scholarly journals Death recognition by undertaker bees

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Wen
Keyword(s):  
Body Temperature ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Apis Cerana ◽  
Cuticular Hydrocarbon ◽  
Pathogen Transmission ◽  
Physiological Status ◽  
Recognition Mechanism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bee Health ◽  
Behavioural Tests

AbstractDead conspecifics removal is important of being social to avoid pathogen transmission, which resulted in the evolution of a specific caste of undertaking workers in all hives bee species. However, it is mysterious that how the undertakers distinguish death and life instantly. Through integrative studies of behavioural tests and chemical analyses, a novel mechanism for dead conspecifics recognition is found in the Asian bee Apis cerana cerana Fabricius. The bees detect quickly the death of conspecifics based on decreased cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) emissions, caused by the cooling of the dead bee. Specifically, with the decline of body temperature in death, the CHC emission was reduced. Undertakers perceived the major CHCs. Addition of synthetic CHCs, followed by heating, inhibited undertaking behaviour. Among these CHCs, heptacosane and nonacosane are the major compounds in a natural bee hive, providing a continuous signal associated with life. Via changing the vapour pressure then the ratio of emitted compounds encoding the physiological status of signal sender, insect chemical communication can be finely tuned by body temperature. This straightforward death recognition mechanism requiring little cost can be universal in animal living in social groups, especially in the social insects. Body temperature affected behaviour can response to increasing frequency of extreme weathers in global climate change, which help explain the recent worldwide bee health problem.

scholarly journals Cuticular hydrocarbon profile for queen recognition in the termite Reticulitermes speratus

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuki Mitaka ◽  
Tadahide Fujita
Keyword(s):  
Cuticular Hydrocarbon ◽  
Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry ◽  
Reticulitermes Speratus ◽  
Recognition Mechanism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Queen Succession ◽  
Queen Recognition ◽  
And Function ◽  
Reproductive Division Of Labor ◽  
Reproductive Division

Abstract Chemical communication underlies the sophisticated colony organization of social insects. In these insects, cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs) play central roles in nestmate, task, and caste recognition, which contribute to maintenance of the social and reproductive division of labor. Queen-specific CHCs reflect queen fertility status and function as a queen recognition pheromone, triggering aggregation responses around the queens. However, there are only a few studies about the royal recognition mechanism in termites, and particularly, no study has reported about queen-specific CHCs in the species using asexual queen succession (AQS) system, in which the primary queen is replaced by neotenic queens produced parthenogenetically. In this study, we identified the CHC pheromone for neotenic queen recognition in the AQS termite species Reticulitermes speratus. Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analyses revealed that the relative amount of n-pentacosane was disproportionately greater in the CHC profiles of queens than in the CHC profiles of kings, soldiers, and workers. Furthermore, we investigated the cuticular chemicals of the queen aggregate workers; bioassays demonstrated that n-pentacosane shows a worker arrestant activity in the presence of workers’ cuticular extract. These results suggest that R. speratus workers identify whether each individual is a neotenic queen by recognizing the relatively higher ratio of n-pentacosane in the conspecific CHC background. Moreover, they suggest that termites have evolved queen recognition behavior, independently of social hymenopterans.

scholarly journals Climate crisis and social work: lack of climate crisis education in social work curriculum

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tasneem Zaman
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Code Of Ethics ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
The Social ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Natural Disaster Management

This paper argues that social work curriculum ignores the pressing matter of the ongoing global climate crisis. Using the theoretical frameworks of anti-racism and anti-colonialism, I propose four ways to deal with this curricular gap in social work, which are the following: 1) to insert ethical obligations on the part of social workers to address climate change and environmental justice within the social work code of ethics, 2) to expand the person-in-environment focus to include nature and environmental justice, 3) to embrace a transformative learning paradigm, and 4) to implement a mandatory course on natural disaster management.

scholarly journals Climate crisis and social work: lack of climate crisis education in social work curriculum

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tasneem Zaman
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Environmental Justice ◽  
Transformative Learning ◽  
Code Of Ethics ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Theoretical Frameworks ◽  
Address Climate Change ◽  
The Social ◽  
Climate Crisis ◽  
Natural Disaster Management

This paper argues that social work curriculum ignores the pressing matter of the ongoing global climate crisis. Using the theoretical frameworks of anti-racism and anti-colonialism, I propose four ways to deal with this curricular gap in social work, which are the following: 1) to insert ethical obligations on the part of social workers to address climate change and environmental justice within the social work code of ethics, 2) to expand the person-in-environment focus to include nature and environmental justice, 3) to embrace a transformative learning paradigm, and 4) to implement a mandatory course on natural disaster management.

‘Civil skepticism’ and the social construction of knowledge: A case in dendroclimatology

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (6) ◽  
pp. 821-845 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meritxell Ramírez-i-Ollé
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Science And Technology Studies ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Construction Of Knowledge ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Construction Of Knowledge ◽  
Blue Intensity

Early Science and Technology Studies (STS) scholars recognized that the social construction of knowledge depends on skepticism’s parasitic relationship to background expectations and trust. Subsequent generations have paid less empirical attention to skepticism in science and its relationship with trust. I seek to rehabilitate skepticism in STS – particularly, Merton’s view of skepticism as a scientific norm sustained by trust among status peers – with a study of what I call ‘civil skepticism’. The empirical grounding is a case in contemporary dendroclimatology and the development of a method (‘Blue Intensity’) for generating knowledge about climate change from trees. I present a sequence of four instances of civil skepticism involved in making Blue Intensity more resistant to critique, and hence credible (in laboratory experiments, workshops, conferences, and peer-review of articles). These skeptical interactions depended upon maintaining communal notions of civility among an increasingly extended network of mutually trusted peers through a variety of means: by making Blue Intensity complementary to existing methods used to study a diverse natural world (tree-ring patterns) and by contributing to a shared professional goal (the study of global climate change). I conclude with a sociological theory about the role of civil skepticism in constituting knowledge-claims of greater generality and relevance.

Bridging Theory and Practice

2019 ◽  
pp. 93-116
Author(s):  
Alix Dietzel
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Transnational Governance ◽  
The Social ◽  
Governance Processes ◽  
Change Problem ◽  
Climate Change Governance

Chapter Four sets out the parameters for the cosmopolitan assessment of climate governance. The chapter first provides overview of the processes involved in global climate change governance: multilateral (United Nations Framework for the Convention on Climate Change, or UNFCCC) and transnational (cities, corporations, NGOs, sub-state authorities). Following this, Chapter Four outlines why actors in the UNFCCC and actors involved in transnational governance processes can be held responsible for bringing about a just response to the climate change problem. The chapter grounds the responsibility of these actors in their capability to enable the three demands of justice set out in Chapter Three by restructuring the social and political context. Finally, Chapter Four outlines a methodological framework to clarify how current practice will be assessed. This framework is based on a four-point hierarchy that can be used to investigate to what extent global governance actors enable each demand of justice.

Web-Based Instruction Revolutionizes Environmental Systems Analysis

2016 ◽  
pp. 162-185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gilbert Ahamer
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Systems Analysis ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
University Teaching ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Web Based Learning ◽  
Environmental Systems ◽  
Environmental Systems Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Based Instruction

For university teaching in general, and specifically for the transdisciplinary curriculum of “Environmental Systems Analysis”, web-based learning procedures provide excellent opportunities for socially induced understanding and consensus building. This chapter describes how the social processes emerging in a five-level web-based negotiation game may be conceived in such a way that these form a sequence of growing and decaying intensity in various modes of social interaction. Similarly to individual learning in a classroom, a procedure could be applied to collective learning, namely to social procedures among humans who are starting to create institutional networks for combating global climate change – one of the most urgent tasks at present. A coordinate system of the four main social archetypes of action, namely “information”, “team”, “debate”, “integration” is symbolically called soprano, alto, tenor and bass; these four basic dimensions of social action tend to peak one after the other along a suitably designed gaming procedure.

A Genealogy of the Anthropocene: The End of Risk and Limits

2017 ◽  
Vol 72 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pierre Charbonnier
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Present Situation ◽  
Political Autonomy ◽  
Material Development ◽  
Fundamental Limit ◽  
Empirical Ground ◽  
Central Hypothesis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Shed Light

This article aims to shed light on the emergence of the Anthropocene as a concept within the social sciences and philosophy. It frames this evolution in the wider context of a crisis of knowledge, confronted with the need to consider global climate change as both an empirical ground and an inescapable political horizon. The central hypothesis is that the organization of knowledge concerning the relationships between modernity and nature has undergone a profound shift over the last decade, necessitating a reconfiguration of the two main concepts on which this knowledge relied: risk and limits. To consider the present situation through the concept of the Anthropocene is to imply that the rationality of risk (i.e., the suspension of modern political autonomy) and the notion of a fundamental limit to material development can no longer be considered separately. In the final part of the article, this hypothesis makes it possible to discuss some aspects of our current epistemological configuration.

scholarly journals Possible Effects of Climate Change on Ixodid Ticks and the Pathogens They Transmit: Predictions and Observations

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas H Ogden ◽  
C Ben Beard ◽  
Howard S Ginsberg ◽  
Jean I Tsao
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Animal Health ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Pathogen Transmission ◽  
Ixodid Ticks ◽  
Extreme Weather Events ◽  
Mountainous Regions ◽  
Recent Climate ◽  
Tick Survival

Abstract The global climate has been changing over the last century due to greenhouse gas emissions and will continue to change over this century, accelerating without effective global efforts to reduce emissions. Ticks and tick-borne diseases (TTBDs) are inherently climate-sensitive due to the sensitivity of tick lifecycles to climate. Key direct climate and weather sensitivities include survival of individual ticks, and the duration of development and host-seeking activity of ticks. These sensitivities mean that in some regions a warming climate may increase tick survival, shorten life-cycles and lengthen the duration of tick activity seasons. Indirect effects of climate change on host communities may, with changes in tick abundance, facilitate enhanced transmission of tick-borne pathogens. High temperatures, and extreme weather events (heat, cold, and flooding) are anticipated with climate change, and these may reduce tick survival and pathogen transmission in some locations. Studies of the possible effects of climate change on TTBDs to date generally project poleward range expansion of geographical ranges (with possible contraction of ranges away from the increasingly hot tropics), upslope elevational range spread in mountainous regions, and increased abundance of ticks in many current endemic regions. However, relatively few studies, using long-term (multi-decade) observations, provide evidence of recent range changes of tick populations that could be attributed to recent climate change. Further integrated ‘One Health’ observational and modeling studies are needed to detect changes in TTBD occurrence, attribute them to climate change, and to develop predictive models of public- and animal-health needs to plan for TTBD emergence.

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