New multipodomerous appendages of stem-group euarthropods from the Cambrian (Stage 4) Guanshan Konservat-Lagerstätte

Stem-group euarthropods are important for understanding the early evolutionary and ecological history of the most species-rich animal phylum on Earth. Of particular interest are fossil taxa that occupy a phylogenetic position immediately crownwards of radiodonts, for this part of the euarthropod tree is associated with the appearance of several morphological features that characterize extant members of the group. Here, we report two new euarthropods from the Cambrian Stage 4 Guanshan Biota of South China. The fuxianhuiid Alacaris ? sp. is represented by isolated appendages composed of a gnathobasic protopodite and an endite-bearing endopod of at least 20 podomeres. This material represents the youngest occurrence of the family Chengjiangocarididae, and its first record outside the Chengjiang and Xiaoshiba biotas. We also describe Lihuacaris ferox gen. et sp. nov. based on well-preserved and robust isolated appendages. Lihuacaris ferox exhibits an atypical combination of characters including an enlarged rectangular base, 11 endite-bearing podomeres and a hypertrophied distal element bearing 8–10 curved spines. Alacaris ? sp. appendages display adaptations for macrophagy. Lihuacaris ferox appendages resemble the frontal appendages of radiodonts, as well as the post-oral endopods of chengjiangocaridid fuxianhuids and other deuteropods with well-documented raptorial/predatory habits. Lihuacaris ferox contributes towards the record of endemic biodiversity in the Guanshan Biota.

Understanding Riverine Urbanism in Kalimantan through Diachronic Approach: Case Study of Lanting Settlements in Sintang, Indonesia

Famous for its large rivers, Kalimantan is one of the islands in Indonesia that is characterized by a river-cultured society, where lanting or floating dwelling is one of various types of river settlements that represents a unique but also complex relationship between man and river. Despite their existence being in line with the historical development of river cities in Kalimantan, today’s urban lantings have come to be stigmatized as slums, due to society’s biased perspectives, and the dominance of the planning paradigm that is oriented towards “modern” land-based urban planning. Using the qualitative historical analysis method in the case study of lanting dwellings in Sintang, West Kalimantan, this study interprets the analytical dimensions of the complex relations between space, power and resources, which changes over time. Exploring the political-economic and ecological history shows the long journey of lanting’s existence that gave understanding of today’s lanting conditions, as well as understanding about the development of the cities themselves. This study concludes that the concept of river cities or waterfront cities in Kalimantan should be understood in a broader sense, beyond merely aesthetic and environmental considerations. Riverine settlement has deep historical roots in many Kalimantan cities and also represents complex relationships between city-hinterland and river-related urbanization process under the political-economic and ecological changes. Thus, consideration of the diachronic aspects of city-river relations should be an important basis for planning future Kalimantan cities.

Parental ecological history can differentially modulate parental age effects on offspring physiological traits in Drosophila

Parents adjust their reproductive investment over their lifespan based on their condition, age, and social environment, creating the potential for inter-generational effects to differentially affect offspring physiology. To date, however, little is known about how social environments experienced by parents throughout development and adulthood influence the effect of parental age on the expression of life-history traits in the offspring. Here, I collected data on Drosophila melanogaster offspring traits (i.e., body weight, water content and lipid reserves) from populations where either mothers, fathers both or neither parents experienced different social environments during development (larval crowding) and adulthood. Parental treatment modulated parental age effects on offspring lipid reserves but did not influence parental age effects on offspring water content. Importantly, parents in social environments where all individuals were raised in uncrowded larval densities produced daughters and sons lighter than parental treatments which produced the heaviest offspring. The peak in offspring body weight was delayed relative to the peak in parental reproductive success, but more strongly so for daughters from parental treatments where some or all males in the parental social environments were raised in crowded larval densities (irrespective of their social context), suggesting a potential father-to-daughter effect. Overall, the findings of this study reveal that parental ecological history (here, developmental and adult social environments) can modulate the effects of parental age at reproduction on the expression of offspring traits.

‘Shattering’ and ‘Violent’ Forces: Gender, Ecology, and Catastrophe in George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss

This article argues that George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (1860) aligns natural catastrophe with the image of the disastrous female body in order to challenge contemporary geological readings of nature as a balanced, self-regulating domain. Both incorporating and revising the work of Charles Lyell, Oliver Goldsmith, and Georges Cuvier, Eliot emphasises the interconnectedness of human and planetary processes, feminises environmental catastrophe, and blends human and ecological history. She does so in order to write the human presence back into geological histories that tended to evacuate the human, and to invite readers to account for the effects their lifestyles and industries have upon the supposedly balanced and orderly processes of nature.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR AT THE EASTERN FRONT: HISTORIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE AND RESEARCH PROSPECTS

A lacuna that clearly needs to be filled and remains among various topics of the ecological history of the First World War is the Eastern front theme. The authors of this historiographical essay attempt to analyze various papers and monographs on the ecological history of the First World War, such as works on ecological history and history of technologies, works on socio- and cultural-ecological aspects of the Great War, as well as publications on the experience of military occupation at the Eastern Front and its impact on the ecosystems of different regions. A critical analysis of the achievements and limitations of modern historiography allow the authors to emphasize thematic fields of perspective research. The authors notice that the Eastern front is still obscure and largely ignored by English-speaking scholars. The historiography includes a wide variety of thematic fields. Most of them are related to environmental changes in West European war theatre, as well as in colonial landscapes. Such a view deforms the general picture of the Great War. So, the reconstruction of the military impact on the landscapes of the Eastern front, attempts to economically organize the war space by different armies on the same territories, as well as the transformations of local population's management practice, seem to correct the idea of the universality of the Western front processes and phenomena.