scholarly journals Novel Surface Feeding Tactics of Minke Whales, Balaenoptera acutorostrata, in the Saguenay-St. Lawrence National Marine Park

2005 ◽  
Vol 119 (2) ◽  
pp. 214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie J. Kuker ◽  
Jordan A. Thomson ◽  
Ursula Tscherter

Surface feeding behaviours of Minke Whales (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) in the mouth and fjord of the Saguenay River, Québec, were documented between June and October 2003. Several novel behaviours associated with gathering prey into dense, nearsurface aggregations prior to a feeding strike were observed. To our knowledge, these behaviours have not been described in detail and may be exclusive to this area or to these individuals. A small number of known Minke Whales show strong site fidelity to the Saguenay region, providing an ideal opportunity for the study of foraging behaviour at the individual level.

PLoS ONE ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
pp. e49719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Andrée Giroux ◽  
Christian Dussault ◽  
Nicolas Lecomte ◽  
Jean-Pierre Tremblay ◽  
Steeve D. Côté

2002 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
RA Birtles ◽  
PW Arnold ◽  
A Dunstan

Commercial swim programs with the dwarf minke whale Balaenoptera ?acutorostrata occur seasonally (primarily June - July) within the Cairns and Far Northern sections of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) Marine Park. Observations of whale-swimmer interactions over five seasons indicate that initiation and maintenance of contact with vessel and swimmers is largely voluntary and thus the swim programs can comply with the general principle that the whales control the initiation and nature of interactions. Preliminary data on within-season (13 whales in 1999) and between year (four whales from 1999 in 2000, 2001) re-sightings within the study area suggest that any impacts from swim programs may affect a particular subset of the population. The extent of possible cumulative effects can be assessed by continuation of the existing photo and video-ID program. No signs of aggression have been documented but some behaviour (bubble blasts, jaw gape) could be considered as threat display. More detailed analysis of behaviour is necessary to monitor such behaviour. A risk analysis is given for aspects of the interactions, with suggested research to monitor such risks.


2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1776) ◽  
pp. 20132437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhiyuan Song ◽  
Marcus W. Feldman

Although pollinators can play a central role in determining the structure and stability of plant communities, little is known about how their adaptive foraging behaviours at the individual level, e.g. flower constancy, structure these interactions. Here, we construct a mathematical model that integrates individual adaptive foraging behaviour and population dynamics of a community consisting of two plant species and a pollinator species. We find that adaptive foraging at the individual level, as a complementary mechanism to adaptive foraging at the species level, can further enhance the coexistence of plant species through niche partitioning between conspecific pollinators. The stabilizing effect is stronger than that of unbiased generalists when there is also strong competition between plant species over other resources, but less so than that of multiple specialist species. This suggests that adaptive foraging in mutualistic interactions can have a very different impact on the plant community structure from that in predator–prey interactions. In addition, the adaptive behaviour of individual pollinators may cause a sharp regime shift for invading plant species. These results indicate the importance of integrating individual adaptive behaviour and population dynamics for the conservation of native plant communities.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 183-198
Author(s):  
Wiktor Soral ◽  
Mirosław Kofta

Abstract. The importance of various trait dimensions explaining positive global self-esteem has been the subject of numerous studies. While some have provided support for the importance of agency, others have highlighted the importance of communion. This discrepancy can be explained, if one takes into account that people define and value their self both in individual and in collective terms. Two studies ( N = 367 and N = 263) examined the extent to which competence (an aspect of agency), morality, and sociability (the aspects of communion) promote high self-esteem at the individual and the collective level. In both studies, competence was the strongest predictor of self-esteem at the individual level, whereas morality was the strongest predictor of self-esteem at the collective level.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-34
Author(s):  
Edward C. Warburton

This essay considers metonymy in dance from the perspective of cognitive science. My goal is to unpack the roles of metaphor and metonymy in dance thought and action: how do they arise, how are they understood, how are they to be explained, and in what ways do they determine a person's doing of dance? The premise of this essay is that language matters at the cultural level and can be determinative at the individual level. I contend that some figures of speech, especially metonymic labels like ‘bunhead’, can not only discourage but dehumanize young dancers, treating them not as subjects who dance but as objects to be danced. The use of metonymy to sort young dancers may undermine the development of healthy self-image, impede strong identity formation, and retard creative-artistic development. The paper concludes with a discussion of the influence of metonymy in dance and implications for dance educators.


Author(s):  
Pauline Oustric ◽  
Kristine Beaulieu ◽  
Nuno Casanova ◽  
Francois Husson ◽  
Catherine Gibbons ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher James Hopwood ◽  
Ted Schwaba ◽  
Wiebke Bleidorn

Personal concerns about climate change and the environment are a powerful motivator of sustainable behavior. People’s level of concern varies as a function of a variety of social and individual factors. Using data from 58,748 participants from a nationally representative German sample, we tested preregistered hypotheses about factors that impact concerns about the environment over time. We found that environmental concerns increased modestly from 2009-2017 in the German population. However, individuals in middle adulthood tended to be more concerned and showed more consistent increases in concern over time than younger or older people. Consistent with previous research, Big Five personality traits were correlated with environmental concerns. We present novel evidence that increases in concern were related to increases in the personality traits neuroticism and openness to experience. Indeed, changes in openness explained roughly 50% of the variance in changes in environmental concerns. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the individual level factors associated with changes in environmental concerns over time, towards the promotion of more sustainable behavior at the individual level.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Payne ◽  
Heidi A. Vuletich ◽  
Kristjen B. Lundberg

The Bias of Crowds model (Payne, Vuletich, & Lundberg, 2017) argues that implicit bias varies across individuals and across contexts. It is unreliable and weakly associated with behavior at the individual level. But when aggregated to measure context-level effects, the scores become stable and predictive of group-level outcomes. We concluded that the statistical benefits of aggregation are so powerful that researchers should reconceptualize implicit bias as a feature of contexts, and ask new questions about how implicit biases relate to systemic racism. Connor and Evers (2020) critiqued the model, but their critique simply restates the core claims of the model. They agreed that implicit bias varies across individuals and across contexts; that it is unreliable and weakly associated with behavior at the individual level; and that aggregating scores to measure context-level effects makes them more stable and predictive of group-level outcomes. Connor and Evers concluded that implicit bias should be considered to really be noisily measured individual construct because the effects of aggregation are merely statistical. We respond to their specific arguments and then discuss what it means to really be a feature of persons versus situations, and multilevel measurement and theory in psychological science more broadly.


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