Comparative life-history traits in a fig wasp community: implications for community structure

1. Whether life-history traits can determine community composition and structure is an important question that has been well explored theoretically, but has received scant empirical attention. Life-history traits of a seven-member community of galler and parasitoid fig wasp species (Chalcidoidea), developing within the inflorescences (syconia) of Ficus racemosa (Moraceae) in India, were determined and used to examine community structure and ecology. 2. Gallers were pro-ovigenic (all eggs are mature upon adult emergence) whereas parasitoids were synovigenic (eggs mature progressively during adult lifespan). Initial egg load was correlated with body size for some species, and there was a trade-off between egg number and egg size across all species. Although all species completed their development and left the syconium concurrently, they differed in their adult and pre-adult lifespans. Providing sucrose solutions increased parasitoid lifespan but had no effect on the longevity of some galler species. While feeding regimes and body size affected longevity in most species, an interaction effect between these variables was detected for only one species. 3. Life-history traits of wasp species exhibited a continuum in relation to their arrival sequence at syconia for oviposition during syconium development, and therefore reflected their ecology. The largest number of eggs, smallest egg sizes, and shortest longevities were characteristic of the earliest-arriving galling wasps at the smallest, immature syconia; the converse characterised the later-arriving parasitoids at the larger, already parasitised syconia. Thus life history is an important correlate of community resource partitioning and can be used to understand community structure. 4. This is the first comprehensive study of life-history traits in a fig wasp community. The comparative approach revealed constraints and flexibility in trait evolution.

Cultural Trauma and Life Stories

The purpose of this work is to use the concepts of human time and cultural trauma in a biographical study of the turning points in the recent history of Estonia. This research is primarily based on 148 in-depth biographical interviews conducted in Estonia and Sweden in 1995-2005, supplemented by excerpts from 5 collections and 10 individually published autobiographies. The main body of the thesis consists of six published and of two forthcoming separate refereed articles, summarised in the theoretical introduction, and Appendix of the full texts of three particular life stories. The topic of the first article is the generational composition and the collective action frames of anti-Soviet social mobilisation in Estonia in 1940-1990. The second article details the differentiation of the rites of passage and the calendar traditions as a strategy to adapt to the rapidly changed political realities, comparatively in Soviet Estonia and among the boat-refugees in Sweden. The third article investigates the life stories of the double-minded strategic generation of the Estonian-inclined Communists, who attempted to work within the Soviet system while professing to uphold the ideals of pre-war Estonia. The fourth article is concentrated on the problems of double mental standards as a coping strategy in a contradictory social reality. The fifth article implements the theory of cultural trauma for the social practice of singing nationalism in Estonia. The sixth article bridges the ideas of Russian theoreticians concerning cultural dialogue and the Western paradigm of cultural trauma, with examples from Estonian Russian life stories. The seventh article takes a biographical look at the logic of the unraveling of cultural trauma through four Soviet decades. The eighth article explores the re-shaping of citizen activities as a strategy of coping with the loss of the independent nation state, comparatively in Soviet Estonia and among Swedish Estonians. Cultural trauma is interpreted as the re-ordering of the society s value-normative constellation due to sharp, violent, usually political events. The first one under consideration was caused by the occupations of the Republic of Estonia by the Soviet army in 1940-45. After half a century of suppression the memories of these events resurfaced as different stories describing the long-term, often inter-generational strategies of coping with the value collapse. The second cultural trauma is revealed together with the collapse of the Soviet power and ideology in Estonia in 1991. According to empirical data, the following three trauma discourses have been reconstructed: - the forced adaptation to Soviet order of the homeland Estonians; - the difficulty of preserving Estonian identity in exile (Sweden); - the identity crisis of the Russian population of Estonia. Comparative analyses of these discourses have shown that opposing experiences and worldviews cause conflicting interpretations of the past. Different social and ethnic groups consider coping with cultural trauma as a matter of self-defence and create appropriate usable pasts to identify with. Keywords: human time, cultural trauma, frame analysis, discourse, life stories

Lippu, uhri, kansakunta : Ryhmäkokemukset ja -rajat Suomessa 1917 1945

This dissertation deals with the notions of sacrifice and violence in connection with the Fin¬nish flag struggles between 1917 and 1945. The study begins with the basic idea that sacrificial thinking is a key element in nationalism and the social cohesion of large groups. The method used in the study combines anthropological notions of totemism with psychoanalytical object relation theory. The aim is to explore the social and psychological elements of the Finnish national flag and the workers flags during the times of crisis and nation building. The phenomena and concepts addressed include self-sacrifice, scapegoating, remembrance of war, inclusion, and exclusion. The research is located at the intersection of nationalism studies and the cultural history of war. The analysis is based primarily on the press debates, public speeches and archival sources of the civic organizations that promoted the Finnish flag. The study is empirically divided into three sections: 1) the years of the Revolution and the Civil War (1917 1918), 2) the interwar period (1919 1938), and 3) the Second World War (1939 1945). The research demonstrates that the modern national flags and workers flags in Finland maintain certain characteristics of primitive totems. When referred to as a totem the flag means an emotionally charged symbol, a reservoir of the collective ideals of a large group. Thus the flag issue offers a path to explore the perceptions and memory of sacrifice and violence in the making of the First Republic . Any given large group, for example a nation, must conceptually pursue a consensus on its past sacrifices. Without productive interpretation sacrifice represents only meaningless violence. By looking at the passions associated with the flag the study also illuminates various group identities, boundaries and crossings of borders within the Finnish society at the same time. The study shows further that the divisive violence of the Civil War was first overcome in the late 1930s when the social democrats adopted a new perception of the Red victims of 1918 they were seen as part of the birth pains of the nation, and not only the martyrs of class struggle. At the same time the radical Right became marginalized. The study also illuminates how this development made the Spirit of the Winter War possible, a genuine albeit brief experience of horizontal brother and sisterhood, and how this spirit was reflected in the popular adoption of the Finnish flag. The experience was not based only on the external and unifying threat posed by the Soviet Union: it was grounded in a sense of unifying sacrifice which reflected a novel way of understanding the nation and its past sacrifices. Paradoxically, the newly forged consensus over the necessity and the rewards of the common sacrifices of the Winter War (1939 1940) made new sacrifices possible during the Continuation War (1941 1944). In spite of political discord and war weariness, the concept of a unified nation under the national flag survived even the absurdity of the stationary war phase. It can be said that the conflict between the idea of a national community and parliamentary party politics dissolved as a result of the collective experience of the Second World War.

Natural history and behaviour of the primitively eusocial wasp Ropalidia marginata (Hymenoptera: Vespidae): a comparison of the two sexes

We report the natural history and behaviour of the primitively eusocial wasp Ropalidia marginata with a special reference to the males. We found that just as nests of this species are found throughout the year, so are the males. Females spend all their life in their nests but males stay in their natal nests only for 1-12 days and leave to lead a nomadic life. Males maintained in the laboratory can live for up to 140 days. Like all eusocial hymenopteran males, R. marginata males also do not perform any colony maintenance activities. We found that males did not forage or feed larvae. Compared with females, males showed fewer dominance and subordinate behaviours and being solicited behaviour and more feeding self and soliciting behaviours. By comparing males with young females, we found similar differences, except that the males showed similar rates of feeding self and higher rates of subordinate behaviour.

Between West and East: A Social History of Business Journalism in Cold War Finland

The Cold War era was characterized by ideological struggles that had a major impact on economic decision-making, and also on management practice. To date, however, these ideological struggles have received little attention from management and organizational scholars. To partially fill this research gap, we focus on the role of the media in these ideological struggles. Our starting point is that the media both reflect more general societal debates but also act as an agency promoting specific kinds of ideas and ideologies. In this sense, the media exercise significant power in society; this influece, however, is often subtle and easily dismissed in historical analyses focusing on political and corporate decision-making. In this article, we focus on the role of business journalism in the ideological struggles of the Cold War era. Our case in point is Finland, which is arguably a particularly interesting example due to its geo-political position between East and West. Our approach is socio-historical: we focus on the emergence and development of business journalism in the context of the specific struggles in the Finnish political and economic fields. Our analysis shows how the business journalists struggled between nationalist, pro-Soviet and pro-West political forces, but gradually developed into an increasingly influential force promoting neo-liberal ideology.

Power and Distribution Network Structure in the People's Republic of China - The Case of an Inland City in Transition

The aim of the current study is to examine the influence of the channel external environment on power, and the effect of power on the distribution network structure within the People’s Republic of China. Throughout the study a dual research process was applied. The theory was constructed by elaborating the main theoretical premises of the study, the channel power theories, the political economy framework and the distribution network structure, but these marketing channel concepts were expanded with other perspectives from other disciplines. The main method applied was a survey conducted among 164 Chinese retailers, complemented by interviews, photographs, observations and census data from the field. This multi-method approach enabled not only to validate and triangulate the quantitative results, but to uncover serendipitous findings as well. The theoretical contribution of the current study to the theory of marketing channels power is the different view it takes on power. First, earlier power studies have taken the producer perspective, whereas the current study also includes a distributor perspective to the discussion. Second, many power studies have dealt with strongly dependent relationships, whereas the current study examines loosely dependent relationships. Power is dependent on unequal distribution of resources rather than based on high dependency. The benefit of this view is in realising that power resources and power strategies are separate concepts. The empirical material of the current study confirmed that at least some resources were significantly related to power strategies. The study showed that the dimension resources composed of technology, know-how and knowledge, managerial freedom and reputation was significantly related to non-coercive power. Third, the notion of different outcomes of power is a contribution of this study to the channels power theory even though not confirmed by the empirical results. Fourth, it was proposed that channel external environment other than the resources would also contribute to the channel power. These propositions were partially supported thus providing only partial contribution to the channel power theory. Finally, power was equally distributed among the different types of actors. The findings from the qualitative data suggest that different types of retailers can be classified according to the meaning the actors put into their business. Some are more business oriented, for others retailing is the only way to earn a living. The findings also suggest that in some actors both retailing and wholesaling functions emerge, and this has implications for the marketing channels structure.

Towards a Conceptual History of Narrative

The article outlines a conceptual history of narrative, in particular the changes over the movement called “narrative turn” in the social sciences. According to Quentin Skinner, conceptual changes may take place on three separate levels: by changing the criteria of the concept, by changing the range of reference, and by changing the appraisal of the concept. Recent theorizing on narrative epitomizes all of these levels, but unevenly. In spite of the rhetoric of interdisciplinarity, two almost totally separate traditions of narrative theory persist: the narratological and the narrative-turn theories. Paradoxically, the narrative turn literature has radicalized the range of reference of narrative by attaching the concept to life and identity, but has left the criteria of the concept practically intact. This has extended the reign of a simplified Aristotelian concept of narrative as a chain of beginnings, middles, and ends. The narratological tradition of theorizing, instead, has debated extensively on the correct criteria of the concept, but enlarged the range of reference rather in the direction of cognition.

EU Accession and FDI inflows : The cases of the Czech Republic and Slovakia

Central and East European countries have faced a difficult process of transition since the dissolution of the Soviet bloc. Ten transition countries (Hungary, Poland, teh Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria and Romania have chosen to join the EU and have moulded their transition reforms to ensure the compliance of their legal and institutional framework with EU requirements. The high levels of FDI attracted by the candidate countries for EU membership had been attributed to rapid transition of the countries aiming to join the European Union and the fact that favourable evaluations by EU authorities of the progress made by the candidates had a large impact on improving investor confidence. The aim of this paper is to investigate the reform strategies of the Czech Republic and Slovakia undertaken when the countries were preparing for EU membership and the dynamics of FDI inflows into these economies. Subsequently a comparative analysis of FDI stocks in these countries is conducted. We find that both countries faced similar economic challenges in implementing structural and institutional reforms. In accordance with EU requirements the Czech Republic and Slovakia have perfected their legal and institutional framework, increased the authority of regulatory and supervisory bodies and focused on implementation of new or amended legislation. During the period of the analysis (1998 - 2007) the Czech Republic and Slovakia have attracted increasing amounts of FDI. Comparative analysis in terms of important determinants of FDI reveals further similar features: macroeconomic stability; an open and liberalised market; low labour costs compared to EU-15 and a similar breakdown of FDI inflows by investor country. Consequently, the fact that the Czech Republic received much larger volumes of net FDI inflows could be attributed to the difference in market size between the two states. This conclusion is consistent with previous empirical studies that list market size among the main determinants of FDI. However, when we look at FDI as a percentage of GDP the evidence is more mixed. In 2004 - 2007, Slovakia has surpassed the Czech Republic twice. Whether this tendency will persist remains to be seen. The analysis in this paper based on empirical data. However, the choice of the method, namely case studies and comparative analysis, means that the conclusions of this study are theoretical and remain to be further tested in quantitative models.