Temperche

Hi everyone,

I'd like to have my apps as tiles within a full-screen view (ideally called via pressing the Windows button on the keyboard) in Linux, pretty much the Windows Metro look as seen above. I have all the icon files and just need to link them to the apps themselves. Might you know of a way to do that?

Thanks for your help! Temperche

Boldness is an important trait in wild populations, and among-individual differences can link to individual fitness. The strength and direction of relationships between behavioral and life-history traits may however vary according to environmental conditions, where fluctuating selection acting on behavioral traits contributes to the maintenance of personality differences. We explored sources of variation in Arctic fox (Vulpes lagopus) boldness and investigated how temporal variation in the abundance of a main prey (lemmings) influences the relationship between fox boldness and reproductive success. We measured the behavioral reaction of individuals when escaping after handling, as an indicator of their boldness. We obtained 70 measurements from 42 individuals during two years of low lemming abundance and 2 years of high lemming abundance and assessed fox litter size as an indicator of reproductive success. First, individual characteristics (age, sex, mass) did not affect Arctic fox boldness, while individual identity generated variation in boldness. Next, we found that during years of low lemming density, individuals behaving boldly had more pups than those behaving less boldly, suggesting boldness may provide an advantage when lemmings are scarce by increasing hunting success or allowing access to alternative resources. However, all individuals tended to show high levels of boldness when lemming density was high, and all produced large litters. Temporal variation in the abundance of a main prey might therefore influence the relation between boldness and reproductive success of a predator, and if individuals consistently differ in their level of boldness, fluctuating selection could contribute to the maintenance of personality.

Through phenotypic plasticity, individual genotypes can produce multiple phenotypes dependent on the environment. In the modern world, anthropogenic influences such as man-made pharmaceuticals are increasingly prevalent. They might alter observable patterns of plasticity and distort our conclusions regarding the adaptive potential of natural populations.

Antibiotics are nowadays nearly ubiquitous in aquatic environments and prophylactic antibiotic use is also becoming more common to optimize animal survival and reproductive output in artificial settings. In the well-studied plasticity model system Physella acuta, prophylactic erythromycin treatment acts against gram-positive bacteria and thereby reduces mortality.

Here, we study its consequences for inducible defence formation in the same species. In a 2 × 2 split-clutch design, we reared 635 P. acuta in either the presence or absence of this antibiotic, followed by 28-day exposure to either high or low predation risk as perceived through conspecific alarm cues.

Under antibiotic treatment, risk-induced increases in shell thickness, a well-known plastic response in this model system, were larger and consistently detectable. Antibiotic treatment reduced shell thickness in low-risk individuals, suggesting that in controls, undiscovered pathogen infection increased shell thickness under low risk. Family variation in risk-induced plasticity was low, but the large variation in responses to antibiotics among families suggests different pathogen susceptibility between genotypes. Lastly, individuals that developed thicker shells had reduced total mass, which highlights resource trade-offs.

Antibiotics thus have the potential to uncover a larger extent of plasticity, but might counterintuitively distort plasticity estimates for natural populations where pathogens are a part of natural ecology.

Researchers describe how two different people independently faked data for two different studies in a paper about dishonesty: