The energetic return rates of many small animal and plant resources are often density dependent. When these resources are collected in mass, change in abundance can dramatically affect diet rank, and challenges the assumption that return rates are generally correlated with body size. When mass collecting is employed, as a result of either natural events (e.g. windrows) or technological developm...

The dual-role method (DRM) extracts subject preferences as two players in experimental economic games. Previous research indicates mixed effects of DRM on game performance. A two (role)-by-two (role order) design for the ultimatum game (UG) was implemented in a naturalistic setting across 2 years. Subjects played according to the role they were assigned (proposer or responder). Immediately afte...

Recent work indicates that the interaction between body-size-dependent demographic processes can generate macroecological patterns such as the scaling of population density with body size. In this study, we evaluate this possibility for grazing protists and also test whether demographic parameters in these models are correlated after controlling for body size. We compiled data on the body-size ...

Recently, it has become commonplace to interpret major transitions and other patterns in the Palaeolithic archaeological record in terms of population size. Increases in cultural complexity are claimed to result from increases in population size; decreases in cultural complexity are suggested to be due to decreases in population size; and periods of no change are attributed to low numbers or fr...

Negative density dependence of clutch size is a ubiquitous characteristic of avian populations and is partly due to within-individual phenotypic plasticity. Yet, very little is known about the extent to which individuals differ in their degree of phenotypic plasticity, whether such variation has a genetic basis and whether level of plasticity can thus evolve in response to selection. Using 18 y...

The problem of hypothesis testing about proportions in two Ž nite populationsis addressed.The usual test based on the normal approximation (Z test) and a test based on estimatedp values (E test) are considered. The exact properties of the tests are evaluated numerically. Numerical studies indicate that the E test is very satisfactory even for small samples and can be recommended for practical u...

Various studies on living arrangements have generally presumed that there is a convergence between preferred place of stay and the actual one in any society. However, very little information is available on the preferences in living arrangements among the elderly, especially in the Indian context. Hence this study focuses afresh on the different aspects of preference in living arrangements amon...

Quantifying the number of selective sweeps and their combined effects on genomic diversity in humans and other great apes is notoriously difficult. Here we address the question using a comparative approach to contrast diversity patterns according to the distance from genes in all great ape taxa. The extent of diversity reduction near genes compared with the rest of intergenic sequences is great...

Small populations are predicted to perform poorly relative to large populations when experiencing environmental change. To explore this prediction in nature, data from reciprocal transplant, common garden, and translocation studies were compared meta-analytically. We contrasted changes in performance resulting from transplantation to new environments among individuals originating from different...

In sexually dimorphic ungulates, male reproductive success depends on fighting with other males for access to females during a brief rutting season. Large body size is necessary for success in intrasexual competition, and a few large-sized males are often able to monopolize access to female groups. Earlier studies have reported that reproductive effort increases with age until prime-age is reac...