How Do New Languages Arise? A Comparison of Romanization and Gallicization

SummaryThis paper compares the romanization of Gaul in the 1st century BC and the gallicization of the island of Martinique during 17th-century French colonial expansion, using criteria set out by Muf- wene's Founder Principle. The Founder Principle determines key ecological factors in the formation of creole vernaculars, such as the founding populations and their proportion to the whole, language varieties spoken, and the nature and evolution of the interactions of the founding populations (also referred to as “colonization styles”). Based on the comparison, it will be claimed that new languages arise when a language undergoes vehicularization and subsequently shifts from one speech community to another. In other words, linguistic genesis would be a complicated case of language contact, where not only one, but sev- eral dialects of both superstrate and substrate varieties are involved, in a historical context where the identity function of language, or the norm, is overriden by the need to communicate. Research also indicates that language varieties spoken at the time of the shift did not pertain to normative usage, but to popular varieties, dialects, or both, since the emerging vernaculars - in Gaul, as well as in Martinique - preserved some of their phonological and lexical particularities.

Giraffe translocation population viability analysis

Most populations of giraffes have declined in recent decades, leading to the recent IUCN decision to upgrade the species to Vulnerable status, and some subspecies to Endangered. Translocations have been used as a conservation tool to re-introduce giraffes to previously occupied areas or establish new populations, but guidelines for founding populations are lacking. To provide general guidelines for translocation projects regarding feasibility, we simulated various scenarios of translocated giraffe populations to identify viable age and sex distributions of founding populations using population viability analysis (PVA) implemented in Vortex software. We explored the parameter space for demography and the genetic load, examining how variation in founding numbers and sex ratios affected 100 yr probability of population extinction and genetic diversity. We found that even very small numbers of founders (N ≤ 10 females) can appear to be successful in the first decades due to transient positive population growth, but with moderate population growth rate and moderate genetic load, long-term population viability (probability of extinction <0.01) was only achieved with ≥30 females and ≥3 males released. To maintain >95% genetic diversity of the source population in an isolated population, 50 females and 5 males are recommended to compose the founding population. Sensitivity analyses revealed first-year survival and reproductive rate were the simulation parameters with the greatest proportional influence on probability of extinction and genetic diversity. These simulations highlight important considerations for translocation success and data gaps including true genetic load in wild giraffe populations.

Coalescence modeling of intrainfection Bacillus anthracis populations allows estimation of infection parameters in wild populations

Bacillus anthracis, the etiological agent of anthrax, is a well-established model organism. For B. anthracis and most other infectious diseases, knowledge regarding transmission and infection parameters in natural systems, in large part, comprises data gathered from closely controlled laboratory experiments. Fatal, natural anthrax infections transmit the bacterium through new host−pathogen contacts at carcass sites, which can occur years after death of the previous host. For the period between contact and death, all of our knowledge is based upon experimental data from domestic livestock and laboratory animals. Here we use a noninvasive method to explore the dynamics of anthrax infections, by evaluating the terminal diversity of B. anthracis in anthrax carcasses. We present an application of population genetics theory, specifically, coalescence modeling, to intrainfection populations of B. anthracis to derive estimates for the duration of the acute phase of the infection and effective population size converted to the number of colony-forming units establishing infection in wild plains zebra (Equus quagga). Founding populations are small, a few colony-forming units, and infections are rapid, lasting roughly between 1 d and 3 d in the wild. Our results closely reflect experimental data, showing that small founding populations progress acutely, killing the host within days. We believe this method is amendable to other bacterial diseases from wild, domestic, and human systems.

Giraffe Translocation Population Viability Analysis

ABSTRACTMost populations of giraffes have declined in recent decades, leading to the recent decision to upgrade the species to vulnerable status, and some subspecies to endangered. Translocations have been used as a conservation tool to re-introduce giraffes to previously occupied areas or establish new populations, but guidelines for founding populations are lacking. To provide general guidelines for translocation projects regarding feasibility, we simulated various scenarios of translocated giraffe populations to identify viable age and sex distributions of founding populations using Population Viability Analysis (PVA) implemented in Vortex software. We explored the parameter space for demography (population growth rates: λ = 1.001, 1.010, 1.024), and the genetic load (number of lethal equivalents: LE = 2.5, 6.29, 12.6), examining how variation in founding numbers (N = 5 to 80 females) and sex ratios (M:F = 0.1 to 0.5) affected 100-year probability of extinction and genetic diversity. We found that even very small numbers of founders (N ≤10 females) can appear to be successful in the first decades due to transient positive population growth, but with moderate population growth rate and moderate genetic load, long-term population viability (probability of extinction <0.01) was only achieved with ≥30 females and ≥3 males released. To maintain >95% genetic diversity of the source population in an isolated population, 50 females and 5 males are recommended to comprise the founding population. Sensitivity analyses revealed first-year survival and reproductive rate were the simulation parameters with the greatest proportional influence on probability of extinction and genetic diversity. These simulations highlight important considerations for translocation success, and data gaps including true genetic load in wild giraffe populations.

Four Ways of Thinking about Race

This essay presents four ways of thinking about race. They consist of four related but distinct race concepts: the racialist concept of race, which is the traditional, pernicious, essentialist, and hierarchical concept of race; the concept of socialrace, which is the antiracist concept of race as a social construction; the minimalist concept of race, which is the deflationary concept of biological race that represents race as a matter of color, shape and geographical ancestry; and the populationist concept of race, the race concept that represents races as populations, deriving from geographically separated and reproductive isolated founding populations. Taken together, the four concepts can help us better navigate our way through the murky conceptual domain of “race.”