ASSESSMENTS AND DECISIONS IN METELLINA-SEGMENTATA (ARANEAE, METIDAE) - EVIDENCE OF A PHEROMONE INVOLVED IN MATE GUARDING

Assessments and decision-making underlying the initiation of mate guarding in a common web-building spider, Metellina segmentata, are examined in a series of field and laboratory studies. Adult males do not build webs but wander in search of females and mating opportunities. Adult males then wait at the edge of the webs of females and guard them prior to courtship and mating. Guarded females were heavier, larger and carried more mature eggs than solitary females. An active process of information gathering is apparent from introductions of males to the webs of females. Males make accurate assessments about female quality, even in the absence of the resident female. Cues involving web architecture are not used. Males may assess pheromonal cues on the web of the female in deciding whether to guard or abandon a female.

The Work of Sisyphus: Squaring the Circle of Roma Recognition

Most special issues on Roma minorities want to alert readers to the devastating consequences of racist public attitudes and misdirected public policy. Here we don't shy away from such issues, but we also want to challenge our own scholarship and ask some fundamental questions about how we, as academics, are approaching such research. In this introduction the context of the special issue is explored, both in terms of the historic backdrop of an expanding European Union and the academic theoretical framework of minority integration. Major critical questioning – such as broader questions around migration, race and ethnicity discourses – are still lacking when it comes to research on or with Roma minorities. Our main aim is to move debates on from continually describing who Roma people are and what they are doing, to questioning: who defines who is Roma, when and why? What happens in policy-making, research, everyday interactions? This approach sees an understanding of recognition, representations and power dynamics as fundamental to understanding the positionings of minorities who can also be marginalised or feel disenfranchised. This introduction to the special issue highlights the importance of deeply conceptualising issues around minority integration alongside empirical knowledge of how Roma identities become implicated in and through different modalities of mobilisation. Contributions to this special issue speak to debates in minority politics and identity studies along with migration and race/ethnicity discourses. This indicates that the experiences of, and discourses surrounding Roma minorities reflect the fundamental concerns of social science research about identity, ethnicity, cohesion and change.