Wineries Evaluation of Costs and Benefits of Sustainability Certification Program: The Case of Terra Vitis in France.

Background: The current paper analyses the evaluation of the costs and benefits of French wineries (N=69) participating in the sustainability program Terra Vitis, a widespread environmental certification scheme within the French wine industry.

Method: An online questionnaire was sent to all Terra Vitis participants, in order to analyse the evaluation of economic costs and benefits (together with environmental benefits) as perceived by wineries.

Results: Our findings reveal that older participants in the scheme (over 5 years), firms with higher export share (>40% of annual turnover) and cooperative wineries tend to be keener to assign a positive evaluation to the benefits/costs ratio in both the vineyard and the winery.

The number of competitor species is unlinked to sexual dimorphism.

Sexual size dimorphism (SSD) can allow males and females of the same species to specialize on different sized food items and therefore minimize intraspecific competition. Interspecific competition, however, is thought to limit sexual dimorphism, as larger competitors in the community will prevent the larger sex from evolving larger size, and smaller species may prevent the smaller sex from becoming even smaller. We tested this prediction using data on the sexual size dimorphism of lizards, and mammalian carnivores, on islands world-wide.