Plants often compete with closely related individuals due to limited dispersal, leading to two commonly invoked predictions on competitive outcomes. Kin selection, from evolutionary theory, predicts that competition between relatives will likely be weaker. The niche partitioning hypothesis, from ecological theory, predicts that competition between close relatives will likely be stronger. We tes...

At issue is the role of dialect evidence to explain certain irregular reflexes of Proto-Malayo-Polynesian vowels in Rejang. According to Blust (1984), the Musi dialect of Rejang seems to exemplify two types of sound change, one conditioned solely by phonological factors and the other by nonphonological (semantic or grammatical) factors; thus PMP *a irregularly failed to diphthongize in kin term...

Thanks to next generation sequencing (NGS), we can now access ancient biological relationships, including ancestry and parentage, with a startling level of clarity. This has led recentering kinship within archaeological discourse. In this paper, argue that blood biology are key elements kin-making only in so far as they contextualized made sense through social relations. We the conceptions unde...

1. Sharing recent ancestry (kinship) increases the degree of genetic similarity between individuals, where genetic similarity could mean anything from sharing a particular allele to sharing an entire genome. 2. Genetic similarity can influence behavioural and other responses between individuals in a number of ways, discriminatory and non-discriminatory. All are likely to result in kin bias, bec...

AIMS To improve access and quality of diabetes care for people in low-income countries, it is important to understand which elements of diabetes care are effective. This paper analyses three diabetes care programmes in the DR Congo, Cambodia and the Philippines. METHODS Three programmes offering diabetes care and self-management were selected. Programme information was collected through docum...

Fertility decline is still a puzzle. A recent body of work has suggested that changes in kin networks may help explain changing reproductive behaviour. As countries modernise, kin networks break down and association with non-relatives becomes more common. This reduces both the practical support available to mothers in raising children, and affects reproductive norms. This paper presents the res...

In many cooperatively breeding vertebrates, a dominant breeding pair is assisted in offspring care by nonbreeding helpers. A leading explanation for this altruistic behavior is Hamilton's idea that helpers gain indirect fitness benefits by rearing relatives (kin selection). Many studies have shown that helpers typically provide care for relatives, but relatively few have shown that helpers prov...

Modeling a strong East Asian summer monsoon in a globally cool Earth, the MIS-13 case Q. Z. Yin, A. Berger, E. Driesschaert, H. Goosse, M. F. Loutre, and M. Crucifix Institut d’Astronomie et de Géophysique G. Lemaı̂tre, Université catholique de Louvain, Chemin du Cyclotron 2, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium Received: 5 November 2007 – Accepted: 12 November 2007 – Published: 26 November 2007 Corre...