I saw a video on youtube the other day that has gotten me fairly depressed about the current state of our environmental policy. In this video, filmed in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit, a 12 year old Canadian girl implores the UN delegates to change the policies of their countries to help save the planet. She lists all of the awful things that were occurring way back in 1992. She is very articulate in her arguments and states that it is adults who are destroying the world that their children will inherit, pointing to the hypocrisy of how adults teach children to behave and then how adults themselves act towards the planet. The thing that I found most depressing was that every single issue that she lists is still a major problem now, 22 years later. Most of these problems will have been exacerbated in the intervening years, meaning that the magnitude of the worlds ills are far worse now than they were when she was speaking. This means that all of calls to arms fell on deaf ears. We need to heed her words sooner rather than later, or we will (as I fear) get past a point of no return with respect to many of the environmental issues facing the globe. For many species any such changes have already come to late. 

Then to add to the dissolution with mankind that came after watching this, two news articles this week regarding the badger cull and the unnecessary killing of birds of prey in the UK. The ruling by the British courts mean that the Badger Cull does not require an independent reviewing and monitoring body, reducing the creditability of any data that comes out of the cull. This adds to the fact that the cull has again not hit targets for badgers shot, which will actually increase the risk of bovine TB transmission. This is an example of the idiocy by the legal establishment. With regards to the killing of raptors, this is just a sickening and depressing thing to see. These are majestic and beautiful creatures, many of which are endangered. I just hope that the people responsible are court and prosecuted, but that means relying on the same legal system that seems to willingly defy common sense and the scientific consensus.

But fear not, there are a lot of organisations out there fighting for our planet. One book that will give you hope is Andre Balmford's book Wild Hope. It documents conservation successes, so it's a good thing to read when your had a news week like this!! And positive news from Ethiopia, re-greening appears to be working!! (Link below) So don't despair, if we all make a concious effort and do what Ghandi said ("be the change you wish to see") then we can make a difference, despite the lack of willpower from the political establishment.

Youtube video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVsCnk1b5qc
 
Badger cull
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/29/badger-cull-campaigners-lose-legal-battle


Birds of prey
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/30/hundreds-of-birds-of-prey-being-shot-or-poisoned-in-uk-rspb

Positive conservation stuff to restore your faith in humanity
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo13823467.html

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/30/regreening-program-to-restore-land-across-one-sixth-of-ethiopia

My last post was a bit deep and slightly depressing, so here a link to a great video about the amazing transformative effect that re-introducing wolves to Yellowstone Park had on its ecosystem.

http://themetapicture.com/when-they-brought-these-wolves/


It's also narrated by George Monbiot.

This is an issue that is a bit personal for me but I thought that it might be a good idea to put up some papers that have investigated this. Infanticide is a common behaviour observed in nature, male lions and langurs are well known to perform infanticide upon taking dominance in a new group. The new male will benefit from the females coming into oestrous sooner and by resources going to his offspring and not those of other males. It is a well studied area of sexual conflict by behavioural ecologists. However, this phenomenon is not restricted to "the animal kingdom", as studies have shown that survival rates of children in families where the "man of the house" is not their father are lower than those who live with their genetic father. A quote from one of the studies whose abstracts are pasted below:
"Extrapolating from available data, the results indicated a considerably greater risk represented by stepfathers than by genetic fathers. At least five times as many children live with genetic fathers, while the raw frequencies of filicide were roughly equal in the two groups." (Harris et al. 2007). Research like this and studies such as Sarkadi et al. (2008)s', who end their abstract with"Conclusions: There is evidence to support the positive influence of father engagement on offspring social, behavioural and psychological outcomes. Although the literature only provides sufficient basis for engagement (direct interaction with the child) as the specific form of ‘effective’ father involvement, there is enough support to urge both professionals and policy makers to improve circumstances for involved fathering." , should be used by law makers to adjust the current system of family law in the UK.

Three studies investigating the risk stepparents pose to children:

Harris et al. (2008) Children killed by genetic parents versus stepparents. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28: 85-90 
Despite many empirical studies of children killed by parents, there has been little theoretical progress. An examination of 378 cases in a national register revealed that circumstances differed for genetic parents versus stepparents. Infants were at greatest risk of filicide, especially by genetic mothers. Genetic mothers who killed offspring, especially older children, disproportionately had a mental illness and received relatively short sentences, if convicted. Filicides by genetic fathers were disproportionately accompanied by marital discord, suicide, and uxoricide. Filicides by stepparents were disproportionately common and likely to involve ongoing abuse and death by beating. Moreover, if parents also had genetic offspring, their stepchildren were at increased risk of ongoing abuse and neglect prior to death. Poor child health appeared to increase the risk of filicide by genetic mothers, especially as remaining opportunities for childbearing diminished. Although each finding might be consistent with existing lay accounts of filicide (depression, socioeconomic stress, etc.), together, they yielded a pattern uniquely consistent with selectionist accounts based mainly on parental investment theory.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S109051380600064X

Daly & Wilson (1988) Evolutionary social psychology and family homicide. Science, 242: 519-524
Homicide is an extreme manifestation of interpersonal conflict with minimal reporting bias and can thus be used as a conflict "assay." Evolutionary models of social motives predict that genetic relationship will be associated with mitigation of conflict, and various analyses of homicide data support this prediction. Most "family" homicides are spousal homicides, fueled by male sexual proprietariness. In the case of parent-offspring conflict, an evolutionary model predicts variations in the risk of violence as a function of the ages, sexes, and other characteristics of protagonists, and these predictions are upheld in tests with data on infanticides, parricides, and filicides.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/242/4878/519.abstract

Temrin et al (2004) Are stepchildren over–represented as victims of lethal parental violence in Sweden? Proc R Soc, 271: S124-S126
Evolutionary psychologists have suggested that stepchildren should be over–represented as victims of lethal parental violence compared with children living with their two genetic parents, because of relatively more lapses in parental solicitude among step–parents. In our study, using data over a period of 35 years in Sweden (1965–1999), there was no overall over–representation of stepchildren as victims. For very young stepchildren there was a tendency for over–representation. In families with both stepchildren and children genetically related to the offender, genetic children tended to be more likely to be victims.

http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/271/Suppl_3/S124.short

Study showing the importance of fathers in the development of children:



Sarkadi et al. (2008) Fathers' involvement and children's developmental outcomes: a systematic review of longitudinal studies. Acta Paediatria, 97:153-158
Objective: This systematic review aims to describe longitudinal evidence on the effects of father involvement on children's developmental outcomes.
Methods: Father involvement was conceptualized as accessibility (cohabitation), engagement, responsibility or other complex measures of involvement. Both biological fathers and father figures were included. We searched all major databases from the first dates. Data on father involvement had to be generated at least 1 year before measuring offspring outcomes.
Results: N = 24 publications were included in the overview: 22 of these described positive effects of father involvement, whereof 16 studies had controlled for SES and 11 concerned the study population as a whole [five socio-economic status (SES)-controlled]. There is certain evidence that cohabitation with the mother and her male partner is associated with less externalising behavioural problems. Active and regular engagement with the child predicts a range of positive outcomes, although no specific form of engagement has been shown to yield better outcomes than another. Father engagement seems to have differential effects on desirable outcomes by reducing the frequency of behavioural problems in boys and psychological problems in young women, and enhancing cognitive development, while decreasing delinquency and economic disadvantage in low SES families.
Conclusions: There is evidence to support the positive influence of father engagement on offspring social, behavioural and psychological outcomes. Although the literature only provides sufficient basis for engagement (direct interaction with the child) as the specific form of ‘effective’ father involvement, there is enough support to urge both professionals and policy makers to improve circumstances for involved fathering.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1651-2227.2007.00572.x/full

This is a plug for my friend Oded's new paper out in Behavioral Ecology. Below is the abstract and a link to the online article. The paper investigates social foraging in Arabian babblers, looking at producer-scrounger dynamics and foraging skill acquisition. The paper is far more eloquent than me!

Keynan et al (2014)Social foraging strategies and acquisition of novel foraging skills in cooperatively breeding Arabian babblers. Behavioral Ecology doi: 10.1093/beheco/aru181
Social foraging strategies and their association with learning and innovation abilities have been studied extensively in flocking birds, but their importance for cooperatively breeding birds has remained relatively unexplored. The high degree of sociality typical of cooperative societies may indicate an important role of social foraging for learning and innovation. We studied 1) social foraging strategies and 2) the acquisition of a novel foraging skill in 16 groups of wild, cooperatively breeding Arabian babblers (Turdoides squamiceps). In Experiment 1, we provided a foraging grid of 96 feeding wells to each group, allowing them either to search for food individually (producer) or to join other birds (scrounger). Subordinates scrounged significantly more than dominant individuals, spent longer on the foraging grid, and had a higher proportion of their foraging steps rewarded (due to the effect of successful scrounging). However, scrounging was not related to poor learning ability because almost all the individuals that learned the novel foraging skill in Experiment 2 (removing a rubber lid to reach food) were scroungers. These findings suggest that group members differ in their foraging strategies and learning abilities according to their rank and that subordinate group members may be more opportunistic and flexible in their behavior than dominants, making use of both scrounging and novel foraging opportunities.
http://beheco.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/10/14/beheco.aru181.abstract

Just a few interesting papers that look at the evolution of cooperative breeding. The first two investigate the evolution of cooperative breeding in mammals, suggesting that monogamy is required before cooperative breeding can emerge. The third investigates humans, who are seen as a cooperative breeding species, and makes some alternative proposals as the evidence for strict monogamy in ancestral humans is sparse.

Lukas & Clutton-Brock (2012) Cooperative breeding and monogamy in mammalian societies. Proc R Soc 279:2151-2156
Comparative studies of social insects and birds show that the evolution of cooperative and eusocial breeding systems has been confined to species where females mate completely or almost exclusively with a single male, indicating that high levels of average kinship between group members are necessary for the evolution of reproductive altruism. In this paper, we show that in mammals, the evolution of cooperative breeding has been restricted to socially monogamous species which currently represent 5 per cent of all mammalian species. Since extra-pair paternity is relatively uncommon in socially monogamous and cooperatively breeding mammals, our analyses support the suggestion that high levels of average kinship between group members have played an important role in the evolution of cooperative breeding in non-human mammals, as well as in birds and insects.
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/279/1736/2151.short

Lukas & Clutton-Brock (2012) Life histories and the evolution of cooperative breeding in mammals. Proc R Soc 279:4065-4070
While the evolution of cooperative breeding systems (where non-breeding helpers participate in rearing young produced by dominant females) has been restricted to lineages with socially monogamous mating systems where coefficients of relatedness between group members are usually high, not all monogamous lineages have produced species with cooperative breeding systems, suggesting that other factors constrain the evolution of cooperative breeding. Previous studies have suggested that life-history parameters, including longevity, may constrain the evolution of cooperative breeding. Here, we show that transitions to cooperative breeding across the mammalian phylogeny have been restricted to lineages where females produce multiple offspring per birth. We find no support for effects of longevity or of other life-history parameters. We suggest that the evolution of cooperative breeding has been restricted to monogamous lineages where helpers have the potential to increase the reproductive output of breeders.
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/279/1744/4065.short

Kramer & Russell (2014) Kin-selected cooperation without lifetime monogamy: human insights and animal implications. TREE DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2014.09.001
Recent phylogenetic analyses suggest that monogamy precedes the evolution of cooperative breeding involving non-breeding helpers. The rationale: only through monogamy can helper–recipient relatedness coefficients match those of parent–offspring. Given that humans are cooperative breeders, these studies imply a monogamy bottleneck during hominin evolution. However, evidence from multiple sources is not compelling. In reconciliation, we propose that selection against cooperative breeding under alternative mating patterns will be mitigated by: (i) kin discrimination, (ii) reduced birth-intervals, and (iii) constraints on independent breeding, particularly for premature and post-fertile individuals. We suggest that such alternatives require consideration to derive a complete picture of the selection pressures acting on the evolution of cooperative breeding in humans and other animals.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169534714001931

I really have a problem with pugs, to me they are the most disfigured and inbred looking dogs around. My brother has recently decided to get one, and I'm still not sure if it's a joke or not. However, when trying to rationalise my dislike for this particularly ugly breed of dog I realised that it was probably because of inbreeding. This realisation has led me to the idea of writing about inbreeding, and the problems that this causes in domesticated species and wild species close to extinction. But first, just to prove my point about how horrid pugs are, here is a picture of a pug skull and a wolf skull (the ancestor of all domestic dogs).  

Domesticated animal species are the result of artificial selection, a process by which humans selectively breed together individuals who possess desired traits. Strangely, when domesticating a wild species this process often selects for similar traits: floppy ears, changes in reproductive cycle and curly hair. This was famously demonstrated in a long-term study on the domestication of the silver fox by Dimitry Belyaev LINK. Relatively few animal species have been domesticated, and Jared Diamond has hypothesized that this is due to animals needing to posses a pre-existing set of characteristics to allow them to be domesticated, espoused in his famous Nature paper LINK. 

• right diet
• fast growth rate
• friendly disposition
• easy breeding system
• social hierarchy
• won't panic

Good blog to read about domestication: http://animals.howstuffworks.com/animal-facts/animal-domestication.htm 

However, the problem with domestication (bringing this back to the pug) is that the gene pool for the population is artificially reduced and this can lead to inbreeding. This shrinking of the gene pool can be significant, for example in the pug: the British population of 10,000 pugs have a gene pool that is equivalent to just 50 individuals LINK. But why is this bad? A reduced number of breeding individuals can lead to a rise in the prevalence of 'bad gene', and this genetic bottleneck can lead to these being spread to a higher proportion of the descendants of this population. These 'bad genes' or deleterious alleles can lead to inbreeding depression and lower a populations viability. High levels of inbreeding, resulting from the increased mating of closely related individuals results in lower fitness for the offspring because of the increased prevalence of deleterious alleles and this can directly cause:

• reduced fertility
• increased genetic disorders
• fluctuating facial asymmetry
• lower birth rate
• higher mortality
• depression of growth
• smaller adult size
• loss of immune system function

In wild population inbred individuals can often be less attractive to the opposite sex, due to reduced song variation or plumage colouration. There are a few wild populations were inbreeding is seen as a potentially major problem, such as the cheetah, having implications for conservation.

Hopefully I have shown why inbreeding is bad, but in domesticated population there is less of a driver to get rid of highly inbred individuals as they may possess desired traits that more outbred individuals do not. Human selection has thus led to the breeding of some hideous animal species, such as the disfigured pug, and the fish species pictured below. You may still like pugs, and other 'pedigree' breeds of dogs, but at least now you might have some more of an idea about how they came about and the reasons behind the problems they have. My advice is to get a 'side-walk special' from an animal rescue centre, as not only are you giving a home to a dog that needs one but it is also likely to be less inbred and so reduce your vet bills! 

A cool new paper how just come out in Plos One by Soler et al. The paper shows that magpies (Pica pica) how are already feeding a cuckoo chick (great spotted cuckoo (Clamator glandarius)), and not their own, can and do feed cuckoo chick that they have not been previously feeding. This is a cool paper because it further investigates the puzzling and intriguing world of brood parasites and looking at the costs and benefits of care and the mechanisms used by parents in their decision making. Below is the abstract and a link to the paper, which is gloriously open access due to the joys of Plos One!

Soler et al. (2014) Great Spotted Cuckoo Fledglings Often Receive Feedings from Other Magpie Adults than Their Foster Parents: Which Magpies Accept to Feed Foreign Cuckoo Fledglings?

Natural selection penalizes individuals that provide costly parental care to non-relatives. However, feedings to brood parasitic fledglings by individuals other than their foster parents, although anecdotic, have been commonly observed, also in the great spotted cuckoo (Clamator glandarius) – magpie (Pica pica) system, but this behaviour has never been studied in depth. In a first experiment, we here show that great spotted cuckoo fledglings that were translocated to a distant territory managed to survive. This implies that obtaining food from foreign magpies is a frequent and efficient strategy used by great
spotted cuckoo fledglings. A second experiment, in which we presented a stuffed-cuckoo fledgling in magpie territories, showed that adult magpies caring for magpie fledglings responded aggressively in most of the trials and never tried to feed the stuffed cuckoo, whereas magpies that were caring for cuckoo fledglings reacted rarely with aggressive behaviour and were sometimes disposed to feed the stuffed cuckoo. In a third experiment we observed feedings to post-fledgling cuckoos by marked adult magpies belonging to four different possibilities with respect to breeding status (i.e. composition of the brood: only cuckoos, only magpies, mixed, or failed breeding attempt). All non-parental feeding events to cuckoos were provided by magpies that were caring only for cuckoo fledglings. These results strongly support the conclusion that cuckoo fledglings that abandon their foster parents get fed by other adult magpies that are currently caring for other cuckoo fledglings. These findings are crucial to understand the co-evolutionary arms race between brood parasites and their hosts because they show that the presence of the host’s own nestlings for comparison is likely a key clue to favour the evolution of fledgling discrimination and provide new insights on several relevant points such as learning mechanisms and multi parasitism.

http://www.plos.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/pone-9-10-soler.pdf