Interspecies Cooperation

The following image documents the mounted cranial remains and accompanying speculative reconstruction of Nashobasato cryptidensis, an unclassified faunal specimen reportedly recovered from the Olympic Peninsula region of Washington State. Morphological analysis suggests a composite adaptation inconsistent with known North American taxa, including anterior ocular placement, elongated cervical articulation surfaces, vibrational horn structures, and defensive scapular plating.

The mounted display and interpretive reconstruction were prepared to examine potential behavioral and ecological implications inferred from the specimen’s anatomy. Particular attention has been given to theories involving simultaneous environmental scanning, directional acoustic sensitivity, and cooperative predatory or tracking behaviors described in regional oral traditions.

While provenance remains unverified and formal taxonomic classification has not been issued, the specimen continues to generate interest due to the unusual consistency between physical morphology, folkloric accounts, and reported environmental audio phenomena associated with remote forest encounters.

Further study remains ongoing.

Este trabalho consiste em uma análise empírico-qualitativa dos Carroceiros da Região Metropolitana de Aracaju (RMA), suas relações de trabalho, de cultura e tradição através de diversos mecanismos sociais envolvidos na luta pelo reconhecimento e manutenção de seu legado histórico em território sergipano. Em um primeiro momento, investigou-se através de uma reconstrução sócio-histórica a categoria no Brasil, a sua gênese enquanto grupo social, sua dinâmica em períodos anteriores, seu processo de proletarização no pós-escravismo e sua racialização marcada como negra e migrante. Além disto, busca-se compreender os desdobramentos do desenvolvimento das infraestruturas urbanas das cidades e do trabalho como agentes promotores de desigualdades sociais no capitalismo emergente se utilizando de ex-escravizados como força de trabalho marginalizada no circuito inferior da economia. Em um segundo momento, identifica-se como relevantes os conflitos ideológicos acerca das fronteiras das relações humano e não-humano, já que o grupo estabelece uma relação interespecífica ancestral com os equinos, considerados membros de suas famílias, entretanto, sofrem com conflitos na esfera pública entre instituições governamentais e sociedade civil na busca por legitimidade de seu modo de viver multiespécie em contextos urbanos tendo como consequência atos de violência racista que buscam retirar sua condição de companheiros, reprimir os trabalhadores negros, suas famílias mais-que-humanas e seus equinos. Assim, compreende-se que a ocupação de Carroceiro é central para a dialética do desenvolvimento urbano das cidades, pois exercem uma função de força de trabalho marginalizada nos bairros periféricos da região rebaixando os custos de reprodução social do espaço urbano, ainda, o Estado reforça sua dominação contra estes trabalhadores através de uma repressão racial, de classe e de espécie. Ainda, o Estado através de diversas práticas coloniais de desumanização perpetua o apagamento de uma forma endógena de organização interespecífica na forma de epistemicídio de sua cultura e tradições, tendo como norte a ideologia desenvolvimentista vigente na região metropolitana.

This paper examines an approach to musical practice that focuses on sustainability, particularly how musicality - or interspecies communication that bears musical traits - can help develop and sustain interspecies collaboration as opposed to conflict. I present a case study on interspecies musicking and non-human musicality in the man/golden eagle vocal interactions upon which Kyrgyz eagle-hunting is constructed. Building on recent scholarship advancing the idea of non-human agency (Bennett 2010) and its entwinement with musical behaviour (Steingo 2024; Devine 2019; Silvers 2018; Mundy 2018), this paper probes the use of vocalisations to train and bond with golden eagles and the act of non-human listening subverting the subject/object relationship that animal/human interactions seemingly imply. Traditionally, young hunters are recognised as real men when they can prove their eagle has learnt to listen to them (Master Nursultan Kolbaev 2019). As a non-domesticable animal, in the relationship with a golden eagle agencies are subverted: the falconer must adapt and listen to the eagle to be listened to by her (McGough 2019). Negotiating mastership challenges the notion of the human voice as the authority and of the non-human listener as passively receiving commands. The ‘leading’ voice depends on its ‘subject’’s willingness to listen. Exploring how human vocality can act as a tool to mend the human/wildlife fracture and how the practice of listening to and by the non-human other recalibrates interspecies relations, my case study emphasises non-human agency’s potential for the construction of more harmonious relations in an age of environmental conflict.

‘What matters to us’ (‘Ce qui nous concerne’) is a small stories (Georgakopoulou, 2007; De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2008) participative ethnographic research project with civil society organisations in Rennes, France. Rennes has a rich history of civil society engagement. This encourages ‘positive’ discourse analysis (Bartlett, 2012) and purposive change through research initiatives. ‘What matters to us’ is a longitudinal project in three phases: i) the composition of a corpus of stories told by members of civil society organisations (reference deleted for peer review), ii) the creation of an interactive library accessible through a 2D virtual world based on the open-source WorkAdventure platform that is locally hosted and ecologically-concerned (Kelleher & Ramella, 2024; Ramella, 2023), and iii) the facilitation of emancipatory pedagogic practices focused on re-tellings and co-tellings. This paper, firstly, explores some stories from the corpus employing an ecosophical narratology (reference deleted for peer review) that concerns the shape of story ‘arcs’ and their time scale (Haraway, 2016; Tsing, 2015), the semiotisation of the story world, and ecosophical (Naess, 1989) and ecological sociolinguistic considerations (Kelleher, 2020). Ecosophical narratology embraces stories that emplot longer-term sharing and interspecies cooperation, or what Haraway (2016: 40) terms stories in ‘nets’, earth-centered language (Rosenfeld, 2019) and associative practices that are both recounted and materialised. The term ‘ecosophy’ has been chosen in lieu of ‘econarratology’ (James & Morel, 2020) since this latter term is strongly associated with literary studies, although this boundary blurs with the work of Caracciolo (see for example Toivonen & Caracciolo, 2023). Following the exploration of the corpus of stories, the paper goes on to present activities from the ‘What matters to us’ project’s second and third phases, relying on the WorkAdventure library whose digital mediation has the potential to change ontological and epistemological boundaries (Hansen, 2006). These phases are workshop-based, and lead to new imaginings and new tellings. Findings suggest that the third sector in Rennes, and its stories, are responsive to ecosophical values and to the links between humans and their environment. The ‘What Matters to Us’ project thus values new and digitally-mediated ways of preserving orality and contributing to social and environmental justice (Blommaert, 2006).

This book challenges normalized ways of designing within the current global neoliberal economic situation by proposing the concept of post-normal design as an exploratory attempt to confront the damage and to re-frame both the discipline and the profession.

Dionysis Fragopoulos' poem "Time We Long To Live Reclaimed Synthesis" (2025) out of his unpublished poetry book "The Quantum Weave: PostMythos and ReGenesis" (2025) is a sweeping epic that traces humanity's fraught relationship with domestication-from early agricultural manipulation to the "gene-warped biocarnival" of postmodern bioengineering-before envisioning a PostMythic renaissance. Here, PostArchetypes and "enhanced intelligence oeastrus" emerge as guiding forces for a new paradigm: one where synthetic and organic lives co-evolve through "communal respect" rather than anthropocentric domination.

In recent decades, market-driven logic has increasingly shaped self-care, leading to its simplification and commodification (Fragnito & Tola, 2021, p.19). Personal well-being has been reduced to individualistic practices, the purchase of exclusive lifestyle products (The Care Collective, 2020, p.26), and technological devices for tracking biological parameters. This narrow perspective reinforces ideals of self-sufficiency, autonomy, and independence, promoting an anthropocentric view that ignores our fundamental dependence on other living and non-living entities, organic matter, and biochemical processes that connect us to planetary systems. In contrast, the intersection of ecology, feminism, and post anthropocentrism (Adams & Gruen, 2022; Braidotti, 2017; Haraway, 2018; Mies & Shiva, 1993; Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017) points to the need to rethink capitalist models, hierarchical structures, and dualistic ontologies that have reinforced environmental and social injustices. Design, too, must evolve, embracing cooperative and symbiotic approaches, fostering interspecies care practices that support the well-being of human and non-human life forms, as well as technological assemblages. In this light, care transforms into a radical act, one that can carry political significance.

Der lautmalerische Titel "BLOB" verweist auf einen Science-Fiction-Film aus den späten 1950er Jahren. In dem amerikanischen Horror-Fiction von 1958 strebt ein außerirdischer Schleimpilz (Physarum polycephalum) mit dem Spitznamen "BLOB" nach der Weltherrschaft.
Im letzten Jahrzehnt hat sich der Blick auf Mikroorganismen, wie beispielsweise auf Algen, Bakterien und Pilze gewandelt. Statt sie als bedrohliche Plage oder als Krankheitserreger einzustufen, erkennt
man heute ihr Potenzial, insbesondere wenn es um die Substitution ressourcenintensiver Werk- und Baustoffe in Kunst, Design und Architektur geht.
Die eingeladenen Künstlerinnen und Künstler arbeiten transdisziplinär, handlungs- und prozessorientiert und überwiegend mit lebendem Material. Ergänzt werden die künstlerischen Positionen durch ausgewählte Beispiele aus der Materialforschung zum Myzel, die von Dirk Hebel am KIT Fakultät für Architektur in Karlsruhe durchgeführt wird.

Ein Projekt des Kunstvereins Neuhausen e.V. mit Byung Chul Kim (Essen) Maya Minder (Zürich/CH), Theresa Schubert (Berlin), Shinroku Shimokawa (Tokio/ Stuttgart), Linda Weiß & Blockadia Tiefsee (Offenbach/Stuttgart).

BLOB! Parasiten, Symbionten und andere nichtmenschliche Akteure.
Ein kollaboratives Kunstprojekt.
Ausstellung: 11. Mai - 14. Juli 2024
Links: https://kvnneuhausen.com/2023/12/06/blob/
https://kvnneuhausen.com/2024/04/28/tuber-uncinatum-ein-langzeitprojekt-von-linda-weis/
Vorträge & Workshops: https://kvnneuhausen.com/activities/

Konzept & Umsetzung
Susanne Jakob M.A., künstlerische Leitung & Geschäftsführung
in Zusammenarbeit mit den beteiligten Künstlerinnen & Künstler

Texte:
Elena Boerman, KIT Karlsruhe, Susanne Jakob, Maya Minder, Theresa Schubert, Linda Weiß, Blockadia*Tiefsee und die zitierten Autorinnen und Autoren.

Fotos: Die Künstlerinnen und Künstler und die genannten Fotografinnen und Fotografen.

Grafik & Druck
Titel (Umschlag) © Uli Cluss, Stuttgart/Berlin
Druckdatei: Ginster Bauer, Stuttgart
Druck: https://www.wir-machen-druck.de/
Seiten: 18 und Umschlag
Auflage: 500

BLOB! wurde gefördert von: Kommune Neuhausen/Fildern; Regierungspräsidium Stuttgart; Land Baden-Württemberg; Stiftung Kulturwerk der VG BILD-KUNST, Bonn; Stiftung der Kreissparkasse Esslingen-Nürtingen und dem INNOVATIONSCLUB im KV Neuhausen.

Mit freundlicher Unterstützung: Elena Asyova; Michael Bolender, Büro für Landschaftsarchitektur, Stuttgart/Isny; Juliette Descharmes & Thomas Schäfer, Chèr Pierre Trüffel, Pforzheim; Jochen Wagner; Timo Wans, MYZELIUM, Neuhausen/Fildern; Elena Boerman M.Sc. Architektur, Materialbibliothek, und Prof. Dirk Hebel, KIT Fakultät für Architektur,
Karlsruhe; Dr. Dipl.-Ing. Brigitte Pihulak, Nürtingen; Friedrich-Schiller-Schule, Neuhausen/Fildern.

From Ecology of Listening to Organism Sonification as Participatory Art Medium for Non-anthropocentric Dialogues
(by NeoMeta, Yuliia / Julia Shutkevych)

Amid ecological crises and the dissolution of binaries separating human and nonhuman, this research explores how listening to nonhuman voices: through the rhythmic oscillations of slime redefines agency and fosters kinship beyond anthropocentric frameworks. This research explores the intersection of sound ecology, interspecies communication, and participatory art to redefine human-nonhuman relationships in the Anthropocene.

Focusing on Physarum polycephalum, a slime mold known for its decentralized intelligence and adaptability, the study employs sonification to amplify nonhuman agency and foster empathy. By integrating scientific image analysis and sound synthesis, Physarum’s bioelectrical signals
and movement patterns are translated into soundscapes using tools like Fiji (ImageJ) and Max/MSP (Miranda & Adamatzky, 2011). These sonified outputs, embedded in multimedia installations, invite participants into a multisensory dialogue with the organism, challenging human exceptionalism and emphasizing the interconnectedness of all life forms.

Drawing on frameworks such as Haraway’s "kin-making" (Haraway, 2016) and Morton’s "hypersubjectivity" (Morton, 2019), the research situates sound as a medium of care and ecological. The speculative art/science projects ‘MetaLife’ and ‘MetaNature’ illustrate the transformative potential of art to bridge the divide between nature and culture, transforming discarded electronics into speculative landscapes where living and nonliving systems coalesce (NeoMeta, 2024). By fostering an ‘ecology of listening’ framework, this work highlights the potential for sound to create relational spaces that honor the vitality and resilience of nonhuman beings (Bennett, 2010).

Ultimately, this research advocates for interdisciplinary approaches that integrate artistic expression, technological innovation, and ecological care. It underscores the urgency of cultivating empathy and responsibility for a shared future, envisioning a post-anthropocentric world where humans and
nonhumans thrive symbiotically. Through the act of listening, we are invited to reimagine our role within the ecological mesh, amplifying nonhuman voices and nurturing multispecies flourishing.

*Physarum, The slime mold Physarum polycephalum – a single-celled yet multinucleate SuperOrganism renowned for its decentralized intelligence and remarkable adaptability. Subject of this paper and co-creator.
**NeoMeta (Julia Shutkevych) – author’s artist name reflecting the fusion of artistic expression and scientific inquiry; from Greek ‘neo’ – “new”; ‘meta’ – “beyond,” “transcending” (Appendix 1. Manifesto).

Loose conversations to imagine a participatory, healthy, wandering Rome. This Rome exists. It’s a city seeking to resist the overdevelopment, hyper-productivity, and isolation the economic, social, and urban systems tend to push us towards. This Rome fails and, from its failure, creates sublime images. The conversation is all about Rome, as we try to recover its wondrous, friendly, generous, welcoming side. This story uses Rome as an example of a context to get back to thinking about the basis of our active, solid, gentle, close, and respectful practices in the cities we’ll live in in the future and the cities we’re building right now. We’d have loved to be with our characters sitting in a square, chatting in a bar, or wandering the edges of the city, but we didn’t always manage to.

Recollections of humanistic and transpersonal psychology's origin's morph into the pros and cons of humanistic/transpersonal oriented schools developing APA accredited clinical programs. This discussion dovetails with the question will ATP ever become an APA division, raising an interesting alternative for those of us considering a career in counseling: becoming a spiritual coach. Enter the issue of psychedelic therapy and the Supreme Courts decision to allow ayahuasca as a sacrament by the Uniao Do Vegetal Church, and the importance of why humanistic and transpersonal psychology need to clearly map out the territories and subdivisions of science and religion. Finally this conversation raises a concern, that Maslow's call for a "trans-human" psychology sought to encourage creating what we now call ecopsychology.

Journal web page: https://www.ecolinguistics-association.org/Journal
This article presents findings from participative small stories narrative research with civil society organisations in Rennes, France. The aim is to explore ecosophical narratology and, thereby, the adoption of ecosophical practices. Rennes has a long history of inclusive politics and civil society engagement which encourages positive discourse analysis and purposive change through research initiatives. 'Ce qui nous concerne' ('What matters to us') is a longitudinal ethnographic project that is in the process of transcribing and collecting Rennes civil society stories as a corpus on the Huma-Num Nakala multimodal corpus platform. The project team is also currently in the process of developing an open-access interactive library on the Rennes 2 University WorkAdventure 2D collaborative platform. The project aims to accompany emancipatory pedagogic practices grounded on co-tellings and re-tellings. This article explores a purposive sample of three stories from the corpus in order to shed light on the linguistic and narrative work that each accomplishes, and the opportunities that each presents for ecosophical workshops and societal change. An ecosophical narratology inverts canonical story arcs, replacing individual overcoming by what Haraway would term "nets" of earthbound multispecies flourishing and imagining, privileging the role of the environment in narrative moment and resolution, timescale and indexicality. Importance is thus given to earth-centred language and process rather than event. Through these stories, associative practices are both recounted and materialised, contributing to social and environmental justice.

Our current understanding of the function of coordinated acoustic displays usually comes from studies conducted over a short period of the breeding season. However, the function of particular types of vocalizations may vary according to sex and context, and such displays can extend beyond the time of reproduction. To fully understand this phenomenon, analyses of year-round singing behavior are required. In the current study, we focused on a small, year-round territorial Afrotropical songbird, Chubb's Cisticola (Cisticola chubbi). We analyzed the structure of songs during the breeding season as well as year-round changes in the proportion of solos, duets, and choruses to investigate the potential function(s) of each type of vocalization. We found that: (1) females produced whistling notes, while males generated trilling ones; (2) up to five individuals formed coordinated choruses, and (3) individuals were always near to each other during cooperative singing. Over the course of a year, the majority of syllables recorded were duets (82%), with rarer choruses (16%) and extremely rare solos (2%). Outside of the breeding season, males produced the most solos, while females produced more at the beginning of the breeding season. The proportion of choruses was highest at the end of breeding season. Frequent year-round production of duets and choruses strongly supports territory defense as the main function of joint singing, while the highest proportion of choruses at the end of the breeding season suggests that offspring take part in the chorus. To better understand cooperative singing, it is essential to extend our looking beyond the breeding season. Keywords Bird song • Chorus • Duet • Female singing • Seasonal changes in vocal activity • Year-round vocal activity Zusammenfassung Häufige Duette, seltene Chöre und extrem seltene Solos-das ganzjährige Singverhalten des Farnzistensängers. Unser derzeitiger Wissensstand zur Funktion koordinierter akustischer Darbietungen stammt in der Regel aus Studien, die über einen kurzen Zeitraum während der Brutsaison durchgeführt wurden. Aber die Funktion bestimmter Arten von Communicated by F. Bairlein.

Our current understanding of the function of coordinated acoustic displays usually comes from studies conducted over a short period of the breeding season. However, the function of particular types of vocalizations may vary according to sex and context, and such displays can extend beyond the time of reproduction. To fully understand this phenomenon, analyses of year-round singing behavior are required. In the current study, we focused on a small, year-round territorial Afrotropical songbird, Chubb’s Cisticola (Cisticola chubbi). We analyzed the structure of songs during the breeding season as well as year-round changes in the proportion of solos, duets, and choruses to investigate the potential function(s) of each type of vocalization. We found that: (1) females produced whistling notes, while males generated trilling ones; (2) up to five individuals formed coordinated choruses, and (3) individuals were always near to each other during cooperative singing. Over the course of a year...

This bi-lingual booklet (German and English), edited by Katharina Scheerer and Christina Becher, is the accompanying publication to the exhibition "Eden? Plants between Science and Fiction," which was on display at the botanical garden in Münster, Germany (May 2022) and at the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA (fall 2023).

Recollections of humanistic and transpersonal psychology's origin's morph into the pros and cons of humanistic/transpersonal oriented schools developing APA accredited clinical programs. This discussion dovetails with the question will ATP ever become an APA division, raising an interesting alternative for those of us considering a career in counseling: becoming a spiritual coach. Enter the issue of psychedelic therapy and the Supreme Courts decision to allow ayahuasca as a sacrament by the Uniao Do Vegetal Church, and the importance of why humanistic and transpersonal psychology need to clearly map out the territories and subdivisions of science and religion. Finally this conversation raises a concern, that Maslow's call for a "trans-human" psychology sought to encourage creating what we now call ecopsychology.

a short essay on developments in microbiology around symbioses in both German and English. Published in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition "We grow, grow and grow, we're gonna be alright and this is our show" by Jana Kerima Stolzer and Lex Rütten, shown at the Hartware MedienKunstVerein in Dortmund 2023.

Lydia Millet’s novels have gained momentum within environmental discourses since they often prove how “looking outside the human is what gives human life its meaning” (Millet 2022). In this article, I analyze How the Dead Dream, the first novel of a trilogy published almost ten years after J.M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals (2001), the novella written for 1997-98 Tanner Lectures at Princeton University. Millet’s book, I argue, is a direct reply to Coetzee’s invitation to reconsider the place of the human vis-à-vis the other-than-human within the complex framework of posthumanism. This implies a recession of the onto-epistemological and ethical divide among species that saturate popular discourses on extinction. Drawing on material ecocriticism and, especially, on Stacy Alaimo’s research (Exposed, 2016), I investigate and critique different forms of epistemological impermeability, such as the assumed domestic safety, cleanness, and the sovereignty of the (male) Western subjectivity. By tracing the radical transformation of T., the main character in the book and rapacious speculator, I demonstrate how the aesthetic and the ethical intersect in the narration of this story of coevolution and cohabitation.

Surrealist women artists have produced a multitude of works that transcend traditional gender and societal roles, presenting visions that blur the boundaries between humans and animals. These works challenge binary distinctions and hierarchical relationships, disrupting social norms and prompting a reimagining of human animal interactions. The self-portraits created by surrealist women, in which they depict themselves alongside animals, establish visual vocabularies that represent women and animal subjects in a non-anthropocentric manner based on interspecies companionship. This companionship depicted in these self-portraits can be considered as representations of Donna J. Haraway’s (2016) "becoming-with", and the autoportraits themselves can be considered as examples of terrapolis, an interspecies space in which becoming-with emerges. Within this framework, the study will analyze Leonora Carrington's (1938) Inn of the Dawn Horse, Frida Kahlo's (1940) Autorretrato con un Mono [Self Portrait with the Monkey], and Dorothea Tanning's (1942) Birthday as exemplary artworks. Rather than conceptualising the non-human as an object of desire or fear the aforementioned works represent becoming-with of species. This article argues that these states are produced not in the utopia/dystopia dichotomy, but on the ground of interspecies companionship established within the trouble of existence in the conditions of patriarchy.

Birds do not always vocalize at random, but may rather divide up soundspace in such a manner that they avoid overlap with the songs of other bird species. In effect, a high degree of communication efficiency can be achieved by many simultaneously active vocalists that finely integrate songs with minimal overlap. We describe this phenomenon from several recordings at our principal study location, near Volcano, California. The most-studied models for conceptualizing and studying such de-synchronized systems come from scheduling algorithms in computer science, where internet protocols involve packets of information that are broadcast widely; any collisions between them will corrupt the colliding packets so that they need to be resent. We have simulated some of these methods that might be appropriate for the soundspace of bird communities. Some features of these de-synchronized depend on specifics of the algorithms used.

This correlation study  aimed to determine the association between the level of self-esteem and romantic jealousy among selected undergraduate university students from Metro Manila, Philippines. The researchers conducted an online survey with the use of self-administered questionnaires. Purposive non-probability sampling was used to identify the 40 respondents for this study. to gather respondents. Descriptive and inferential statistics.  Majority of the respondents were females (23 out of 40) and in their early stage of relationship (1-4 months). Results show that the respondents have a moderate level of self-esteem (median of 3) and high level of romantic jealousy (median of 5). A statistically significant inverse correlation was found between their level of self-esteem and romantic jealousy (r =-0.185, p<.05). The result suggests that the higher their level of self-esteem, the lower the romantic jealousy, i.e. romantic jealousy has no space if one is confident in one's rom...

One of the central tenets of ecopsychology is the articulation and examination of our psychological, including the emotional, relationships with the natural world. The fundamental challenge is to locate the human mind back within the natural world and to understand that this relationship is a reciprocal one (eg, Boston, 1996; Schroll, 2007; Scull, 2009; Greenway, 2010). However, finding a'core'language to represent ecopsychology as a unified discipline is problematic, and it might best be seen as a space for thought, ...

When acoustic signals sent from individuals overlap in frequency and time, acoustic interference and signal masking may occur. Under the acoustic niche hypothesis (ANH), signaling behavior has evolved to partition acoustic space and minimize overlap with other calling individuals through selection on signal structure and/or the sender’s ability to adjust the timing of signals. Alternately, under the acoustic clustering hypothesis, there is potential benefit to convergence and synchronization of the structural or temporal characteristics of signals in the avian community, and organisms produce signals that overlap more than would be expected by chance. Interactive communication networks may also occur, where species living together are more likely to have songs with convergent spectral and or temporal characteristics. In this study, we examine the fine-scale use of acoustic space in montane tropical wet forest bird communities in Costa Rica and Hawai‘i. At multiple recording stations...

The decline of critical habitat structures, such as large old trees, is a global environmental challenge. The cavities that occur in these trees provide shelter and nesting sites for many species but can take centuries to develop. Artificial cavities, including nest boxes and carved logs, offer an increasingly important conservation response. However, current methods of designing, manufacturing and deploying such habitats have constraints that limit innovation, feasibility and effectiveness. In response, this article aims to provide new and broadly useable methods that can improve the design of habitat structures for cavity-dependent animals. To address the shortcomings of existing methods, we develop an approach that uses computer-aided design techniques of generative and parametric modelling to produce structures that satisfy stakeholder needs, computer-aided manufacturing techniques of 3D printing and augmented-reality assembly to build functional prototypes, and computer-assisted techniques of laser scanning and data-driven design to support installation, monitoring and iterative improvement of designs. We demonstrate this approach through a case-study project that designs and instals habitat structures for the powerful owl Ninox strenua, a cavity-dependent and threatened bird. Through a comparison with existing methods, our pilot study shows that computer-aided design and manufacturing can provide novel and useful approaches to develop artificial habitat-structures. Computer-aided design finds geometries that approximate the complex characteristics of natural tree cavities and automatically produces new versions to suit diverse sites or species. Computer-aided manufacturing integrates materials that match the performance of naturally occurring habitat structures and facilitates the assembly of complex geometries by non-experts. Computer-assisted techniques produce precisely fitting and easy-to-instal designs, which support gradual improvement through ongoing prototyping and evaluation. These capabilities highlight how advanced design techniques can improve aspects of artificial habitat-structures through geometric innovation, novel construction techniques and iterative exploration. Significantly, computational approaches can result in designs that can perform well, are easy to construct and instal and are applicable in many situations. Our reusable workflow can aid in the tasks of practical conservation and support ecological research by effectively negotiating the needs of both humans and target species.

One of the central tenets of ecopsychology is the articulation and examination of our psychological, including the emotional, relationships with the natural world. The fundamental challenge is to locate the human mind back within the natural world and to understand that this relationship is a reciprocal one (e.g., Boston, 1996; Schroll, 2007; Scull, 2009; Greenway, 2010). However, finding a 'core' language to represent ecopsychology as a unified discipline is problematic, and it might best be seen as a space for thought, language and practical actions that attempt to articulate the human-nature relationship which, thus far, other branches of the social and natural sciences have failed to do. As an emerging discipline, ecopsychology finds itself at an interesting time and place within the history of ideas that underpin its position both in academic circles and in relation to those wider issues faced by those of us living within unsustainable societies. Existing at the interfa...

This correlation study  aimed to determine the association between the level of self-esteem and romantic jealousy among selected undergraduate university students from Metro Manila, Philippines. The researchers conducted an online survey with the use of self-administered questionnaires. Purposive non-probability sampling was used to identify the 40 respondents for this study. to gather respondents. Descriptive and inferential statistics.  Majority of the respondents were females (23 out of 40) and in their early stage of relationship (1-4 months). Results show that the respondents have a moderate level of self-esteem (median of 3) and high level of romantic jealousy (median of 5). A statistically significant inverse correlation was found between their level of self-esteem and romantic jealousy (r =-0.185, p

This correlation study  aimed to determine the association between the level of self-esteem and romantic jealousy among selected undergraduate university students from Metro Manila, Philippines. The researchers conducted an online survey with the use of self-administered questionnaires. Purposive non-probability sampling was used to identify the 40 respondents for this study. to gather respondents. Descriptive and inferential statistics.  Majority of the respondents were females (23 out of 40) and in their early stage of relationship (1-4 months). Results show that the respondents have a moderate level of self-esteem (median of 3) and high level of romantic jealousy (median of 5). A statistically significant inverse correlation was found between their level of self-esteem and romantic jealousy (r =-0.185, p

Recent studies have shown that territorial songbirds do not maximize vocal amplitude. Instead, song intensity appears to be a flexible trait that is individually regulated. Given the benefits of singing loudly with regard to signal transmission in the context of territory defence and mate attraction, we investigated whether songbirds adjust the sound level of their territorial songs depending on social influences. While interacting with the playback of a simulated conspecific rival, seven male nightingales, Luscinia megarhynchos, increased the sound level of their songs, on average, by more than 5 dB. The nightingales increased their song level to significantly lower values (about 1 dB) in response to control songs of other species, so the revealed increase in vocal intensity during interactions cannot be fully explained by the acoustical masking of the interfering conspecific songs. Thus, the birds improved signal transmission to a higher degree during conspecific maleemale interactions.

Male blackbirds (Turdus nzerula L.) were confronted with auditory stimulation which simulated the singing behaviour of a conspecific with a shared vocal repertoire. Simulated interactions: (1) conspecific singing with no particular temporal relationship to the birds' songs, (2) responding with temporally overlapping matching (rapid matching; reply delay 1 s), or (3) responding with alternating matching (reply delay 3 s). Control: solo singing and confrontation with songs of a conspecific stranger, or noise-patterns. Results: When being exposed to replies, matching and overlapping their songs, birds reduced their singing duration and avoided singing on perches linked with this program. Amplitude increase (45, 55, 65, 75 dB) amplified these effects. When being exposed to replies matching but not overlapping their songs, birds responded dependent on the individual singing programs. Since neighbouring conspecifics share song types the result might help to elucidate functional mechanisms of distance regulation.

Recent studies have shown that territorial songbirds do not maximize vocal amplitude. Instead, song intensity appears to be a flexible trait that is individually regulated. Given the benefits of singing loudly with regard to signal transmission in the context of territory defence and mate attraction, we investigated whether songbirds adjust the sound level of their territorial songs depending on social influences. While interacting with the playback of a simulated conspecific rival, seven male nightingales, Luscinia megarhynchos, increased the sound level of their songs, on average, by more than 5 dB. The nightingales increased their song level to significantly lower values (about 1 dB) in response to control songs of other species, so the revealed increase in vocal intensity during interactions cannot be fully explained by the acoustical masking of the interfering conspecific songs. Thus, the birds improved signal transmission to a higher degree during conspecific maleemale interactions.

Animals often communicate with each other in noisy environments where interference from the ambient noise and other signallers may reduce the effectiveness of signals. Signallers also may evolve behaviours to interfere with signals of their opponents, e.g. by temporally overlapping them with their own, such as the song overlapping behaviour that is seen in some songbirds during aggressive interactions. Song overlapping has been proposed to be a signal of aggressive intent although direct evidence for this hypothesis has been lacking. In the present paper we examined the question of whether song overlapping is correlated with aggressive behaviours in a population of great tits (Parus major) living in an urban-rural gradient. We also examined whether aggressive behaviours are correlated with the ambient noise levels. We found that overlapping was associated negatively while ambient noise levels were associated positively with aggressive behaviours males displayed against a simulated i...

DAVID A. LUTHER: The Evolution of Communication in a Complex Acoustic Environment (Under the direction of Haven Wiley) Animals use communicatory signals for species recognition, mate choice, and territory defense. In many cases, communication occurs in the presence of other species with similar signals, which can make it difficult to discriminate conspecific from heterospecific signals. To avoid interference from syntopic signals, species should partition communication space. I studied partitioning of acoustic space in the dawn chorus of birds in the Amazon basin, an example of communication in high levels of heterospecific background noise. My research analyzed bird songs to determine whether the timing of signal transmission, the structure of signals, or both, serve to partition the acoustic space among different species. I used a combination of acoustic censuses and field experiments to investigate acoustic partitioning. With the censuses, I documented the times and places at which species sing, and I measured the features of each species' song to determine their locations in acoustic space. Playback experiments in the field enabled me to test predictions about partitioning of both acoustic signal space and acoustic perceptual space. The analyses of the acoustic censuses revealed that songs of species that used the same forest stratum and sang during the same 30-min intervals had more dispersed signals than other species. The first experiment indicated that signalers and receivers coordinate the timing of production and reception of signals within the dawn chorus. The viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Spectrogram of Piprites chloris song………………………………………. 2.2 Songs of 83 species in two dimensional acoustic space……………………. 2.3 Dispersion of songs in acoustic space……………………………………… 2.4 Euclidean distance between songs of congeners and random species……...

What may displace Homo Deus as the main mover in evolution? A prime candidate is a hybrid lifeform of greater scope. A new genus of superorganisms, Deus Narrans, will have an opportunity to engage actual and virtual beings across species lines in quests to co-evolve shared values, rather than advance a single genetic and memetic lineage. The art, technology and science endeavors arising from such new transspecies connectives may surpass in influence those of species-bound rivals. Exponential technologies will propel this transition. For eons, material scarcities prompted zero-sum rivalries among and between hominids and other species to reproduce at the expense of one another. As plenitude and longevity grow, new forms of non-zero sum interchange will arise among sentient beings. Evolution in a post-scarcity era will differ  from earlier epochs by turning to the spread of lumenes – replicable qualities of spirit (patterns of emotional response) – across species lines. New communication technologies and pattern languages can speed this shift. Tools already are spreading to converse and share emotions among distantly-related animal and plant lifeforms. Genetic engineering and artificial intelligence soon will make Homo Sapiens the ancestor of myriad new cultures and species, many far surpassing our present capabilities. As a common ground for connecting sentient life forms, Deus Narrans can meet the need for spreading empathic resonances, understandings and collaboration among beings in ever-branchier species. The heart of such interactions may be a fractal system for co-creation in the realms of art, science, and technology. This paper maps how “social tetrahedrons” and “narrative fractals” can serve as interfaces through which sentient beings of all kinds can share experiences and create value at all scales in multiple realms. In the coming year, open source apps will begin testing such interfaces to bridge current cultural barriers in peer learning and online collaboration. If transcultural pilots succeed, they may set the stage for millions of humans – as well as individuals from new lifeforms to come – to explore, thrive, and co-evolve in relationships made possible by Deus Narrans.

Biosemiotics postulates that signaling between organisms is a complex process that can often occur across multiple channels simultaneously. Olfactory pheromonal cues, aural vocalizations, and visual movements and patterns, for example, often all transmit important elements of the overall message intended or conveyed. It is also well known that some species' conspecific communications are " eavesdropped " by other species (such as primates reacting to birds suddenly taking flight as signaling a potential approaching mutual predator), even if the original signal was not directed at the inter-specific. Purposeful interspecific signaling is common, however, such as hares signaling their presence to foxes when they feel reasonably secure in order to avoid an energy consuming hunt, or plants using volatile organic compounds to signal that certain prey insects are feeding on the plant to other insects which feed on the prey insects and may free the plant from them. Intentional and unintentional symbiotic semiosis results from many generations of interaction between the involved species, creating grooves in the semiosphere where organisms' overlapping Umwelten open the possibility for ethical action. Due to the more constricted semiotic bandwidth interspecies communication touches upon, I postulate that interspecies semiosis is more scripted by generational meaning-inscription, and that such signaling is less improvisational than conspecific signaling. While western ethics traditionally esteems ethical events to the degree that they are voluntary, nonhuman interspecies ethics urges considering plural ethical frameworks, based upon species-specific and interspecific semiotic understandings. For many organisms, the fact that their signaling relies more on genetic than spontaneous dispositions does not necessarily indicate that instances of their convivial cohabitation are less valid ethically, however, than more flexible semiotic interactions.

Zusammenfassung. Die Biosemiotik postuliert, dass die Signalgebung zwischen Orga-nismen einen komplexen Prozess darstellt, der sich oft gleichzeitig auf vielfältigen Kanälen abspielt. So vermitteln beispielsweise olfaktorische pheromonische Hinweise, auditive Vokalisationen sowie visuelle Bewegungen und Muster allesamt wichtige Einzelele-mente einer beabsichtigten oder tatsächlich überbrachten Nachricht. Ebenso ist bekannt, dass die Kommunikation zwischen Artgenossen mancher Spezies von anderen Spezi-es " abgehört " wird (so reagieren etwa Primaten auf Vögel, die plötzlich auffliegen und damit das potentielle Annähern eines gemeinsamen Fressfeindes signalisieren), selbst wenn das ursprüngliche Signal nicht eigentlich an sie gerichtet war. Absichtsvolles inter-spezifisches Signalisieren ist ebenfalls verbreitet, so signalisieren etwa Hasen Füchsen ihre Anwesenheit, wenn sie sich sicher genug fühlen, um ihnen die Energieverschwendung einer unnützen Jagd zu ersparen. Durch die Absonderung flüchtiger organischer Verbindungen weisen Pflanzen auf einen Insektenbefall hin, wodurch andere Insektenarten herbeigerufen werden, die die Pflanze vom Befall befreien. Absichtliche und unab-sichtliche symbiotische Semiosen sind das Ergebnis von Interaktion zwischen beteilig-ten Spezies über viele Generationen hinweg, wodurch sich Spuren in der Semiosphäre bilden, in denen sich überschneidende Umwelten von Organismen die Möglichkeit für ethisches Handeln eröffnen. Aufgrund der eher eingeschränkten semiotischen Bandbrei-te, welche die Interspezies-Kommunikation berührt, postuliere ich, dass Interspezies-Semiose stärker von generationenübergreifenden Bedeutungsfestlegungen geprägt und weniger improvisiert ist als Signale unter Artgenossen. Während westliche Ethiken traditionellerweise die Wertschätzung ethischer Geschehnisse an den Grad ihrer Freiwilligkeit knüpfen, verlangt eine nicht-menschliche Interspezies-Ethik die Berücksichtigung pluraler ethischer Kontexte, die auf speziesspezifischen und interspezifischen semiotischen Konzepten beruhen. Dass die Signalgebung vieler Organismen überwiegend gene-tischen Ursprungs ist, heißt nicht zwangsläufig, dass ihrem Zusammenleben ein gerin-gerer ethischer Wert beizumessen ist, als sich aus flexibleren semiotischen Interaktionen ergeben würde.

This paper explores how mythical figures and comicbook superheroes can 1) inspire personal growth, social and planetary change, and 2) explicate aspects of the deep ecology movement and transpersonal ecosophy that invite further academic inquiry while at the same time 3) speak to concerns that ignite the interests of popular culture and personal mythology. Likewise the ecopsychological significance of modern fictional characters in comicbooks, graphic novels, and films will be examined. It is divided into two parts. Part 1 provides a theoretical examination of how definitions of the terms myth and hero and hero’s journey are framed, and their implications for understanding personal and transpersonal growth. Part 2 provides portraits of individual
characters from comicbook lore, their evaluation, and their significance toward raising collective archetypal awareness of the psyche’s relationship with Earth—an ecopsychological framework. In addition the paper offers practical examples of how this understanding of comicbook lore can be used for cultivating a new quality of life on a planetary scale.

We studied duet song and vocal duetting behavior in an endemic Taiwanese passerine, Steere's liocichla (Liocichla steerii). We found that the leading male song in duets was highly individualistic. Also, we found duetting behavior varied significantly across different habitat types. Females were more likely to answer male songs in densely vegetated, steep forest habitat compared to open agricultural habitat. These findings provide quantitative evidence for vocal individuality for a duet song and provide tentative support for the idea that females are duetting to reveal their location to their mates.

This chapter ethnographically explores the relations between humans and elephants in logging operations in terms of interspecies labour, presenting elephants as collaborating participants rather than merely animate instruments. This involves examining labour in terms of cooperation rather than coordination, to avoid the merely instrumental consideration of articulated operations, and conduct rather than behaviour, to avoid simplistic Pavlovian interpretations of conditioned responses to environmental stimuli. The approach, informed by recent research on elephant sociality and cognition, allows for analysis in terms of interactive understanding. Revealing elephants as consciously intentional colleague capable of withdrawing their cooperation, this chapter also shows the partiality of accounts of animal labour as only involving alienation and exploitation. Furthermore, the worksite is revealed as a space of interspecies relations in which identities are co-produced, and which cannot simply be reduced to human domination.

Why do different species of birds start their dawn choruses at different times? We test the hypothesis that the times at which different species start singing at dawn are related to their visual capability at low light intensities. Birds with large eyes can achieve greater pupil diameters and hence, all other things being equal, greater visual sensitivity and resolution than birds with small eyes. We estimated the maximum pupil diameter of passerine birds by measuring the diameter of the exposed eye surface, and measured the times of the first songs at dawn of songbirds present in different bird communities, and the light intensities at these times. Using phylogenetic comparative analyses, we found that songbirds with large eyes started to sing at lower light intensities (and therefore earlier) than species with smaller eyes. These relationships were stronger when differences in body size were controlled for statistically, and were consistent between two phylogenies and when species were treated as independent data points. Our results therefore provide robust support for the hypothesis that visual capability at low light levels influences the times at which birds start to sing at dawn.

In the dense vegetation of temperate or tropical forests, communication processes are constrained by propagation-induced modifications of the transmitted sounds. The presence of leaves, trunks and branches induces important sound reverberation and absorption leading to diminution of the signal energy as well as qualitative modifications. The aim of this paper is to briefly review the different strategies used by birds to manage with these constraints. At the emitter's level, an adapted emission behavior which takes into account both the physical heterogeneities of the forest environment and the temporal variations of the acoustic constraints, is especially useful to control the active space of signaling. The coding of information into acoustic parameters that have different susceptibility to propagation constraints is also of great interest. At the receiver's level, an adaptive reception behavior (listening post) and a great tolerance to sound degradation during the decoding process are the keys to an optimal communication process.

Keywords: competition dominance evolution fitness mixed-species flock mutualism natural selection Paridae predation social network analysis Mixed-species social aggregations are common across taxa. There are two, nonexclusive, hypotheses typically proposed to explain the formation of social groups: increased predator vigilance and greater foraging efficiency. In mixed-species groups, these hypotheses are typically tested with species-level summary measures such as flocking propensity, the assignment of species-level roles, mean body size, and foraging and habitat characteristics. Literature syntheses make it clear that while these hypotheses are important, much about mixed-species groups remains unexplained. We suggest that we can substantially increase our understanding of the evolution and ecology of mixed-species social groups in terms of both traditional and novel hypotheses by shifting the analytical focus to bottom-up approaches common in intraspecific investigations of sociality. Bottom-up approaches to analyses of social structure treat pairwise interactions as the fundamental unit of analysis and social structure as an emergent property rather than relying on a priori assignments of species as units of association. The construction of social networks from pairwise interaction rates allows us to assess the factors that promote group formation on the basis of individuals, a more appropriate level of selection, rather than species groups. We illustrate this approach with data from mixed-species foraging assemblies in tits (Paridae), finding significant effects of dominance on social behaviour within species. This new focus allows us to address questions about active associations among heterospecifics, the role of individuals within mixed-species societies, and the role of environments, which will collectively provide a richer description of the evolution and function of mixed-species societies.