Female in-nest attendance predicts the number of ectoparasites in Darwin's finch species

Selection should act on parental care and favour parental investment decisions that optimize the number of offspring produced. Such predictions have been robustly tested in predation risk contexts, but less is known about alternative functions of parental care under conditions of parasitism. The avian vampire fly ( Philornis downsi ) is a myasis-causing ectoparasite accidentally introduced to the Galápagos Islands, and one of the major mortality causes in Darwin's finch nests. With an 11-year dataset spanning 21 years, we examine the relationship between parental care behaviours and number of fly larvae and pupae in Darwin's finch nests. We do so across three host species ( Camarhynchus parvulus , C. pauper , Geospiza fuliginosa ) and one hybrid Camarhynchus group. Nests with longer female brooding duration (minutes per hour spent sitting on hatchlings to provide warmth) had fewer parasites, and this effect depended on male food delivery to chicks. Neither male age nor number of nest provisioning visits were directly associated with number of parasites. While the causal mechanisms remain unknown, we provide the first empirical study showing that female brooding duration is negatively related to the number of ectoparasites in nests. We predict selection for coordinated host male and female behaviour to reduce gaps in nest attendance, especially under conditions of novel and introduced ectoparasites.

Visualizing Disease and ‘Depravity’ in the Weimar Republic: The Film Roles and Dance Performances of Anita Berber and Otto Dix’s Bildnis der Tänzerin Anita Berber

During Germany’s Weimar Republic (1918–33), women who did not conform to conventional expectations for “proper” female behaviour were met with suspicion and criticism. Due to their embrace of sexual liberation and economic independence, interwar New Women were often unfairly associated with prostitutes and cultural degeneration. Anita Berber, a drug-addicted nude dancer and actress in multiple Aufklärungsfilme, was regarded as the embodiment of debauched modern womanhood. However, her persona intrigued Neue Sachlichkeit artist, Otto Dix, who enjoyed offending bourgeois sensibilities. Dix captured her likeness in the painting Bildnis der Tänzerin Anita Berber (1925) but altered her features to make her look aged and sickly. Amid growing bourgeois fears about postwar societal decay, Dix utilized Berber’s painted body to engage Weimar discourses about the threat of the sexually liberated Neue Frau, the pervasiveness of the so-called depravity of metropolitan life, and the fear of the loosening grip of patriarchal social control.

Oviposition after sex: mated Anastrepha ludens (Diptera: Tephritidae) females increase oviposition without receiving an ejaculate

Mating and receiving ejaculate can alter female insect physiology and postcopulatory behaviour. During mating, females receive both internal and external stimuli and different components in the ejaculate. In insects, these components consist mostly of sperm and male accessory gland secretions. Some of the most important changes associated with receiving male accessory gland secretions are a reduction in female sexual receptivity and an increase in oviposition. However, a clear function for these molecules has not been found in the Mexican fruit fly Anastrepha ludens (Loew) (Diptera: Tephritidae). Here, we tested how the stimulus of mating, receiving a full ejaculate, or only receiving accessory gland secretions can influence ovarian development and oviposition. Our results indicate that the stimulus of mating per se is enough to induce oviposition and increase egg laying in females even if ejaculate is not received, whereas receiving only accessory gland secretions does not increase ovarian development and is not enough to induce oviposition or increase egg production. Further research on the internal and external copulatory courtship of A. ludens will increase our understanding of the role of these secretions in stimulating oviposition independent of ejaculate effects. A biological function for male accessory gland secretions on female behaviour for A. ludens still needs to be found.

Female putty-nosed monkeys ( Cercopithecus nictitans ) vocally recruit males for predator defence

Alarm calls can trigger very different behavioural changes in receivers and signallers might apply different alarm call strategies based on their individual cost-benefit ratio. These cost-benefit ratios can also vary as a function of sex. For instance, male but not female forest guenons possess loud alarms that serve warning and predator deterrence functions, but also intergroup spacing and male–male competition. In some forest guenons, the context specificity and alarm call repertoire size additionally differs between females and males but it remains unclear if this corresponds to similar sexual dimorphisms in alarm calling strategies. We here experimentally investigated whether general female and more context-specific male alarm calls in putty-nosed monkeys ( Cercopithecus nictitans ) had different effects on the opposite sex's behaviour and whether they might serve different female and male alarm calling strategies. We presented a leopard model separately to the females or to the male of several groups while ensuring that the opposite sex only heard alarm calls of target individuals. While female alarms led to the recruitment of males in the majority of cases, male alarms did not have a similar effect on female behaviour. Males further seem to vocally advertise their engagement in group defence with more unspecific alarms while approaching their group. Males switched alarm call types once they spotted the leopard model and started mobbing behaviour. Females only ceased to alarm call when males produced calls typically associated with anti-predator defence, but not when males produced unspecific alarm calls. Our results suggest that sexual dimorphisms in the context specificity of alarms most likely correspond to different alarm calling strategies in female and male putty-nosed monkeys.

Tomboys in Sarah Grand’s New Woman Fiction

Sarah Grand’s The Beth Book (1897) and Babs the Impossible (1901) both feature overtly tomboyish protagonists, in what I argue is an effort to shift notions of femininity and gender identity and to adopt gender-neutral qualities as features of the New Woman – qualities such as independence, comradeship, and loyalty to other human beings. In this essay, I argue that Grand attempted to soften resistance to the New Woman by focusing on tomboyism in childhood (utilizing people’s tendency to feel favourably towards children) and then extending tomboy qualities to New Womanhood while providing the Victorian public with an exemplar of independent and robust femininity. The critical difference between a prototypical tomboy figure and the one in New Woman fiction is that the latter keeps their tomboyism after maturity, sublimating the trait into her natural self, faithful to herself and her ideas. Beyond the trope of the childhood tomboy, Grand aimed to bolster and strengthen womanhood by adopting tomboyism as an extension of a natural self and redefine notions of acceptable female behaviour, thereby expanding the scope of womanhood.

Minimal prezygotic isolation between ecologically divergent sibling species

Divergence in mating signals typically accompanies speciation. We examine two ecologically divergent sibling species of crickets to assess the degree and timing of the evolution of prezygotic reproductive isolation. Gryllus saxatilis occurs in rocky habitats throughout western North America with long-winged individuals capable of long-distance dispersal; Gryllus navajo is endemic to red-rock sandstone areas of south-eastern Utah and north-eastern Arizona and has short-winged individuals only capable of limited dispersal. Previous genetic work suggested some degree of introgression and/or incomplete lineage sorting is likely. Here we: (1) use restriction site associated DNA sequencing (RAD-seq) genetic data to describe the degree of genetic divergence among species and populations; (2) examine the strength of prezygotic isolation by (i) quantifying differences among male mating songs, and (ii) testing whether females prefer G. saxatilis or G. navajo calling songs. Our results show that genetically distinct “pure” species populations and genetically intermediate populations exist. Male mating songs are statistically distinguishable, but the absolute differences are small. In playback experiments, females from pure populations had no preference based on song; however, females from a genetically intermediate population preferred G. navajo song. Together these results suggest that prezygotic isolation is minimal, and mediated by female behaviour in admixed populations.

Amazons and fallen women: transgressive female behaviour in the novels of Giuseppe Garibaldi

This article draws attention to the understudied literary career of one of Italy's most famous patriots, Giuseppe Garibaldi. From 1868 to 1874, Garibaldi wrote and published three novels: Clelia (1870), Cantoni (1870), and I Mille (1874). Scholars have recognised the works as evidence of Garibaldi's anticlericalism and dissatisfaction with Italy's political moderatism, but have not yet sufficiently shown how the novels reveal the influence of Garibaldi's involvement with the female emancipation movement and his personal relationships with unconventional women. While Garibaldi is less well-known for his feminism than other men of the left, like Giuseppe Mazzini, his fictional heroines celebrate female physical strength and violence, offer women a means of participating in the nation outside the home, and challenge the predominant sexual double standard. While acknowledging that Garibaldi often conformed to prevailing patriarchal literary conventions, this article argues that his novels simultaneously offer support for the values of female emancipation.

Host discrimination in the fruit fly parasitoid Diachasmimorpha longicaudata: evidence from virgin female behaviour and egg distribution patterns

Many parasitoid species discriminate already parasitized hosts, thus avoiding larval competition. However, females incur in superparasitism under certain circumstances. Superparasitism is commonly observed in the artificial rearing of the parasitoid Diachasmimorpha longicaudata, yet host discrimination has been previously suggested in this species. Here, we addressed host discrimination in virgin D. longicaudata females in a comprehensive way by means of direct and indirect methods, using Ceratitis capitata and Anastrepha fraterculus which are major fruit fly pests in South America. Direct methods relied on the description of the foraging behaviour of females in arenas with parasitized and non-parasitized host larvae. In the indirect methods, healthy larvae were offered to single females and the egg distributions were compared to a random distribution. We found that D. longicaudata was able to recognize parasitized host from both host species, taking 24 h since a first parasitization for A. fraterculus and 48 h for C. capitata. Indirect methods showed females with different behaviours for both host species: complete discrimination, non-random (with superparasitism), and random distributions. A larger percentage of females reared and tested on A. fraterculus incurred in superparasitism, probably associated with higher fecundity. In sum, we found strong evidence of host discrimination in D. longicaudata, detecting behavioural variability associated with the host species, the time since the first parasitization and the fecundity of the females.