Abstract Background CRISPR-Cas9, a technology enabling modification of the human genome, is developing rapidly. There have been calls for public debate to discuss its ethics, societal implications, and governance. So far, however, little known about attitudes on CRISPR-Cas9. This study contributes better understanding perspectives by exploring various holistic Dutch citizens Methods used Q meth...

6 The nature and stability of coexistence of specialist species with more generalized 7 competitors present theoretical questions that have been difficult to resolve. Recent 8 surveys of bacteriophage host-ranges suggest that generalist phage often coexistent 9 with specialists. However, previous theoretical work has explained this coexistence only 1 0 in terms of strict genetic trade-offs, whi...

Modelers often need to quantify the rates at which zooplankton consume a variety of species, size classes and trophic types. Implicit in the equations used to describe the multiple resource functional response (i.e. how nutritional intake varies with resource densities) are assumptions that are not often stated, let alone tested. This is problematic because models are sensitive to the details o...

Populations evolve generalist, specialist, and plastic strategies in response to environmental heterogeneity. Describing such within-species variation in phenotype and how it arises is central to understanding a variety of ecological and evolutionary topics. The literature on phenotypic differences among populations is highly biased; for every one article published on a marine species, at least...

BACKGROUND Habitat loss is one of the principal causes of the current pollinator decline. With agricultural intensification, increasing urbanisation is among the main drivers of habitat loss. Consequently studies focusing on pollinator community structure along urbanisation gradients have increased in recent years. However, few studies have investigated how urbanisation affects plant-pollinator...

Virus populations may be challenged to evolve in spatially heterogeneous environments, such as mixtures of host cells that pose differing selection pressures. Spatial heterogeneity may select for evolved polymorphisms, where multiple virus subpopulations coexist by specializing on a narrow subset of the available hosts. Alternatively, spatial heterogeneity may select for evolved generalism, whe...

Avian urban colonization is thought to be facilitated by a capacity for innovative feeding, ecological generalism and social foraging. However, the relative importance in exploiting urban resources and avoiding urban predators of being inherently ‘pre-adapted’ to the urban environment or adjusting to it through phenotypic plasticity requires more examination. These issues were explored in a nat...

UNLABELLED Cognitive ecology integrates cognition, ecology, and neurobiology in one topic and has recently broadened into an exciting diversity of themes covering the entire range of cognition and ecological conditions. The review identifies three major environmental factors interacting with cognition: environmental variation (predictable and unpredictable), environmental complexity and predati...

Factors determining the degree of dietary generalism versus specialism are central in ecology. Species that are generalists at the population level may in fact be composed of specialized individuals. The optimal diet theory assumes that individuals choose diets that maximize fitness, and individual specialization may occur if individuals' ability to locate, recognize, and handle different food ...

OBJECTIVE To explore general practitioners' (GP) perspectives on the meaning of 'timeliness' in dementia diagnosis. DESIGN Narrative interview study. SETTING UK academic department of primary care. PARTICIPANTS Seven practising GPs with experience of conveying a diagnosis of dementia. METHODS GPs' narrative commentaries of encounters with patients with suspected dementia were audio-reco...