In an experimental study in Denmark, it was previously found that male barn swallows (Hirundo rustica) with elongated tail streamers obtained an apparent fitness advantage through earlier pairing, an increased frequency of second clutches, and higher total reproductive success per season. In a parallel study of five barn swallow colonies in Ontario, Canada, we also found that elongated males paire

The evolution of intense begging by dependent nestling birds has recently been the subject of several theoretical papers. The interesting problem here is that nestlings should be able to communicate their nutritional status to parents in ways that are less costly energetically and less likely to attract predators. Thus, conspicuous begging behaviour is thought to have evolved as a result of either

Male Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) help their mates to incubate in North America but not in Europe. In this study, conducted at four colonies in southeastern Canada, males contributed an average of 9% of the total amount of incubation during daylight hours. The total percent of time that eggs were incubated (nest attentiveness) by both sexes declined through the day, largely due to a response to

In the Marsh Tit Parus palustris, breeding performance improved with the age of both the male and the female parent-older birds produced larger clutches earlier in the season. The effect of male age, however, was mainly due to a positive association with the age of the female. When the effect of laying date was accounted for, there was no additional effect of female age on clutch-size. However, pa

Starlings show considerable variation in egg mass among clutches. Mean clutch egg mass was highly repeatable for females, but few characteristics of females were found to relate to egg mass. Egg mass related weakly to female age, but female age only explained a small part of the variation. Hatchling mass was strongly correlated with egg mass, but body mass at 14 d of age was unrelated to egg mass.

A cross-fostering experiment demonstrated that tarsus length of European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) was heritable. The tarsus length of the foster-parent had no effect. A full-sib resemblance analysis showed that sibs were much more similar in tarsus length than explained by heritability alone. This was partly due to an effect of female mating status on offspring tarsus length. When nestling gro

Thermal performance of five bicycle helmets was evaluated with a thermal manikin head with six zones. Evaluation was made with physical and virtual experimental methods. Ambient temperature maintained at 24 °C and surface temperature of the thermal manikin head was set to 34 °C. Experiments were performed for air velocities of 1.6 m/s and 6 m/s. Heat transfer (W) of four thermal zones was recorded

Recent advances in high-intensity laser-produced plasmas have demonstrated their potential as compact charge particle accelerators. Unlike conventional accelerators, transient quasi-static charge separation acceleration fields in laser produced plasmas are highly localized and orders of magnitude larger. Manipulating these ion accelerators, to convert the fast ions to neutral atoms with little cha

The need for sustainable agricultural systems, which for example enhance soil organic carbon (SOC) content, has increased the interest for management with reduced tillage. In this study we used a Swedish long-term (20 yrs.) systems experiment, including reduced tillage (harrowing 10 cm) and plowing (moldboard plow 0–20 cm) combined with three levels of nitrogen (N) fertilization. With this setup w

We consider a selection of recent experimental results on electroweak W±,Z gauge boson production in pp collisions at BNL RHIC and CERN LHC energies in comparison to prediction of perturbative QCD calculations based on different sets of NLO parton distribution functions including the statistical PDF model known from fits to the DIS data. We show that the current statistical PDF parametrization (fi

We developed a process-oriented model called NutsFor that simulates nutrient cycling of major cations (Ca, Mg, K, Al, NH4, Na) and anions (NO3, SO4, Cl) and the stable isotope tracers for each of the respective elements at the scale of an ecosystem (isotopic fractionation are not simulated). We tested the ability of NutsFor to reproduce major element and stable isotope tracer (26Mg and 44Ca) cycli

A pocket cavity is generated when the Low Pressure Turbine (LPT) is connected to the Outlet Guide Vane (OGV) in the rear part of a gas turbine engine due to the different conjugate diameters. This kind of pocket cavities, due to the high Reynolds number and the specific shapes, are hardly investigated in previous researches. The heat transfer distribution and fluid flow over the pocket cavity have

Three episodes of Paleoproterozoic magmatism with distinctively different nature in the Liaoji belt of the Eastern North China Craton are discussed here: the 2200–2140 Ma Liaoji A-type granites, the 2160–2110 Ma Haicheng mafic sills and the ∼1890 Ma Qingchengzi I-type granites. The Mafeng monzogranitic pluton, representative of the Liaoji A-type granites, gives a SIMS U-Pb zircon age of 2181 ± 6 M

The flow field design of current collectors is a significant issue, which greatly affects the mass transport processes of reactants/products inside fuel cells. Especially for proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cells, an appropriate flow field design is very important due to the water balance problem. In this paper, a wavy surface is employed at the cathode flow channel to improve the oxygen mass

This paper documents and evaluates seasonal trends in reproductive performance in the Marsh Tit (Parus palustris) in southern Sweden. Clutch size decreased for nests started later in the season. This pattern held true both for second-year and older females when analyzed separately. Individual females adjusted clutch size in relation to the relative time of season they produced a clutch a particula

In southern Sweden, the starling (Sturnus vulgaris) has a variable mating system with some males mating monogamously and others attracting several females. Mating status affected the reproductive success of females: monogamous and primary females laid larger clutches and fledged more and heavier young than secondary females. This pattern was explained by female competition for male help, with the

In this paper we show that nestling mass hierarchies in the European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) are due to asynchronous hatching. The parents may, by starting to incubate the day the penultimate egg is laid, or earlier, affect the degree of hatching asynchrony and thereby the nestling weight hierarchy. Intra-clutch variation in egg size had no effect on nestling weight hierarchies, explaining onl

A novel formulation of the theory of parent-offspring conflict is proposed. The basis of this formulation is an application of traditional life-history theory in combination with simple genetic arguments. The advanatage with this approach is conceptual, and the formulation is not in variance with earlier studies in the area. Parent-offspring conflict is, in our forumlation, not seen as a conflict

Reproductive success in relation to egg size was studied in European Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) by swapping whole clutches between nests at the start of the incubation period. Egg size did not reflect parental quality as no measure of reproductive success was correlated with the foster mothers' mean egg size. There was a significant positive relationship between the mean size of the cross-foster

In polygynous passerines, males of some species provide food for their nestlings, but male incubation seems to be rare. In the European starling both the mating system and the extent to which males help with incubation vary. This enabled the relationship between mating system and male incubation to be investigated. The extent to which males provided care to a particular nest depended on mating sta