scholarly journals Body Size of the Monomorphic AntLasius niger: Young Colonies along a Metal Pollution Gradient

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irena M. Grześ ◽  
Mateusz Okrutniak ◽  
Gracjan Antosik

Metal pollution may cause the decrease in the individual body size. In ants, the morphological diversity within and between colonies may be much higher than that considered before, even in monomorphic ants. In this study we measured the body size, expressed as head width, ofLasius nigerworkers collected from 44 young colonies in their ergonomic stage along a well-known gradient exhibiting chronic metal pollution. We calculated statistics describing the body size distribution curve, namely, average, median, data range, skewness, and kurtosis. None of these statistics correlated with the pollution level. Contrary to our previous study performed on mature colonies, workers from young colonies do not display pollution-related morphological changes. The results stress the importance of developmental stage of colony on diversifying body size of the worker cast, in monomorphic ants living in metal-polluted areas.

Leonardo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 90-91
Author(s):  
Seth Riskin

The author discusses the origin and meaning of his Light Dance artwork. The simple approach—placing a source of light on the body and thereby manipulating the illumination of the surrounding space through body movements—alters the viewer’s perception of space and time. Architecture appears malleable as the performer affects the size, shape and speed of light forms that reach from the body to the boundaries of the room. Light, in this perceptual environment, is not a mere transmitter of information between the invariant material surroundings and the eye of the viewer; light is a space-defining extension of the performer’s body that transposes movement expression from the individual body to the shared space. An inversion of subjective and objective “spaces” is realized in the experience of Light Dance wherein the prevailing conceptual hierarchy of light and vision is overcome.


2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 71-96
Author(s):  
Peter Lindner

Since the publication of Nikolas Rose’s ‘The Politics of Life Itself’ (2001) there has been vivid discussion about how biopolitical governance has changed over the last decades. This article uses what Rose terms ‘molecular politics’, a new socio-technical grip on the human body, as a contrasting background to ask anew his question ‘What, then, of biopolitics today?’ – albeit focusing not on advances in genetics, microbiology, and pharmaceutics, as he does, but on the rapid proliferation of wearables and other sensor-software gadgets. In both cases, new technologies providing information about the individual body are the common ground for governance and optimization, yet for the latter, the target is habits of moving, eating and drinking, sleeping, working and relaxing. The resulting profound differences are carved out along four lines: ‘somatic identities’ and a modified understanding of the body; the role of ‘expert knowledge’ compared to that of networks of peers and self-experimentation; the ‘types of intervention’ by which new technologies become effective in our everyday life; and the ‘post-discipline character’ of molecular biopolitics. It is argued that, taken together, these differences indicate a remarkable shift which could be termed aretaic: its focus is not ‘life itself’ but ‘life as it is lived’, and its modality are new everyday socio-technical entanglements and their more-than-human rationalities of (self-)governance.


Insects ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 433
Author(s):  
Mateusz Okrutniak ◽  
Bartosz Rom ◽  
Filip Turza ◽  
Irena M. Grześ

The association between the division of labour and worker body size of ants is typical for species that maintain physical castes. Some studies showed that this phenomenon can be also observed in the absence of distinct morphological subcastes among workers. However, the general and consistent patterns in the size-based division of labour in monomorphic ants are largely unidentified. In this study, we performed a field experiment to investigate the link between worker body size and the division of labour of the ant Lasius niger (Linnaeus, 1758), which displays limited worker size variation. We demonstrated that the body size of workers exploring tuna baits is slightly but significantly smaller than the size of workers located in the upper parts of the nest. Comparing the present results with existing studies, large workers do not seem to be dedicated to work outside the nest. We suggest that monomorphic workers of certain body sizes are flexible in the choice of task they perform, and food type may be the important determinant of this choice.


2020 ◽  
Vol 98 (6) ◽  
pp. 377-389
Author(s):  
S. Naretto ◽  
M. Chiaraviglio

The intensity of mating competition varies according to the temporal and spatial distribution of individuals. Measuring sexual dimorphism over time and interpreting the association between individuals is therefore important if we aim to understand how sexual traits are influenced. We examined sex differences in the Achala Copper Lizard (Pristidactylus achalensis (Gallardo, 1964)), an endemic species from the highest part of mountains of central Argentina. Over 4 years, we explored sex-specific variation in body size, head size, interlimb length, and body colouration. Furthermore, we evaluated how these traits varied temporally, and we also explored whether the spatial distribution of individuals is explained by variation in these traits. We found that P. achalensis is a species with sexual dimorphism in multiple characters, including body size, head size, and colouration. Interestingly, some traits related to mating, such as head width, show a temporal variability in both sexes, whereas other traits, such as colouration, varies seasonally only in males. Our results underline the intriguing possibility of seasonal morphological changes related to mating, and more broadly that sex differences are influenced by sexual selection pressures mediated by temporal variation in mate competition.


AL-HUKAMA ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-171
Author(s):  
Ahmad Zainuri

In implementing the works program of the Branch Management of Indonesian Islamic Students Movement of Malang Regency, for the sake of a good and interesting event, the owners of power use female activists to become workers. Women activists must carry out tasks that are not in accordance with their job descriptions, get coercion from fellow activists to carry out tasks that they themselves have not yet experienced and only try first, and the most striking is when female activists are not happy if there is a women's development program. The practice of exploitation of these women activists, seen in this article, uses Michel Foucault's body discipline theory. The body's discipline works as a normalization of behavior designed by utilizing the productive and reproductive abilities of the human body. The practice of power through disciplining the body, creates a situation where the individual body can internalize submission and make it look like a normal state. This practice is what Foucault calls the normalization of power over the individual body. Individuals will never feel that they are being used and subjugated because they already consider it to be within reasonable limits. It can also be said that this is a veiled exploitation.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 97-114
Author(s):  
Ricardo Iglesias García

La evolución del concepto de cuerpo individual/cuerpo social, específicamente desde la modernidad, la industrialización y la actual implementación de las tecnologías nos conduce hacia una visión del sujeto humano en un continuo proceso de progreso ‘egoísta’, con sus correspondientes repercusiones en la totalidad del ecosistema terrestre. Según algunos científicos es necesario plantearnos la posibilidad de unanueva época geología: el antropoceno. La idea del cuerpo autómata persiste en nuestro imaginario occidental. Es notable, además, que el cuerpo se proponga como máquina y no como forma natural, cuestión que no dejará de traer consecuencias al momento de ejercer actividades con/sobre el cuerpo y sobre su espacio vital. Las nuevas tecnologías ofrecen la posibilidad de superar los límites impuestos por nuestra herencia biológica en una especie de deseo explícito de no aceptar nuestro pasado, ni nuestro origen natural-orgánico, frente a una automejora y modificación en un sistema de progreso ad infinitum. En este sentido, una serie importante de pensadores, científicos y artistas han generado relecturas el cuerpo como algo completamente obsoleto, como una cáscara vacía que debe ser abandonada paratecnológicamente dar paso al siguiente nivel en la evolución humana: el Techno Sapiens o el Cyborg. Seaboga para que el objeto de estudio de la antropología pase del ser humano al cyborg, considerado éste como un representante más idóneo de nuestro presente y, sobre todo, de nuestro futuro. Paralelamente en la esfera del arte aparecen figuras que buscan representar esta tecnoevolución como Stelar, Marcel·lí Antúnez, o Carlos Corpa, entre otros. The evolution of the concept of the individual body / social body, specifically from modernity, industrialization and the current implementation of technologies, leads us to a vision of the human subject in a continuum of ‘egotistic’ progress as well as its corresponding repercussions in the totality of its natural environment. According to some scientific, it is necessary to consider the possibility of a new geology era:the Anthropocene. The idea of the automaton body persists in our Western imaginary. It is also remarkable that the body is proposed as a machine and not as a natural object, an issue not without consequences, when exercising activities with / on the body and on its vital space. The new technologies offer the possibility of overcoming the limits imposed by our biological inheritance in a sort of explicit desire to accept neither our past, nor our natural-organic origin, in the face of self-improvement and modification in a system of progress Ad infinitum. In this sense, an important series of thinkers, scientists and artists have produced new approaches of the body as something completely obsolete, as an empty shell that must be abandoned to technologically give way to the next level in the human evolution: the Techno Sapiens or the Cyborg. It calls for the object of study of anthropology goes from human being to cyborg, considered as a more suitable representative of our present, and above all, of our future, with all its positive and negative consequences. At the same time in the realm of art, some figures who want to represent this techno-evolution have appeared such as Stelar, Marcel·lí Antúnez, Carlos Corpa, among others.


Author(s):  
Helle Johannesen

The numerous conceptions of the body exposed in alternative therapies challenge traditional, Western, biomedically dictated conceptions of the body, disease and healing. The apparent heterogenity could lead to a discharge of alternative body concepts and related therapeutic interventions, but as a large portion of patients experience effect of a variety of alternative treatments, the need for a conceptual framework encompassing heterogenity at several logical levels emerges. For this purpose the author proposes the concept of “the complex body”, in which cultural, social, and natural features are recognized as integral aspects of the individual body, treatment, and the healing process. The body is conceptualized as a complex field of potentials, to be explicated and unfolded in interaction with specific therapeutic concepts and techniques. Underlying the obvious variety within alternative therapies, a common focus on the body as structure, disease as de-structuration, and treatment as re-structuration is revealed. Treatments are rarely aimed at destruction of disease agents or pathologies, but most often aim at a general strengthening - re-structuring - of the patient, biochemically, physiologically, mentally, culturally or socially. Examples from reflexology, biopathy and kinesiology support the validity of a concept of the complex body, which leads to a reconsideration of scientific and scholarly approaches to evaluation of effects of alternative therapies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (17) ◽  
pp. 17858-17864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irena M. Grześ ◽  
Mateusz Okrutniak ◽  
Monika Gorzałczany ◽  
Piotr Piszczek

Oryx ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 182-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugo Cayuela ◽  
Ludivine Quay ◽  
Adeline Dumet ◽  
Jean-Paul Léna ◽  
Claude Miaud ◽  
...  

AbstractAmphibians are considered to be the most threatened group of vertebrates. Among the multiple factors involved in their decline, habitat loss and alteration as a result of human activities is a major threat. At the individual level the effects of habitat alteration are potentially multiple, including a range of morphological and physiological responses. Analysing and understanding these responses is therefore a critical challenge for amphibian conservation. We examined the influence of intensive vehicle traffic (motorbikes and trucks on unpaved pathways) on the body size and condition and on the production of glucocorticoids (i.e. corticosterone) in the yellow-bellied toad Bombina variegata. In particular, we tested the hypothesis that intensive vehicle traffic has a negative influence on body size and body condition, and postulated that it also increases corticosterone production. Using morphometric data and saliva samples collected from four populations in France, we found that intensive vehicle traffic is associated with a decrease in body size and body condition in both males and females. Furthermore, our analysis revealed that corticosterone production was lower in both sexes in populations experiencing intensive vehicle traffic. We suggest that measures should be applied to reduce vehicle traffic intensity on unpaved pathways during toad breeding activity. This is critical for B. variegata, for which man-made ruts and residual puddles could mitigate the loss of natural habitats.


1980 ◽  
Vol 112 (3) ◽  
pp. 239-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Constance M. Haggard ◽  
George J. Gamboa

AbstractSeasonal morphometric analysis of 788 adult Polistes metricus Say showed that: (1) Queens sampled throughout the colony cycle were of similar body size but significantly smaller than fall gynes. (2) Queens’ ovaries are large in the spring, decline early in the colony cycle, peak near the mid-postemergence period and decline late in the colony cycle. (3) There are no significant correlations between head width, ovary width, and size of nest in workers or queens. (4) Early and late workers are small but workers emerging during the mid-postemergence period are large. (5) All workers and gynes emerge with small, similar sized ovaries but older workers may develop larger ovaries. (6) Queens are larger than early and late workers but the same size as workers emerging during the mid-postemergence period. (7) The class with the largest adults were intermediates collected when colonies began production of males. These adults, intermediate in fat content between workers and gynes, comprised a large proportion of females emerging late in the colony cycle. (8) The body size of gynes is independent of colony size. (9) Males were significantly more variable in body size than gynes.


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