scholarly journals Dramatic niche shifts and morphological change in two insular bird species

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 140364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Per Alström ◽  
Knud A. Jønsson ◽  
Jon Fjeldså ◽  
Anders Ödeen ◽  
Per G. P. Ericson ◽  
...  

Colonizations of islands are often associated with rapid morphological divergence. We present two previously unrecognized cases of dramatic morphological change and niche shifts in connection with colonization of tropical forest-covered islands. These evolutionary changes have concealed the fact that the passerine birds madanga, Madanga ruficollis , from Buru, Indonesia, and São Tomé shorttail, Amaurocichla bocagii , from São Tomé, Gulf of Guinea, are forest-adapted members of the family Motacillidae (pipits and wagtails). We show that Madanga has diverged mainly in plumage, which may be the result of selection for improved camouflage in its new arboreal niche, while selection pressures for other morphological changes have probably been weak owing to preadaptations for the novel niche. By contrast, we suggest that Amaurocichla 's niche change has led to divergence in both structure and plumage.

Paleobiology ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-221 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dana H. Geary ◽  
Andrew W. Staley ◽  
Pál Müller ◽  
Imre Magyar

Iterative evolutionary changes are of special interest because they imply that the recurring morphological changes had a cause that also repeated itself and might therefore be possible to uncover. We describe a set of iterative morphological changes in melanopsid gastropods from the ancient, long-lived Lake Pannon. First in the Pannonian Age, and again in the Pontian Age approximately three million years later, a smooth-shelled ancestor gave rise to a shouldered descendant. In both cases, the morphological change was probably coincident with a shift from habitats just outside the lake (e.g., rivers and streams) to habitats within the lake itself. Many other convergent examples exist in which a smooth-shelled river dweller is closely related to a shouldered and/or ribbed lacustrine snail. The frequency of this type of morphological change suggests that it has an adaptive basis; response to differing predators or hydrodynamic conditions seem the most plausible explanations, but the functional nature of these morphological changes remains unknown.


Author(s):  
Anton Wahyudi

The novel Sepertiga Malam di Manhattan by Arumi E is very interesting to study. This novel is a novel about the struggle of a family to get happiness. This novel is the Arumi E's 27th newest novel. The struggle in this novel is to make the family happy, expecting for the baby. Before writing the novel, Arumi E did a research in the places written in the novel to achieve a very interesting fictional story and most of this story was taken from the traveling results so it was so interesting. The objective of this research is to describe (1) the Autopoetic System in the novel Sepertiga MalamdiManhattan by Arumi E. (2) The differentiation system in the Novel Sepertiga Malamdi Manhattan by Arumi E.The research method used is in the form of a descriptive qualitative method that uses a social system approach. The method used by the researcher is the dialectical method. The data source used in this research is the novel Sepertiga Malamdi Manhattan by Arumi E, published by Gramedia publisher in 2018. The data collection in this study uses the steps of reading the novel. To collect data, the researcher use any instrument.There are two results of the study: (1) The autopoetic system in the novel Sepertiga MalamdiManhattan by Arumi E. is concerning to some characters who have their own beliefs or rules in their lives who do not want to follow the rules of others, they are more confident in their own way to success and purpose of life. (2) The system of differentiation in the novel Sepertiga Malamdi Manhattan by Arumi E. is covering the handling of changes in the environment, the characters are able to adapt to the new environment, which has a different culture from the original culture. This shows evidence of the system autopoetic and differentiation in the novel Sepertiga MalamdiManhattan by Arumi E.


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-266
Author(s):  
Michelle L. Wilson

Initially, Oliver Twist (1839) might seem representative of the archetypal male social plot, following an orphan and finding him a place by discovering the father and settling the boy within his inheritance. But Agnes Fleming haunts this narrative, undoing its neat, linear transmission. This reconsideration of maternal inheritance and plot in the novel occurs against the backdrop of legal and social change. I extend the critical consideration of the novel's relationship to the New Poor Law by thinking about its reflection on the bastardy clauses. And here, of course, is where the mother enters. Under the bastardy clauses, the responsibility for economic maintenance of bastard children was, for the first time, legally assigned to the mother, relieving the father of any and all obligation. Oliver Twist manages to critique the bastardy clauses for their release of the father, while simultaneously embracing the placement of the mother at the head of the family line. Both Oliver and the novel thus suggest that it is the mother's story that matters, her name through which we find our own. And by containing both plots – that of the father and the mother – Oliver Twist reveals the violence implicit in traditional modes of inheritance in the novel and under the law.


Author(s):  
Deirdre David

In the mid- to late 1950s, Pamela emerged as a critically acclaimed novelist, particularly after the family returned to London. In perhaps her best-known novel, The Unspeakable Skipton, she explores the life of a paranoid writer who sponges on English visitors to Bruges. The novel was hailed for its wit and sensitive depiction of the life of a writer. She also published a fine study of a London vicar martyred in marriage to a vain and selfish wife: The Humbler Creation is remarkable for its incisive and empathetic depiction of male despair. The Last Resort sealed her distinction as a brilliant novelist of domestic life in its frank depiction of male homosexuality. While continuing to publish fiction, Pamela maintained her reputation as a deft reviewer. In 1954, she and Charles travelled to the United States—the first of many trips that were to follow.


Author(s):  
Jane Austen ◽  
Jane Stabler

‘Me!’ cried Fanny … ‘Indeed you must excuse me. I could not act any thing if you were to give me the world. No, indeed, I cannot act.’ At the age of ten, Fanny Price leaves the poverty of her Portsmouth home to be brought up among the family of her wealthy uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, in the chilly grandeur of Mansfield Park. There she accepts her lowly status, and gradually falls in love with her cousin Edmund. When the dazzling and sophisticated Henry and Mary Crawford arrive, Fanny watches as her cousins become embroiled in rivalry and sexual jealousy. As the company starts to rehearse a play by way of entertainment, Fanny struggles to retain her independence in the face of the Crawfords’ dangerous attractions; and when Henry turns his attentions to her, the drama really begins… This new edition does full justice to Austen’s complex and subtle story, placing it in its Regency context and elucidating the theatrical background that pervades the novel.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Yu-Liang Jiang ◽  
Xiao-Dong Xu ◽  
Bai-Rong Li ◽  
En-Da Yu ◽  
Zi-Ye Zhao ◽  
...  

Abstract Objective To report Peutz–Jeghers syndrome (PJS) cases with non-definitive clues in the family or personal history and finally diagnosed through pathological examination and STK11 gene mutation test. Clinical presentation and intervention PJS was suspected in 3 families with tortuous medical courses. Two of them had relatives departed due to polyposis or colon cancer without pathological results, and the other one had been diagnosed as hyperplastic polyposis before. Diagnosis of PJS was confirmed by endoscopy and repeated pathological examinations, and the STK11 mutation test finally confirmed the diagnosis at genetic level, during which 3 novel mutation were detected (536C > A, 373_374insA, 454_455insGGAGAAGCGTTTCCCAGTGTGCC). Conclusion Early diagnosis of PJS is important and may be based on a family history with selective features among family members, and the pathological information is the key. The novel mutations also expand the STK11 variant spectrum.


2019 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-297
Author(s):  
Yana D. Dimitrova ◽  
Boyko B. Georgiev ◽  
Jean Mariaux ◽  
Gergana P. Vasileva

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (50) ◽  
pp. e2107621118
Author(s):  
Daniel E. Lieberman ◽  
Timothy M. Kistner ◽  
Daniel Richard ◽  
I-Min Lee ◽  
Aaron L. Baggish

The proximate mechanisms by which physical activity (PA) slows senescence and decreases morbidity and mortality have been extensively documented. However, we lack an ultimate, evolutionary explanation for why lifelong PA, particularly during middle and older age, promotes health. As the growing worldwide epidemic of physical inactivity accelerates the prevalence of noncommunicable diseases among aging populations, integrating evolutionary and biomedical perspectives can foster new insights into how and why lifelong PA helps preserve health and extend lifespans. Building on previous life-history research, we assess the evidence that humans were selected not just to live several decades after they cease reproducing but also to be moderately physically active during those postreproductive years. We next review the longstanding hypothesis that PA promotes health by allocating energy away from potentially harmful overinvestments in fat storage and reproductive tissues and propose the novel hypothesis that PA also stimulates energy allocation toward repair and maintenance processes. We hypothesize that selection in humans for lifelong PA, including during postreproductive years to provision offspring, promoted selection for both energy allocation pathways which synergistically slow senescence and reduce vulnerability to many forms of chronic diseases. As a result, extended human healthspans and lifespans are both a cause and an effect of habitual PA, helping explain why lack of lifelong PA in humans can increase disease risk and reduce longevity.


2018 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-67
Author(s):  
Noa Reich

Noa Reich, “Seeing ‘No Guiltless Minds’: Inheritance and Liability in Wilkie Collins’s Armadale” (pp. 30–67) This essay suggests that the articulation of inherited guilt as a type of liability in Wilkie Collins’s Armadale (1866) invites us to reframe inheritance as central both to the Victorian credit economy and to the period’s fictional engagements with the effects of this economy. I begin by examining mid-nineteenth-century legal and political debates about limited corporate liability and estate debts, as well as legal theorist Henry Sumner Maine’s account of succession in Ancient Law (1861), which rests on an analogy between the family and the corporation. With their tropes of transmitted guilt, these discussions point to anxieties arising from the law’s construction of inherited identity as simultaneously individual and intergenerational, a paradox that both refracts and challenges nineteenth-century liberal contractual notions of identity. Armadale explores these issues through its depiction of the testator-heir dynamic as indeterminately singular and double, its association of inheritance with speculative ventures and impersonation, and its vacillation between affirming and limiting intergenerational liability. But it also fosters an alternative, mediating form of responsibility, which I call vicarious liability: a substitutive, imaginative liability both prompted and reinforced by the novel’s competing narrative perspectives and shifting or ambiguous focalization, as well as its embedded letters, diaries, and the depiction of reading as a path to identification with another’s guilt. Armadale’s take on inheritance may thus be read as a proposal for what the novel itself offers a hyper-contractual modernity: a framework for engaging in vicarious experiences of liability.


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