1,090 research outputs found
Letter from Upton Sinclair to Melville L. Kress - December 22, 1938
No full textA letter from Upton Sinclair to Melville Kress, dated December 22, 1938, in which Sinclair reflects on relationships and interactions he had as a young author
Letter from Upton Sinclair to Melville L. Kress - June 29, 1933
No full textA brief letter from Upton Sinclair to Melville Kress, dated June 29, 1933, in which Sinclair mentions the author [Thomas] Hardy, calling his books 'pretentious and boring.
Letter from Upton Sinclair to Melville L. Kress - August 5, 1940
No full textA letter from Upton Sinclair to Melville Kress, dated August 5, 1940, in which Sinclair thanks him for his notes on the manuscript, but will not be using some of his suggestions. Sinclair also states that he has been busy writing and getting material from his friend, Martin Birnbaum. Martin Birnbaum, a longtime friend and classmate of Sinclair, was an international art dealer, critic and author, and was the inspiration for the character Lanny Budd, the hero of the World's End series
Phylogenetic and non-phylogenetic patterns in the richness, frequency and composition of links in a herbivore-parasitoid interaction network
No full textRevealing processes that structure species interactions is central to understanding community assembly and dynamics. Species interact via their phenotypes, but identifying and quantifying the traits that structure species-specific interactions (links) can be challenging. Where these traits show phylogenetic signal, however, link properties may be predictable using models that incorporate phylogenies in place of trait data. We analysed variation in link richness, frequency, and species identity in a multi-site dataset of interactions between oak cynipid galls and parasitoid natural enemies, using a Bayesian mixed modelling framework allowing concurrent fitting of phylogenetic effects of both trophic levels. In both link incidence (presence/absence) and link frequency datasets, we identified strong signatures of cophylogeny (related parasitoids attack related host galls) alongside patterns independent of either phylogeny. Our results are robust to simulations of substantially reduced sample completeness, and are consistent with the structuring of trophic interactions by a combination of phylogenetically conserved and convergently evolving traits in both trophic levels. We discuss our results in light of phenotypic traits thought to structure gall-parasitoid interactions and consider wider applications of this approach, including inference of underlying community assembly processes and prediction of economically important trophic interactions
SUPERSEDED - Structure and composition of tritrophic communities associated with Fagaceae-feeding cynipid gallwasps in Sichuan, China
No full text## This item has been replaced by the one which can be found at https://doi.org/10.7488/ds/7756 ##
A key question in the assembly of biological communities is the extent to which trophic links between higher trophic levels are structured by ‘bottom-up’ effects. Here we explore bottom-up host plant effects on the structure of communities of Fagaceae host plants, cynipid gall wasps and parasitoid natural enemies in western Sichuan, China. We use quantified interaction data to test the hypotheses that, relative to parasitoid-tree associations, links between cynipids and Fagaceae are (1) more specialised, resulting in (2) more modular networks and (3) stronger signatures of turnover than nestedness for plant-associated beta diversity. Because no Linnaean classification exists for this study system we developed a working taxonomy based on gall morphotypes and parasitoid morphospecies, supported by DNA barcoding of gall inducers. Rearing of nearly 43,000 cynipid gall specimens from 23 host plant species in Castanea, Castanopsis, Lithocarpus and four sections in the genus Quercus (Cerris, Cyclobalanopsis, Ilex and Quercus) yielded 176 morphologically distinct cynipid gall morphotypes. We reared over 4500 specimens of 64 parasitoid morphospecies in the families Braconidae, Cynipencyrtidae, Eulophidae, Eupelmidae, Eurytomidae, Megastigmidae, Ormyridae, Pteromalidae and Torymidae. Our predictions were confirmed. We highlight the challenges facing research on biodiverse communities with a substantial taxonomic impediment, and discuss our findings in light of the processes thought to structure tritrophic interactions centred on endophytic insect herbivores. We summarise compositional and structural parallels of our study communities with Fagaceae-associated cynipid communities elsewhere and avenues for future research
Food web structure changes with elevation but not rainforest strata
No full textChanges in species richness along elevational gradients are well documented. However, little is known about how trophic interactions between species and, in particular, the food webs that these interactions comprise, change with elevation. Here we present results for the first comparison of quantitative food webs in forest understorey and canopy along an elevational gradient. Replicate quantitative food webs were constructed for assemblages involving 23 species of cavity‐nesting Hymenoptera and 12 species of their parasitoids and kleptoparasites in subtropical rainforest in Australia. A total of 1589 insects were collected using trap nests across 20 plots distributed at sites ranging from 300 to 1100 m a.s.l. Insect abundance, insect diversity and parasitism rate generally decreased with increasing elevation. Food web structure significantly changed with elevation. In particular, weighted quantitative measures of linkage density, interaction evenness, nestedness (weighted NODF) and potential for enemy mediated interactions (PAC) decreased with increasing elevation, and network specialisation (H2′) increased with increasing elevation, even after controlling for matrix size; but there was no change in weighted connectance. Changes in forest type and temperature along the elevational gradient are likely to be, at least partly, responsible for the patterns observed. We found no significant differences in insect abundance, insect diversity or parasitism rate between canopy and understorey. Furthermore, there were no differences in food web structure between strata. These results contribute further evidence to studies revealing changes in food web structure along natural environmental gradients and provide information that can potentially be used for predicting how communities may respond to climate change.No Full Tex
An account of the loss of the Country Ship Forbes and Frazer Sinclair, her late Commander
No full textThis paper reports on the life of the English Country trader Captain Frazer Sinclair leading up to and following the loss of the Forbes in the Karimata Strait in 1806. It examines the adventure and tenuous times of trading around the Indonesian archipelago after the fall of the VOC and subsequent transfer to the British. Included are the details of Captain Sinclair’s trading history, multiple prizes as a privateer, and shipwrecks
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