Mormon and Irish Landscapes on Beaver Island, Lake Michigan – niche construction and socio-ecological inheritance in the nineteenth century

Landscapes ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-81
Author(s):  
Deborah L. Rotman ◽  
Agustín Fuentes
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Lake Michigan ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Ecological Inheritance ◽  
Beaver Island

scholarly journals Human niche construction in interdisciplinary focus

2011 ◽  
Vol 366 (1566) ◽  
pp. 785-792 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeremy Kendal ◽  
Jamshid J. Tehrani ◽  
John Odling-Smee
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Causal Process ◽  
Genetic Inheritance ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Ecological Inheritance ◽  
Human Niche Construction ◽  
The Social

Niche construction is an endogenous causal process in evolution, reciprocal to the causal process of natural selection. It works by adding ecological inheritance , comprising the inheritance of natural selection pressures previously modified by niche construction, to genetic inheritance in evolution. Human niche construction modifies selection pressures in environments in ways that affect both human evolution, and the evolution of other species. Human ecological inheritance is exceptionally potent because it includes the social transmission and inheritance of cultural knowledge, and material culture. Human genetic inheritance in combination with human cultural inheritance thus provides a basis for gene–culture coevolution, and multivariate dynamics in cultural evolution. Niche construction theory potentially integrates the biological and social aspects of the human sciences. We elaborate on these processes, and provide brief introductions to each of the papers published in this theme issue.

Lake Michigan Passenger Steamers. By George W. Hilton. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002. Pp. xii, 364, $75.00.

2003 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 297-298
Author(s):  
Diane Lindstrom
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Lake Michigan ◽  
Stanford University ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
Transportation Studies

The author, a retired UCLA economist, has written a number of highly specialized transportation studies. In his Lake Michigan Passenger Steamers much as in his Great Lakes Car Ferries and American Narrow Gauge Railroads, George W. Hinton acknowledges that “the principle purpose is to provide antiquarian scholarship” (p. xi). Here we learn about the wooden and steel, sailing and steam ships that operated on Lake Michigan from the early nineteenth century until well into the twentieth century. Although some attention is devoted to the interlake trade, the passenger lines that draw most of the author's attention are those that served Lake Michigan points exclusively.

Effects of Ecological Inheritance on Coevolution of Cooperative Behaviors and Physically Niche Constructing Behaviors

2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Takuro Kojima ◽  
◽  
Reiji Suzuki ◽  
Takaya Arita
Keyword(s):  
Physical Environment ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Cooperative Behavior ◽  
Evolutionary Model ◽  
Evolution Of Cooperation ◽  
Ecological Inheritance ◽  
Low Degree ◽  
Cooperative Behaviors ◽  
Spatial Prisoner’S Dilemma ◽  
Social Niche

Niche construction is a process whereby organisms that modify their own or others’ niches through their ecological activities. Recent studies have revealed that changes in social structures of interactions caused by social niche construction of individuals can affect seriously the evolution of cooperation. However, such a social niche also could be changed indirectly by a modification of their physical environment. Our purpose is to clarify the coevolution of cooperative behavior and physically niche-constructing behavior that modifies social niche indirectly. For this purpose, we constructed an evolutionary model in which each individual has not only a strategy for a spatial Prisoner’s Dilemma but also has traits for a niche-constructing behavior for modifying its physical environment that can limit social interactions between neighboring individuals. By conducting evolutionary experiments, we show that a cyclic coevolution between cooperative behavior and niche-constructing behavior occurred in the situation with no or low degree of ecological inheritance, in which the constructed niche could not be inherited in succeeding generations at all. Conversely, when the degree of ecological inheritance was high, the evolution of cooperation was promoted by the emerged environmental structure constructed by the evolved niche-constructing behavior. We also show that the condition for each scenario to occur depends on the settings of the payoff parameters as well as the degree of ecological inheritance.

Colonization of the Beaver Island Archipelago by deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus gracilis): mtDNA evidence for multiple origins

2015 ◽  
Vol 93 (3) ◽  
pp. 239-244 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z.S. Taylor ◽  
P. Myers ◽  
S.M.G. Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Lake Michigan ◽  
Peromyscus Maniculatus ◽  
High Water ◽  
Deer Mice ◽  
Upper Peninsula ◽  
Multiple Origins ◽  
Minimum Number ◽  
D Loop ◽  
Approximate Bayesian ◽  
Beaver Island

The Beaver Island group in Lake Michigan comprises nine islands ranging from 0.3 to 144 km2, lying approximately 30 km west of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula (LP) and 15 km south of the Upper Peninsula (UP). The islands have been isolated from mainland Michigan for most of their postglacial history, but were connected to the mainland LP during the low-water Chippewa stage (ending about 7400 years before present (YBP)). Although plants and animals could have colonized the islands during the Chippewa period, flooding during the subsequent Nipissing high-water stand means that the smaller islands have been colonized more recently. We analyzed 481 bp of mitochondrial D-loop sequences from woodland deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus (Wagner, 1845)) on six of these islands in northern Lake Michigan to elucidate the mainland origin and minimum number of colonization events for this species. Surprisingly, the distribution of haplotypes on the islands suggests that the populations on most islands likely had separate recent origins on the mainland UP. Approximate Bayesian computation supports a scenario in which individual islands were colonized separately by distinct groups of mice. Together, the data suggest multiple colonization events from the UP, rather than expansion from a bottlenecked population or a single colonization event.

scholarly journals Movement of smallmouth bass within the Beaver Island Archipelago, northern Lake Michigan

2011 ◽  
Vol 37 (4) ◽  
pp. 625-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark A. Kaemingk ◽  
Tracy L. Galarowicz ◽  
John A. Clevenger ◽  
David F. Clapp
Keyword(s):  
Lake Michigan ◽  
Smallmouth Bass ◽  
Beaver Island

Niche Construction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Laland
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Biology ◽  
Niche Construction ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
The Body ◽  
Biological Anthropology ◽  
Extended Evolutionary Synthesis ◽  
Selection Pressures ◽  
Niche Construction Theory ◽  
Ecological Inheritance

Niche construction is the process whereby organisms, through their activities and choices, modify their own and each other’s niches. Examples of niche construction include the building of nests, burrows, and mounds and alternation of physical and chemical conditions by animals, and the creation of shade, influencing of wind speed, and alternation of nutrient cycling by plants. Here the “niche” is construed as the set of natural selection pressures to which the population is exposed (discussed in Ecology). By transforming natural selection pressures, niche construction generates feedback in evolution, on a scale hitherto underestimated and in a manner that alters the evolutionary dynamic. Niche construction also plays a critical role in ecology, in which it supports ecosystem engineering and eco-evolutionary feedbacks and, in part, regulates the flow of energy and nutrients through ecosystems. Niche construction theory is the body of formal (e.g., population genetic, population ecology) mathematical theory that explores niche construction’s evolutionary and ecological ramifications. Many organisms construct developmental environments for their offspring or modify environmental states for other descendants, a process known as “ecological inheritance.” In recent years, this ecological inheritance has been widely recognized as a core component of extra-genetic inheritance, and it is central to attempts within evolutionary biology to broaden the concept of heredity beyond transmission genetics. The development of many organisms—and the recurrence of traits across generations—has been found to depend critically on the construction of developmental environments by ancestors. Historically, the study of niche construction has been contentious because theoretical and empirical findings from niche construction theory appear to challenge some orthodox accounts of evolution. Many researchers studying niche construction embrace an alternative perspective in which niche construction is regarded as a fundamental evolutionary process in its own right, as well as a major source of adaptation. This perspective is aligned intellectually with other progressive movements within evolutionary biology that are calling for an extended evolutionary synthesis. In addition to ecology and evolution, niche construction theory has had an impact on a variety of disciplines, including archaeology, biological anthropology, conservation biology, developmental biology, earth sciences, and philosophy of biology.

James J. Strang: The Prophet Who Failed

1981 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence Foster
Keyword(s):  
Social Movements ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Lake Michigan ◽  
Charismatic Leadership ◽  
The Other ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Nineteenth Century America ◽  
The World ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Beaver Island

The founders of successful religious and social movements have received much attention from popular and scholarly writers. Would-be prophets who failed, on the other hand, generally have been ignored, except for a few sensational cases such as those of Sabbatai Sevi, the Jewish messianic pretender of the seventeenth century, or Jim Jones, whose charismatic leadership of a group suicide in Guyana shocked the nation and the world. Yet although religious leaders who fail usually attract little attention, they are often as interesting as those who succeed. Their lives vividly highlight aspects of new religious and social movements which we might otherwise overlook. One of the most remarkable religious failures in nineteenth- century America was James J. Strang, the schismatic Mormon prophet who set up a community of 2,500 on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan and ruled it for nearly ten years until he was assassinated in 1856. Strang was articulate and capable, a compelling intellect and speaker who seemed totally sincere to some yet an utter fraud to others. His life raises fundamental questions about the promise and the dangers inherent in prophetic leadership, not simply in early Mormonism but in many similar movements as well.

Reversing the Chicago River

2021 ◽  
pp. 165-192
Author(s):  
Joseph D. Kearney ◽  
Thomas W. Merrill
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Lake Michigan ◽  
Water Diversion ◽  
Illinois River ◽  
Dramatic Improvement ◽  
Chicago River ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Sanitary District

This chapter looks at the Chicago River and its effect on the lakefront. The chapter investigates how efforts to combat pollution in the river had the effect of cleaning up the water along the lakefront. It demonstrates how the lakefront ceased to be seen as a conduit for commerce — or as a repository for garbage and waste — and came to be regarded as an environmental and recreational amenity. The chapter then shifts to discuss the Chicago River's expansion. It details the obvious implications of the plan to reverse the river, sending sewage through the new canal into the Des Plaines River (whence to the Illinois River), for Illinois communities downstream from Chicago, such as Joliet and Peoria. The chapter also talks about the creation of the sanitary district at the close of the nineteenth century. It illustrates how the opening of the canal and the river's reversal produced an equally dramatic improvement in the quality of the water in the lake bordering Chicago. Ultimately, the chapter evaluates the challenges on the “Chicago diversion” of the waters of Lake Michigan and an endless stream of attempts to resolve the water diversion controversy.

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