People throughout Vanuatu frequently mix Bislama (that country’s national Pidgin) into their vernaculars. Extensive code-mixing is an obvious indicator, and sometime cause, of language change or even language replacement. This paper discusses several sorts of Bislama code-mixing on Tanna among speakers of that island’s Kwamera language. It assesses levels and kinds of Bislama use in four villag...

The influence of conservation biology can be enhanced greatly if it reaches beyond undergraduate biology to students at the middle and high school levels. If a conservation perspective were taught in secondary schools, students who are not interested in biology could be influenced to pursue careers or live lifestyles that would reduce the negative impact of humans on the world. We use what we c...

This article employs political ecology and common property theory to examine sea turtle conservation, how it is articulated and executed at different sociopolitical and geographic scales, and the consequences for local rights of access to resources. It draws on ten years of research at various field sites in Costa Rica, and on sea turtle conservation policy in general, to show that although mos...

Little is known about the effect of diversity surrounding a focal plant species on the belowground community under that species. At least two alternative hypotheses exist. First, studies involving a range of ecosystems and taxonomic groups have shown that changes in diversity in one group of species can promote diversity in other groups. Alternatively, many studies in soil ecology have shown th...

Gísli A. Víkingsson*, Daniel G. Pike, Héðinn Valdimarsson, Anna Schleimer, Thorvaldur Gunnlaugsson, Teresa Silva, Bjarki Þ. Elvarsson, Bjarni Mikkelsen, Nils Øien, Geneviève Desportes, Valur Bogason and Philip S. Hammond 1 Marine Resources Section, Marine Research Institute, Reykjavík, Iceland 2 Esox Associates, North Bay, ON, Canada 3 Marine Environment Section, Marine Research Institute, Reyk...

Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland, Department of Aquatic Ecology, Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, € Uberlandstrasse 133, CH-8600 D€ ubendorf, Switzerland, Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Winterthurerstr. 190, CH-8057 Z€ urich, Switzerland, UFZ...

Beta diversity is one of most important features in community ecology. Indices for pairwise comparison of beta diversity have been extensively developed, but the ones specifically designed for multiple-site comparison of beta diversity are still limited. Currently, by compiling all the available metrics based on the previous literature, plus some new metrics developed in the present report, we ...

Poor literacy remains a barrier to economic empowerment in the developing world. Of particular importance is literacy in a “global language” such as English, which is typically a second language for these speakers. For complex reasons, public schools are often not effective for second language learning. Our solution is a suite of language-learning games on cellphones that target skills in conve...

Hemidactylus frenatus is an Asian gecko that has spread pantropically to become one the world’s most widespread reptiles. It has been established in Australia for approximately 50 years, but the last two decades have seen massive range expansion across settled areas of northern and eastern Australia; and this spread continues at pace. Disturbingly, H. frenatus is increasingly being detected in ...