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Human Societies (human + society)
Selected AbstractsAdapting Human Societies to ConservationCONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 3 2010David Johns No abstract is available for this article. [source] Book review: Primeval Kinship: How Pair-Bonding Gave Birth to Human SocietyAMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 4 2009Warren Shapiro No abstract is available for this article. [source] Applying Network Analysis to the Conservation of Habitat Trees in Urban Environments: a Case Study from Brisbane, AustraliaCONSERVATION BIOLOGY, Issue 3 2006MONIKA RHODES conectividad de perchas; fauna que utiliza oquedades; planificación de la conservación; red sin escala; Tadarida australis Abstract:,In Australia more than 300 vertebrates, including 43 insectivorous bat species, depend on hollows in habitat trees for shelter, with many species using a network of multiple trees as roosts. We used roost-switching data on white-striped freetail bats (Tadarida australis; Microchiroptera: Molossidae) to construct a network representation of day roosts in suburban Brisbane, Australia. Bats were caught from a communal roost tree with a roosting group of several hundred individuals and released with transmitters. Each roost used by the bats represented a node in the network, and the movements of bats between roosts formed the links between nodes. Despite differences in gender and reproductive stages, the bats exhibited the same behavior throughout three radiotelemetry periods and over 500 bat days of radio tracking: each roosted in separate roosts, switched roosts very infrequently, and associated with other bats only at the communal roost. This network resembled a scale-free network in which the distribution of the number of links from each roost followed a power law. Despite being spread over a large geographic area (>200 km2), each roost was connected to others by less than three links. One roost (the hub or communal roost) defined the architecture of the network because it had the most links. That the network showed scale-free properties has profound implications for the management of the habitat trees of this roosting group. Scale-free networks provide high tolerance against stochastic events such as random roost removals but are susceptible to the selective removal of hub nodes. Network analysis is a useful tool for understanding the structural organization of habitat tree usage and allows the informed judgment of the relative importance of individual trees and hence the derivation of appropriate management decisions. Conservation planners and managers should emphasize the differential importance of habitat trees and think of them as being analogous to vital service centers in human societies. Resumen:,En Australia, más de 300 vertebrados, incluyendo 43 especies de murciélagos insectívoros, dependen de oquedades en árboles para refugiarse; muchas de ellas perchan en una red de múltiples árboles. Utilizamos datos de cambio de perchas en Tadarida australis (Microchiroptera: Molossidae) para construir una representación reticular de las perchas diurnas en los suburbios de Brisbane, Australia. Los murciélagos fueron capturados en un árbol con un grupo de varios cientos de individuos y liberados con transmisores. Cada percha utilizada por los murciélagos representó un nodo individual en la red, y los movimientos de murciélagos entre perchas constituyeron los eslabones entre los nodos. A pesar de las diferencias de género y etapas reproductivas, los murciélagos mostraron el mismo comportamiento en tres períodos de radiotelemetría y en más de 500 días de seguimiento de murciélagos: cada uno utilizó perchas separadas, cambiaban de percha poco frecuentemente, y se asociaron con otros murciélagos sólo en las perchas comunales. Esta red fue semejante a una red sin escala en la que la distribución del número de eslabones de cada percha cumplió una ley potencial. A pesar de estar dispersas en un área geográfica extensa (>200 km2), cada percha estaba conectada con otras por menos de tres eslabones. Una percha (el centro o percha comunal) definió la arquitectura de la red porque tenía a la mayoría de los eslabones. El hecho de que la red mostrara propiedades libres de escala tiene implicaciones profundas para la gestión de árboles que funcionan como perchas. Las redes libres de escala proporcionan alta tolerancia a eventos estocásticos como la remoción aleatoria de perchas, pero son susceptibles a la remoción selectiva de nodos centrales. El análisis de redes es una herramienta útil para el entendimiento de la organización estructural del uso de de árboles y permite el juicio informado de la importancia relativa de árboles individuales y por lo tanto la derivación de decisiones administrativas apropiadas Los planificadores y gestores de la conservación deberían enfatizar la importancia diferencial de árboles y considerarlos análogos a los centros de servicio vitales en las sociedades humanas. [source] Meta-ecosystems: a theoretical framework for a spatial ecosystem ecologyECOLOGY LETTERS, Issue 8 2003Michel Loreau Abstract This contribution proposes the meta-ecosystem concept as a natural extension of the metapopulation and metacommunity concepts. A meta-ecosystem is defined as a set of ecosystems connected by spatial flows of energy, materials and organisms across ecosystem boundaries. This concept provides a powerful theoretical tool to understand the emergent properties that arise from spatial coupling of local ecosystems, such as global source,sink constraints, diversity,productivity patterns, stabilization of ecosystem processes and indirect interactions at landscape or regional scales. The meta-ecosystem perspective thereby has the potential to integrate the perspectives of community and landscape ecology, to provide novel fundamental insights into the dynamics and functioning of ecosystems from local to global scales, and to increase our ability to predict the consequences of land-use changes on biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services to human societies. [source] THE A.D. 1300 EVENT IN THE PACIFIC BASIN,GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW, Issue 1 2007Patrick D. Nunn ABSTRACT. Around a.d. 1300 the entire Pacific Basin (continental Pacific Rim and oceanic Pacific Islands) was affected by comparatively rapid cooling and sea-level fall, and possibly increased storminess, that caused massive and enduring changes to Pacific environments and societies. For most Pacific societies, adapted to the warmer, drier, and more stable climates of the preceding Medieval Climate Anomaly (a.d. 750,1250), the effects of this A.D. 1300 Event were profoundly disruptive, largely because of the reduction in food resources available in coastal zones attributable to the 70,80-centimeter sea-level fall. This disruption was manifested by the outbreak of persistent conflict, shifts in settlements from coasts to refugia inland or on unoccupied offshore islands, changes in subsistence strategies, and an abrupt end to long-distance cross-ocean interaction during the ensuing Little Ice Age (a.d. 1350,1800). The A.D. 1300 Event provides a good example of the disruptive potential for human societies of abrupt, short-lived climate changes. [source] China's South-to-North Water Transfer Project: Is it Needed?GEOGRAPHY COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 9 2010Chansheng He China has started the construction of the South-to-North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP; its magnitude is even greater than the Three Gorges Dam Project), to deliver about 45 billion m3 of water from the Yangtze River to the water starving North China Plain. Is the project needed given the multiple socioeconomic, engineering, and environmental challenges and controversies it is facing and the effects of demand management programs China has been implementing in recent years? This article, through the analysis of the water shortage problems in the North China Plain and the Yellow River basin, demonstrates that considering China's current economic base, technological capacity, and income levels, the SNWTP, while facing multiple challenges, is still needed to relieve the water deficit problems in the North China Plain. However, the SNWTP is only a partial solution to North China's chronic water shortage problem. China should continue to actively implement and enforce its demand management programs nationwide to ensure that its limited fresh water resources are used to meet the multiple needs of human societies and ecosystems in a socially responsible, economically viable, and environmentally sustainable way. [source] Ecohydrological feedbacks and linkages associated with land degradation: a case study from MexicoHYDROLOGICAL PROCESSES, Issue 15 2006Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald Abstract Land degradation and desertification are major environmental problems of human societies in drylands of North and South America. Mexico is one of the most severely affected countries. An assessment of how both biophysical and socio-economic processes simultaneously affect, and are affected by, land degradation is recognized as one of the most important and challenging topics in the research on global change. Towards meeting this challenge, in June 2004 an interdisciplinary mix of scientists assembled in Mexico to participate in a workshop convened by the ARIDnet network. The focus of the workshop was to apply a new conceptual framework,the Dahlem Desertification Paradigm (DDP),to La Amapola, a small rural community located in the Central Plateau of Mexico. The DDP aims to advance understanding of global desertification issues by focusing on the interrelationships within coupled human-environment systems that cause desertification. In this paper we summarize the conclusions of the La Amapola workshop. First, we present a brief review of some of the broader issues and concerns of global desertification, which led to the formation of ARIDnet and to the DDP. Second, we provide an overview of land degradation issues in La Amapola, highlighting examples of hydrological linkages between biophysical and socio-economic factors. Third, we summarize our findings in a conceptual model, which highlights linkages between biophysical and socio-economic factors in La Amapola, and the role of hydrology in desertification. Lastly, we discuss the results derived from the application of the major assertions of the DDP to La Amapola. The numerous feedbacks, linkages, and causal pathways between the biophysical and human dimensions suggest that hydrology is the fundamental component of the livelihoods of rural communities in this region of Mexico, and thus it is of central importance when evaluating desertification. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Ecosystem science and human,environment interactions in the Hawaiian archipelagoJOURNAL OF ECOLOGY, Issue 3 2006PETER VITOUSEK Summary 1Tansley's ecosystem concept remains a vital framework for ecological research in part because the approach facilitates interdisciplinary analyses of ecological systems. 2Features of the Hawaiian Islands , particularly the nearly orthogonal variation in many of the factors that control variation among ecosystems elsewhere , make the archipelago a useful model system for interdisciplinary research designed to understand fundamental controls on the state and dynamics of ecosystems, and their consequences for human societies. 3Analyses of rain forest sites arrayed on a substrate age gradient from c. 300 years to over 4 million years across the Hawaiian archipelago demonstrate that the sources of calcium and other essential cations shift from > 80% rock-derived in young sites to > 80% derived from marine aerosol on substrates older than 100 000 years. Rock-derived phosphorus is retained longer within ecosystems, but eventually long-distance transport of continental dust from Asia becomes the most important source of phosphorus. 4A biogeochemical feedback from low nutrient availability to efficient resource use by trees to slow decomposition and nutrient regeneration accentuates the geochemically driven pattern of low phosphorus availability and phosphorus limitation to net primary productivity in the oldest site. 5Variations in ecosystem biogeochemistry across the archipelago shaped the development and sustainability of Polynesian agricultural systems in the millennium between their discovery of Hawai'i and contact by Europeans. Irrigated pondfields were largely confined to stream valleys on the older islands, while rain-fed dryland systems occupied a narrow zone of fertile, well-watered soils on the younger islands. 6The ecosystem approach often represents the most appropriate level of organization for analyses of human influences on ecological systems; it can play a central role in the design and analysis of alternative agricultural, industrial and residential systems that could reduce the human footprint on the Earth. [source] MARGOLIS ON HISTORY AND NATUREMETAPHILOSOPHY, Issue 5 2005Dale Jacquette Abstract: In his philosophy of culture, Joseph Margolis maintains that, although human beings and human societies have a history, there is no human nature in the sense of a fixed essence. I consider objections to Margolis's thesis, beginning with the possibility that nonhuman intelligent species might be in a position to study human behavior from its origins to its demise with the proper distance from our own situation in order to arrive at an understanding of what is essential to human nature, perhaps as a Kantian regulative rather than constitutive principle, and involving abstractions from particular cases and idealizations, as in other branches of science. Finally, I examine the historical-past orientation of Margolis's concept of humanity's self-understanding and its dependence on the intentionality of human thought, and I conclude that it provides an inadequate reason for denying that there can be such a thing as human nature. [source] Mining and sustainable development: considerations for minerals supplyNATURAL RESOURCES FORUM, Issue 4 2001Ian B. Lambert Abstract Sustainable development involves meeting the needs of human societies while maintaining viable biological and physical Earth systems. The needs include minerals: metals, fuels, industrial and construction materials. There will continue to be considerable demand for virgin mineral resources, even if levels of recycling and efficiency of use are optimal, and rates of population growth and globalisation decrease significantly. This article aims to stimulate debate on strategic issues for minerals supply. While the world has considerable stocks of mineral resources overall, international considerations of the environmental and social aspects of sustainable development are beginning to result in limitations on where mining will be conducted and what types of deposits will be mined. Current and emerging trends favour large mines in parts of the world where mining can be conducted within acceptable limits of environmental and social impact. Finding new deposits that meet such criteria will be all the more challenging given a disturbing global decline in the rate of discovery of major economic resources over the last decade, and the decreasing land area available for exploration and mining. To attract responsible exploration and mining, governments of mining nations will need to provide: regional-scale geo-scientific datasets as required to attract and guide future generations of exploration; resource access through multiple and sequential land use regimes, and frameworks for dealing with indigenous peoples' issues; and arrangements for consideration of mining proposals and regulation of mines that ensure responsible management of environmental and social issues. The minerals industry will need to continue to pursue advances in technologies for exploration, mining, processing, waste management and rehabilitation, and in public reporting of environmental and social performance. [source] Disastrous Rites: Liminality and Communitas in a Flood CrisisANTHROPOLOGY & HUMANISM, Issue 1 2001Linda Jencson A sense of communitas, well noted by social scientists, occurs in human societies during times of natural disaster. Using the Red River Valley Flood of 1997 as a case example, it is found that disaster communitas has similarities to ritual communitas specifically because people consciously ritualize and mythologize their actions during disaster. While this sacralization of practical action serves to optimize disaster response, it also creates an expanded sense of self, community, and purpose that can leave many survivors of disaster with a sense that they have undergone a profoundly meaningful peak experience. [source] Perceptual Diversity: Is Polyphasic Consciousness Necessary for Global Survival?ANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Issue 1 2001Tara W. Lumpkin Perceptual diversity allows human beings to access knowledge through a variety of perceptual processes, rather than merely through everyday waking reality. Many of these perceptual processes are transrational altered states of consciousness (meditation, trance, dreams, imagination) and are not considered valid processes for accessing knowledge by science (which is based primarily upon quantification, reductionism, and the experimental method). According to Erika Bourguignon's (1973) research in the 1970s, approximately 90 percent of cultures have institutionalized forms of altered states of consciousness, meaning that such types of consciousness are to be found in most human societies and are "normal." Now, however, transrational consciousness is being devalued in many societies as it is simultaneously being replaced by the monophasic consciousness of "developed" nations. Not only are we are losing (1) biodiversity (biocomplexity) in environments and (2) cultural diversity in societies, we also are losing (3) perceptual diversity in human cognitive processes. All three losses of diversity (bio, cultural, and cognitive) are interrelated. Cultures that value perceptual diversity are more adaptable than cultures that do not. Perceptually diverse cultures are better able to understand whole systems (because they use a variety of perceptual processes to understand systems) than are cultures that rely only on the scientific method, which dissects systems. They also are better stewards of their environments, because they grasp the value of the whole of biodiversity (biocomplexity) through transrational as well as scientific processes. Understanding through perceptual diversity leads to a higher degree of adaptability and evolutionary competence. From the perspective of an anthropologist who has worked with development organizations, development will continue to destroy perceptual diversity because it exports the dominant cognitive process of "developed" nations, i.e., monophasic consciousness. Destroying perceptual diversity, in turn, leads to the destruction of cultural diversity and biocomplexity. Drawing from research I conducted among traditional healers in Namibia, I conclude that development organizations need to listen to those who use transrational perceptual processes and also need to find a way to incorporate and validate perceptual diversity in their theoretical and applied frameworks. [source] THE RELEVANCE OF EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY FOR PSYCHOTHERAPYBRITISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOTHERAPY, Issue 3 2005Anthony Ryle ABSTRACT The claims made for the contribution of Evolutionary Psychology to psychotherapy are questioned. The relevance of human evolutionary history is not disputed, but it is argued that insufficient account is taken of the unique features of human beings, that the polemical attacks made on the social and human sciences are irrational, that the hypothetical reconstructions of human evolution are frequently arbitrary and biased, and that the extent to which evolved innate,mentalities'are said to determine social roles ignores the evidence for the plasticity of human brains and for social influences in individual development. In its consistent bias in favour of innate rather than learned and culturally formed processes and in its language and assumptions EP underestimates the inherited and acquired capacities of human societies and individuals to change. It fails to take adequate account of the key evolutionary development whereby humans became symbol-making and symbol-using social animals whose individual psychological development involves processes, the understanding of which requires a new theoretical perspective. These features, combined with the absence of a clear model of practice, seriously limit the contribution of EP to psychotherapy. [source] Trends in the state of nature and their implications for human well-beingECOLOGY LETTERS, Issue 11 2005Andrew Balmford Abstract Two major international initiatives , the Convention on Biological Diversity's target to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment , raise the profile of ecological data on the changing state of nature and its implications for human well-being. This paper is intended to provide a broad overview of current knowledge of these issues. Information on changes in the status of species, size of populations, and extent and condition of habitats is patchy, with little data available for many of the taxa, regions and habitats of greatest importance to the delivery of ecosystem services. However, what we do know strongly suggests that, while exceptions exist, the changes currently underway are for the most part negative, anthropogenic in origin, ominously large and accelerating. The impacts of these changes on human society are idiosyncratic and patchily understood, but for the most part also appear to be negative and substantial. Forecasting future changes is limited by our poor understanding of the cascading impacts of change within communities, of threshold effects, of interactions between the drivers of change, and of linkages between the state of nature and human well-being. In assessing future science needs, we not only see a strong role for ecological data and theory, but also believe that much closer collaboration with social and earth system scientists is essential if ecology is to have a strong bearing on policy makers. [source] Biodiversity and biocontrol: emergent impacts of a multi-enemy assemblage on pest suppression and crop yield in an agroecosystemECOLOGY LETTERS, Issue 9 2003Bradley J. Cardinale Abstract The suppression of agricultural pests has often been proposed as an important service of natural enemy diversity, but few experiments have tested this assertion. In this study we present empirical evidence that increasing the richness of a particular guild of natural enemies can reduce the density of a widespread group of herbivorous pests and, in turn, increase the yield of an economically important crop. We performed an experiment in large field enclosures where we manipulated the presence/absence of three of the most important natural enemies (the coccinellid beetle Harmonia axyridis, the damsel bug Nabis sp., and the parasitic wasp Aphidius ervi) of pea aphids (Acyrthosiphon pisum) that feed on alfalfa (Medicago sativa). When all three enemy species were together, the population density of the pea aphid was suppressed more than could be predicted from the summed impact of each enemy species alone. As crop yield was negatively related to pea aphid density, there was a concomitant non-additive increase in the production of alfalfa in enclosures containing the more diverse enemy guild. This trophic cascade appeared to be influenced by an indirect interaction involving a second herbivore inhabiting the system , the cowpea aphid, Aphis craccivora. Data suggest that high relative densities of cowpea aphids inhibited parasitism of pea aphids by the specialist parasitoid, A. ervi. Therefore, when natural enemies were together and densities of cowpea aphids were reduced by generalist predators, parasitism of pea aphids increased. This interaction modification is similar to other types of indirect interactions among enemy species (e.g. predator,predator facilitation) that can enhance the suppression of agricultural pests. Results of our study, and those of others performed in agroecosystems, complement the broader debate over how biodiversity influences ecosystem functioning by specifically focusing on systems that produce goods of immediate relevance to human society. [source] The evolutionary ecology of PlasmodiumECOLOGY LETTERS, Issue 9 2003R. E. L. Paul Abstract Plasmodium, the aetiological agent of malaria, imposes a substantial public health burden on human society and one that is likely to deteriorate. Hitherto, the recent Darwinian medicine movement has promoted the important role evolutionary biology can play in issues of public health. Recasting the malaria parasite two-host life cycle within an evolutionary framework has generated considerable insight into how the parasite has adapted to life within both vertebrate and insect hosts. Coupled with the rapid advances in the molecular basis to host,parasite interactions, exploration of the evolutionary ecology of Plasmodium will enable identification of key steps in the life cycle and highlight fruitful avenues of research for developing malaria control strategies. In addition, elucidating the extent to which Plasmodium can respond to short- and long-term changes in selection pressures, i.e. its adaptive capacity, is even more crucial in predicting how the burden of malaria will alter with our rapidly evolving ecology. [source] Functional roles of remnant plant populations in communities and ecosystemsGLOBAL ECOLOGY, Issue 6 2000Ove Eriksson Abstract A hypothesis is suggested for functional roles of remnant plant populations in communities and ecosystems. A remnant population is capable of persistence during extended time periods, despite a negative population growth rate, due to long-lived life stages and life-cycles, including loops that allow population persistence without completion of the whole life cycle. A list of critera is suggested to help identification of remnant plant populations. Several community and ecosystem features may result from the presence of remnant plant populations. Apart from increasing community and ecosystem resilience just by being present, remnant populations may contribute to resilience through enhancing colonization by other plant species, by providing a persistent habitat for assemblages of animals and microorganisms, and by reducing variation in nutrient cycling. It is suggested that the common ability of plants to develop remnant populations is a contributing factor to ecosystem stability. Remnant populations are important for the capacity of ecosystems to cope with the present-day impact caused by human society, and their occurrence should be recognized in surveys of threatened plant species and communities. [source] REVIEW: Mechanisms driving change: altered species interactions and ecosystem function through global warmingJOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY, Issue 5 2010Lochran W. Traill Summary 1.,We review the mechanisms behind ecosystem functions, the processes that facilitate energy transfer along food webs, and the major processes that allow the cycling of carbon, oxygen and nitrogen, and use case studies to show how these have already been, and will continue to be, altered by global warming. 2.,Increased temperatures will affect the interactions between heterotrophs and autotrophs (e.g. pollination and seed dispersal), and between heterotrophs (e.g. predators-prey, parasites/pathogens-hosts), with generally negative ramifications for important ecosystem services (functions that provide direct benefit to human society such as pollination) and potential for heightened species co-extinction rates. 3.,Mitigation of likely impacts of warming will require, in particular, the maintenance of species diversity as insurance for the provision of basic ecosystem services. Key to this will be long-term monitoring and focused research that seek to maintain ecosystem resilience in the face of global warming. 4.,We provide guidelines for pursuing research that quantifies the nexus between ecosystem function and global warming. These include documentation of key functional species groups within systems, and understanding the principal outcomes arising from direct and indirect effects of a rapidly warming environment. Localized and targeted research and monitoring, complemented with laboratory work, will determine outcomes for resilience and guide adaptive conservation responses and long-term planning. [source] Discovering Emerging Topics from WWWJOURNAL OF CONTINGENCIES AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2002Naohiro Matsumura Discovering emerging topics from WWW has been attracting attention of business professionals, especially marketing researchers. For this purpose, WWW can be a valuable source of information because it reflects the dynamics of human society. In this paper we aim at revealing the structure of WWW by using KeyGraph, a visualization method of hidden structure behind data, for understanding emerging topics. [source] Reproduction and Resistance to Stress: When and HowJOURNAL OF NEUROENDOCRINOLOGY, Issue 8 2003J. C. Wingfield Abstract Environmental and social stresses have deleterious effects on reproductive function in vertebrates. Global climate change, human disturbance and endocrine disruption from pollutants are increasingly likely to pose additional stresses that could have a major impact on human society. Nonetheless, some populations of vertebrates (from fish to mammals) are able to temporarily resist environmental and social stresses, and breed successfully. A classical trade-off of reproductive success for potential survival is involved. We define five examples. (i) Aged individuals with minimal future reproductive success that should attempt to breed despite potential acute stressors. (ii) Seasonal breeders when time for actual breeding is so short that acute stress should be resisted in favour of reproductive success. (iii) If both members of a breeding pair provide parental care, then loss of a mate should be compensated for by the remaining individual. (iv) Semelparous species in which there is only one breeding period followed by programmed death. (v) Species where, because of the transience of dominance status in a social group, individuals may only have a short window of opportunity for mating. We suggest four mechanisms underlying resistance of the gonadal axis to stress. (i) Blockade at the central nervous system level, i.e. an individual no longer perceives the perturbation as stressful. (ii) Blockade at the level of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (i.e. failure to increase secretion of glucocorticosteroids). (iii) Blockade at the level of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonad axis (i.e. resistance of the reproductive system to the actions of glucocorticosteroids). (iv) Compensatory stimulation of the gonadal axis to counteract inhibitory glucocorticosteroid actions. Although these mechanisms are likely genetically determined, their expression may depend upon a complex interaction with environmental factors. Future research will provide valuable information on the biology of stress and how organisms cope. Such mechanisms would be particularly insightful as the spectre of global change continues to unfold. [source] Curing the Atomic Bomb Within: The Relationship of American Social Scientists to Nuclear Weapons in the Early Cold WarPEACE & CHANGE, Issue 3 2010Robert A. Jacobs This article looks at the initial response of the social science community to the advent of nuclear weapons and their use on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The idea that human society as a whole was not sophisticated enough to responsibly steward nuclear weapons was widespread among American sociologists and psychologists: if society needed to change, many social scientists felt compelled to engineer that transformation. Fundamental to this effort was an analysis of the roots of human violence. I argue that this was a fundamental misdiagnosis that placed the blame in individuated human violence rather than in the organized social violence of militarism. The final section of the article explores the role of social scientists in planning for nuclear war and in creating and assessing the indoctrination of U.S. troops participating in nuclear weapons testing. This indoctrination would form the model for later indoctrinations aimed at easing general public distress over nuclear weapons testing. [source] The effects of introduced tilapias on native biodiversityAQUATIC CONSERVATION: MARINE AND FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS, Issue 5 2005Gabrielle C. Canonico Abstract 1.The common name ,tilapia' refers to a group of tropical freshwater fish in the family Cichlidae (Oreochromis, Tilapia, and Sarotherodon spp.) that are indigenous to Africa and the southwestern Middle East. Since the 1930s, tilapias have been intentionally dispersed worldwide for the biological control of aquatic weeds and insects, as baitfish for certain capture fisheries, for aquaria, and as a food fish. They have most recently been promoted as an important source of protein that could provide food security for developing countries without the environmental problems associated with terrestrial agriculture. In addition, market demand for tilapia in developed countries such as the United States is growing rapidly. 2.Tilapias are well-suited to aquaculture because they are highly prolific and tolerant to a range of environmental conditions. They have come to be known as the ,aquatic chicken' because of their potential as an affordable, high-yield source of protein that can be easily raised in a range of environments , from subsistence or ,backyard' units to intensive fish hatcheries. In some countries, particularly in Asia, nearly all of the introduced tilapias produced are consumed domestically; tilapias have contributed to basic food security for such societies. 3.This review indicates that tilapia species are highly invasive and exist under feral conditions in every nation in which they have been cultured or introduced. Thus, the authors have concluded that, despite potential or observed benefits to human society, tilapia aquaculture and open-water introductions cannot continue unchecked without further exacerbating damage to native fish species and biodiversity. Recommendations include restricting tilapia culture to carefully managed, contained ponds, although exclusion is preferred when it is feasible. Research into culture of indigenous species is also recommended. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The origin of human pathogens: evaluating the role of agriculture and domestic animals in the evolution of human diseaseBIOLOGICAL REVIEWS, Issue 3 2006Jessica M. C. Pearce-Duvet ABSTRACT Many significant diseases of human civilization are thought to have arisen concurrently with the advent of agriculture in human society. It has been hypothesised that the food produced by farming increased population sizes to allow the maintenance of virulent pathogens, i.e. civilization pathogens, while domestic animals provided sources of disease to humans. To determine the relationship between pathogens in humans and domestic animals, I examined phylogenetic data for several human pathogens that are commonly evolutionarily linked to domestic animals: measles, pertussis, smallpox, tuberculosis, taenid worms, and falciparal malaria. The majority are civilization pathogens, although I have included others whose evolutionary origins have traditionally been ascribed to domestic animals. The strongest evidence for a domestic-animal origin exists for measles and pertussis, although the data do not exclude a non-domestic origin. As for the other pathogens, the evidence currently available makes it difficult to determine if the domestic-origin hypothesis is supported or refuted; in fact, intriguing data for tuberculosis and taenid worms suggests that transmission may occur as easily from humans to domestic animals. These findings do not abrogate the importance of agriculture in disease transmission; rather, if anything, they suggest an alternative, more complex series of effects than previously elucidated. Rather than domestication, the broader force for human pathogen evolution could be ecological change, namely anthropogenic modification of the environment. This is supported by evidence that many current emerging infectious diseases are associated with human modification of the environment. Agriculture may have changed the transmission ecology of pre-existing human pathogens, increased the success of pre-existing pathogen vectors, resulted in novel interactions between humans and wildlife, and, through the domestication of animals, provided a stable conduit for human infection by wildlife diseases. [source] Der Census of Marine Life zieht Bilanz.BIOLOGIE IN UNSERER ZEIT (BIUZ), Issue 4 2010Globale "Volkszählung" unter Wasser Abstract Ein internationales Großprojekt zur Erfassung der Vielfalt des Lebens im Meer, der Census of Marine Life, wird nach zehn Jahren in diesem Herbst mit einer großen Abschlussveranstaltung in London zu Ende gehen. Mit einer Vielzahl von Teilprojekten wurde das Leben von den tropischen Stränden über Seeberge, hydrothermale Quellen und polare Meere bis in die Tiefseebecken untersucht, um einen Überblick über die Artenvielfalt zu bekommen und Erkenntnisse darüber zu gewinnen, wie die Vielfalt des Lebens im Meer beeinflusst und gesteuert wird. Einige der Teilprojekte werden beispielhaft dargestellt, insbesondere das Projekt CeDAMar, das vom Senckenberg-Institut geleitet wird. CeDAMar erforscht die großen Tiefseebecken, die etwa die Hälfte der Erdoberfläche ausmachen und noch sehr wenig bekannt sind. Der wachsende Rohstoffbedarf rückt diesen bisher weitgehend unbeeinflussten Lebensraum in das Interesse der Industrie, und Experten von CeDAMar haben durch ihre Fachkompetenz bei der Erstellung von Richtlinien zum Schutz des Meeresbodens in internationalen Gewässern einen sehr konkreten Beitrag geleistet. Global Underwater Census , a large-scale project is taking stock The Census of Marine Life, an international large-scale project to assess the diversity of life in the ocean, will end this fall after a decade of discovery with a grand finale in London. Many so-called field projects were established to study life from tropical beaches, seamounts, hydrothermal vents, to polar seas and abyssal plains in order to get a better estimate of marine species diversity and gain insight into processes that influence the diversity of life in the oceans. Some of the field projects are presented, including the project CeDAMar under the leadership of the Senckenberg Institute. The study area of CeDAMar is abyssal plains, which comprise about half of the Earth's surface yet are very little known. Mankind's growing demand on minerals and other resources has awoken the industry's interest in a part of the ocean that so far has been relatively pristine. CeDAMar scientists have helped with their expertise to establish guidelines for the protection of the seafloor in international waters, thus demonstrating how concrete the influence of deep-sea exploration on human society can become. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||