Gender Differences in Environmental Correlates of Cycling Activity among Older Urban Adults

Cycling is a form of active transport that can improve the level of health among the elderly population. However, little is known about the environmental correlates of bicycle use among older adults. This study investigated the relationship between the built and social environment and the gender differences in cycling frequency among older urban adults in China. The data were derived from a household travel survey in 2012 and covered thirty-three urban neighborhoods in Zhongshan. The results suggest that denser intersections are negatively related to cycling trips among both older men and women. Reverse associations for either gender, however, are observed between the average income in a neighborhood and cycling frequency. For older women, living far from a bus stop is positively correlated to an increase in daily cycling trips. For older men, social environment, including the proportions of employed or elderly people in a neighborhood, is significantly associated with cycling activity. The findings facilitate the understanding of the gender gap in cycling activity among older urban adults, and help towards designing effective planning strategies as health interventions.

Environmental Correlates of Adolescent’ Materialism: Interpersonal Role Models, Media Exposure, and Family Socio-economic Status

The present study examined how adolescents’ materialism relates to interpersonal materialism role models (i.e., mothers’, fathers’, siblings’, and peers’), media exposure, and family socio-economic status (SES). We obtained our data from the adolescent, his/her mother and father, and one each of his/her siblings and peers. The results showed that mother’s, father’s, sibling’s and peer’s’, materialism are approximately equally strong predictors of adolescents’ materialism. Further analyses, using structural equation modeling, revealed that interpersonal materialism role models and media exposure both positively predicted adolescents’ materialism; in contrast to past literature, family SES was also significantly positively related to adolescents’ materialism. Limitations and implications of the current project are discussed.

Environmental Correlates of Sexual Signaling in the Heteroptera: A Prospective Study

Sexual selection is a major evolutionary process, shaping organisms in terms of success in competition for access to mates and their gametes. The study of sexual selection has provided rich empirical and theoretical literature addressing the ecological and evolutionary causes and consequences of competition for gametes. However, there remains a bias towards individual, species-specific studies, whilst broader, cross-species comparisons looking for wider-ranging patterns in sexual selection remain uncommon. For instance, we are still some ways from understanding why particular kinds of traits tend to evolve under sexual selection, and under what circumstances. Here we consider sexual selection in the Heteroptera, a sub-order of the Hemiptera, or true bugs. The latter is the largest of the hemimetabolous insect orders, whilst the Heteroptera itself comprises some 40,000-plus described species. We focus on four key sexual signaling modes found in the Heteroptera: chemical signals, acoustic signaling via stridulation, vibrational (substrate) signaling, and finally tactile signaling (antennation). We compare how these modes vary across broad habitat types and provide a review of each type of signal. We ask how we might move towards a more predictive theory of sexual selection, that links mechanisms and targets of sexual selection to various ecologies.

Parental, Gestational, and Early-life Exposure to Indoor Environmental Hazardous Facto Rs on Allergic Rhinitis Among Preschool Children in Urumqi City: A Case-control Study

BackgroundAllergic rhinitis is a disease associated with impaired quality of life and heredity. This study aimed to investigate the association of allergic rhinitis (AR) in preschool children with exposure to indoor environment-related factors early in life. MethodsIn August 2019, we implemented a study among 2020 preschool children in Urumqi City using a case-control design. The study included parental reports for the occurrence of AR in children, parental history of respiratory disease, and indoor environmental correlates of maternal exposure from 1 year prior to pregnancy until the child's age of 0-1 years.ResultsMode of birth (caesarean section) (OR=1.31, 95%CI=1.02~1.67), father with AR (OR=2.67, 95%CI=2.08~3.44), mother with AR (OR=3.70, 95%CI=2.88~4.74), mother with asthma (OR=3.11, 95%CI=1.18~8.20), and mother with newly purchased furniture in the parents' residence during pregnancy (OR=1.49, 95%CI=1.03~2.14) were risk factors for AR in children. ConclusionsThe focus of allergic rhinitis should should be on children with a family history of AR and asthma and caesarean delivery. Primary prevention efforts for AR in preschool children are avoiding exposure of children to indoor environmental hazardous factors early in life.

Biogeographical affinity shapes relationships between ecological and phylogenetic mammal diversity and associations with their environmental correlates in the Americas

We evaluate the role of biogeographical affinity in shaping relationships between ecological diversity as a proxy of functional diversity and phylogenetic diversity and their association with environmental variation, across tropical and temperate latitudes of the Americas. If environmental niches are evolutionarily conserved, high mammal taxa of tropical and temperate affinity will show consistent differences in these relationships. Accordingly, mammal groups of tropical affinity (old-autochthonous: marsupials and xenarthrans; and mid-Cenozoic immigrants: hystricognaths and primates) show stronger positive correlations between ecological and phylogenetic diversity within the tropics than those from extra-tropical latitudes where newcomers from North America (artiodactyls) show the strongest positive correlations. The other group of newcomers (carnivorans), however, show a peak in the association that include both tropical and extra-tropical latitudes of South America. Climate predominates over topographic relief in structuring the spatial variation of ecological and phylogenetic mammal diversity. The environmental structuring of ecological and phylogenetic mammal diversity across the Americas is more complex than expected from a latitudinal diversity gradient. Dry seasonal tropical habitats generated considerable heterogeneity in relationships between ecological and phylogenetic diversity and their association with environmental correlates. We conclude that biogeographical affinity and regional associations between the different components of diversity and the environment should be considered for a comprehensive explanation of covariation between ecological and phylogenetic diversity on a continental scale.

Hermaphroditism in fish: incidence, distribution and associations with abiotic environmental factors

The distribution of hermaphroditism in fishes has traditionally been mainly explained by its dependence on biotic factors. However, correlates with major abiotic factors have not been investigated on a quantitative basis and at a global scale. Here, we determined the incidence of hermaphroditism in fish at the family and species level, tested the hypothesis that evolutionary relationships account for the poor presence of hermaphroditism in freshwater species, and tested the association of sexual systems with latitude, habitat type and depth. Functional hermaphroditism is reported in 8 orders, 34 families and 370 species of fishes, all teleosts. Sequential hermaphroditism predominates over simultaneous hermaphroditism at a ratio ~ 5:1 and protogyny (female-to-male sex change) predominates ~ 6:1 over protandry (male-to-female). We found 12 hermaphroditic species that can live in freshwater. However, seven of these species are from four primarily marine families while there are only five species from two mostly freshwater families. Protogynous and bi-directional sex changers have a tighter association with reef-associated tropical and subtropical habitats when compared to protandrous species, which tend to be more plastic in terms of distribution requirements. Finally, simultaneous hermaphrodite species live both in the deep sea and shallow waters in similar proportions. This study can be the basis for further research in specific groups for different purposes, including ecological and evolutionary issues as well as conservation and management of exploited species. Understanding the environmental correlates can help to forecast changes in the distribution or phenology of hermaphrodites in a global change scenario.