fragments and five sites in continuous forest on the Atherton tableland of northeastern Queensland, Australia. The rain forest in this region was fragmented by logging and clearing for dairy farms in the early 1900s and most forest fragments studied have been isolated for 50,80 years or nine to 12 skink generations. We genotyped 411 individuals at nine microsatellite DNA loci and found fewer alleles per locus in prickly forest skinks from small rain forest fragments and a lower ratio of allele number to allele size range in forest fragments than in continuous forest, indicative of a decrease in effective population size. In contrast, and as expected for populations with small neighbourhood sizes, neither heterozygosity nor variance in allele size differed between fragments and sites in continuous forests. Considering measures of among population differentiation, there was no increase in FST among fragments and a significant isolation by distance pattern was identified across all 12 sites. However, the relationship between genetic (FST) and geographical distance was significantly stronger for continuous forest sites than for fragments, consistent with disruption of gene flow among the latter. The observed changes in genetic diversity within and among populations are small, but in the direction predicted by the theory of genetic erosion in recently fragmented populations. The results also illustrate the inherent difficulty in detecting genetic consequences of recent habitat fragmentation, even in genetically variable species, and especially when effective population size and dispersal rates are low. [source] Distance patterns and disposal sites in rural area homicides committed in FinlandJOURNAL OF INVESTIGATIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND OFFENDER PROFILING, Issue 3 2007Helinä Häkkänen Abstract The present study examined offender characteristics, distance patterns, and the nature of disposal sites in rural area homicides. Pre-trial investigation files of cases where victims' bodies were found in rural areas in 1994,2005 (n,=,46) and forensic psychiatric examination reports of the offenders were content-analysed. Psychopathy Check List-Revised was used to assess psychopathy. Investigators of these homicides filled out a questionnaire on the offender's familiarity with the body disposal area, and MapInfo was used to measure offender/victim-residence-to-crime-to-body-disposal-site distances. Rural area homicides more frequently involved multiple offenders who were significantly younger than offenders in other homicides. Of the victims, 73% were found in woods and 27% in water. Offenders were familiar with disposal sites in over half of the cases. The victim's gender, close relationship with the offender, and the offender's violent crime history were associated with longer homicide-scene-to-body-disposal-site distances. The number of inhabitants and offender's violent crime history were related to longer offender-residence-to-body-disposal-site distances. Offender's age, intelligence, or psychopathology bore no significant association with the distance patterns. The results can be applied when searching missing persons in homicide investigations and in prioritising suspects in rural area homicides. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] | ||||||||||