1,721,105 research outputs found
Inquiline social parasites as tools to unlock the secrets of insect sociality
No full textInsect societies play a crucial role in the functioning of most ecosystems and have fascinated both scientists and the lay public for centuries. Despite the long history of study, we are still far from understanding how insect societies have evolved and how social cohesion in their colonies is maintained. Here we suggest inquiline social parasites of insect societies as an under-exploited experimental tool for understanding sociality. We draw on examples from obligate inquiline (permanent) social parasites in wasps, ants and bees to illustrate how these parasites may allow us to better understand societies and learn more about the evolution and functioning of insect societies. We highlight three main features of these social parasite–host systems—namely, close phylogenetic relationships, strong selective pressures arising from coevolution and multiple independent origins—that make inquiline social parasites particularly suited for this aim; we propose a conceptual comparative framework that considers trait losses, gains and modifications in social parasite–host systems. We give examples of how this framework can reveal the more elusive secrets of sociality by focusing on two cornerstones of sociality: communication and reproductive division of labour. Together with social parasites in other taxonomic groups, such as cuckoos in birds, social parasitism has a great potential to reveal the mechanisms and evolution of complex social groups
Ecosystem services provided by aculeate wasps
Full text linkThe aculeate wasps are one of the most diverse and speciose insect taxa; they are omnipresent across ecosystems and exhibit diverse co-evolutionary and exploitative associations with other organisms. There is widespread conjecture that aculeate wasps are likely to perform essential ecological and economic services of importance to the health, well-being and nutritional needs of our planet. However, the scope and nature of the ecosystem services they provide are not well understood relative to other insect groups (e.g. bees, butterflies, beetles); an appreciation of their value is further tarnished by their public reputation as pointless pests. Here, we conduct the first comprehensive review of how aculeate wasps contribute to the four main areas of ecosystem services: regulatory, provisioning, supporting and cultural services. Uniting data from a large but previously disconnected literature on solitary and social aculeate wasps, we provide a synthesis on how these insects perform important ecosystem services as parasites, predators, biological indicators, pollinators, decomposers and seed dispersers; and their additional services as a sustainable alternative to meat for human consumption, and medicinal potential as sources of research leads for anti-microbials and cancer treatments. We highlight how aculeate wasps offer substantial, but largely overlooked, economic benefits through their roles in natural pest management and biological control programs. Accordingly, we provide data-driven arguments for reasons to consider the ecosystem service value of aculeate wasps on a par with other ‘useful’ insects (e.g. bees). Finally, we provide a research roadmap identifying the key areas of research required to capitalise better on the services provided by these important insects
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Why we love bees and hate wasps
Full text link1. Bees and wasps are important facets of natural capital to be valued by human societies: bees pollinate wild flowers and agricultural crops; wasps regulate arthropod populations, including insect vectors of human diseases and crop pests. Despite the importance of both taxa, bees are universally loved whilst wasps are universally despised. This study explores some of the reasons behind this. 2. Here data are presented from almost 750 members of the public on their perceptions of insects, including bees and wasps. In addition, an analysis is conducted of researcher effort on bees and wasps, using publication numbers of peer-reviewed papers over the last 37 years, and unpublished conference proceedings at specialist international conferences over the last 16 years. 3. The results show that wasps are indeed universally disliked by the public and moreover are unpopular research taxa among researchers. Words used to describe wasps are emotive and negative, whilst those describing bees are functional and positive. A low level of interest in nature and a lack of knowledge (among the public) and research effort (among scientists) regarding the ecosystem services of wasps are likely to be at the root of the negative perception. Whilst the ecosystem services of bees are well understood by the public, those provided by wasps are poorly understood. 4. Positive action to promote research on wasps and to overhaul the public image of wasps via outreach and the media could help to reset the imbalance in appreciation of two of the world's most ecologically important taxa. Cultural shifts to a more positive attitude towards wasps could be pivotal in working with these facets of natural capital, rather than against them
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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