Category-based induction requires selective use of different relations to guide inferences; this article examines the development of inferences based on ecological relations among living things. Three hundred and forty-six 6-, 8-, and 10-year-old children from rural, suburban, and urban communities projected novel diseases or insides from one species to an ecologically or taxonomically related species; they were also surveyed about hobbies and activities. Frequency of ecological inferences increased with age and with reports of informal exploration of nature, and decreased with population density. By age 10, children preferred taxonomic inferences for insides and ecological inferences for disease, but this pattern emerged earlier among rural children. These results underscore the importance of context by demonstrating effects of both domain-relevant experience and environment on biological reasoning.
Download full-text PDF |
Source |
---|---|
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01751.x | DOI Listing |
Sci Rep
January 2025
Guangxi University of Chinese Medicine School of Yao Medicine, Nanning, 530200, Guangxi, China.
Golden camellia species are endangered species with great ecological significance and economic value in the section Chrysantha of the genus Camellia of the family Theaceae. Literature shows that more than 50 species of golden camellia have been found all over the world, but the exact number remains undetermined due to the complex phylogenetic background, the non-uniform classification criteria, and the presence of various synonyms and homonyms; and phylogenetic relationships among golden camellia species at the gene level are yet to be disclosed. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the divergence time and phylogenetic relationships between all golden camellia species at the gene level to improve their classification system and achieve accurate identification of them.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Monit Assess
January 2025
Treeline Ecological Research, 21551 Twp Rd 520, Sherwood Park, Alberta, T8E 1E3, Canada.
Based on analysis of documents obtained in public databases and under freedom of information requests, this study assessed the Alberta Energy Regulator's (AER) monitoring and management of bitumen tailings spills. The AER's claims of no environmental impacts at any tailings spills lack corroborative environmental data. Claims of perfect spill recovery in 75% of tailings spills are not supported by credible evidence.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGenome Biol Evol
January 2025
Center for Evolution and Medicine, School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA.
Front Neurol
December 2024
Department of Head and Neck Surgery and Brain Research Institute, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, United States.
The relative accessibility and simplicity of vestibular sensing and vestibular-driven control of head and eye movements has made the vestibular system an attractive subject to experimenters and theoreticians interested in developing realistic quantitative models of how brains gather and interpret sense data and use it to guide behavior. Head stabilization and eye counter-rotation driven by vestibular sensory input in response to rotational perturbations represent natural, ecologically important behaviors that can be reproduced in the laboratory and analyzed using relatively simple mathematical models. Models drawn from dynamical systems and control theory have previously been used to analyze the behavior of vestibular sensory neurons.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEcol Lett
January 2025
Museum of Zoology & Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
Whether large-scale variation in lineage diversification rates can be predicted by species properties at the population level is a key unresolved question at the interface between micro- and macroevolution. All else being equal, species with biological attributes that confer metapopulation stability should persist more often at timescales relevant to speciation and so give rise to new (incipient) forms that share these biological traits. Here, we develop a framework for testing the relationship between metapopulation properties related to persistence and phylogenetic speciation rates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnter search terms and have AI summaries delivered each week - change queries or unsubscribe any time!