圣玛丽大学（哈利法克斯）

Over the past decades, unexpected reductions in fertility have resulted in a growing number of nations facing serious population declines. Experts remain uncertain about which psychological mechanisms contribute to declining reproduction and have not yet identified effective countermeasures. Evolutionary psychology is well-positioned to investigate this problem, yet as a field it has primarily examined sexual psychology in largely non-reproductive populations, leaving an important explanatory gap concerning reproductive psychology, especially among women. This theoretical and synthetic interdisciplinary article addresses that gap in three ways: it identifies a mismatch between contemporary evolutionary research on mating and actual reproductive decision-making; it proposes Young Female Syndrome as a conceptual target for understanding how contemporary environments may impact female reproductive strategies; and it outlines a research program linking macro-level fertility correlates to evolved reproductive psychology. It also argues that broader historical context is important for understanding current fertility decline. Across the past eight centuries, the West’s three sexual revolutions have produced a novel mating environment that may be affecting female sexual strategies, pair-bonding, and reproduction in ways that remain poorly understood. Addressing this challenge requires integrating evolutionary, economic, cultural, and psychological perspectives in order to clarify how major social changes influence human reproductive decision-making.

Consistent individual behavioural variation plays a crucial role in shaping ecological interactions and driving evolutionary processes. While laboratory studies assess personality traits under controlled conditions, their ecological validity is uncertain, as behaviour in natural settings is influenced by complex environmental and social factors. Here, we use juvenile Arctic charr to investigate whether traits commonly described as boldness and aggressiveness under laboratory conditions can reliably correlate with corresponding behaviours in natural settings, and if these traits form a behavioural syndrome in the two contexts. Ninety-six juvenile individuals were tagged and tested twice for boldness and aggressiveness in both lab and field settings. In the lab, fish underwent standardised open-field tests, whereas in the field, they were placed in 12 stream enclosures, split evenly between high shelter and low shelter availability treatments. Boldness and aggressiveness were both repeatable within laboratory and field settings. However, there was no correlation within these traits across contexts, nor any evidence of a boldness-aggressiveness behavioural syndrome in either setting. Furthermore, body size, water temperature, and shelter availability influenced aggressiveness in the field. Our findings suggest that the laboratory assays used in this study may not fully capture the specific behaviours we targeted when expressed in more complex, ecologically relevant situations. These results underscore the importance of refining laboratory tests to ensure that they accurately represent the ecological conditions under which personality traits are expressed. Such improvements are essential for drawing reliable conclusions about the role of personality in shaping social status, life history, and fitness, in natural populations.

This study presents two straightforward weighted average models for estimating the thermal conductivity of unsaturated soils. The first model (WAMTAWI-1) incorporates the weighted average contributions from primary soil constituents (i.e., quartz) and residual soil minerals, which are surrounded by a single continuous phase (a transitional air/water inter-phase fluid) with continuously changing thermal conductivity (A) within its boundary values representing air (Aa) and water (Aw). Similarly, the second model (WAMTAWI-2) incorporates the weighted average contributions from all soil minerals and the transitional air/water inter-phase fluid. In contrast to the original model by de Vries in 1963, these models are free of complex latent heat transfer expressions, water/air shape fitting factors, and critical water content for changing continuous medium between air and water; consequently, they are exceptionally easy to use. The WAMTAWI-1 model is recommended because it only requires commonly available data: soil porosity, grain size distribution, and quartz content, while the WAMTAWI-2 model requires full mineral composition of a soil which is rarely available. The WAMTAWI-1 model was effectively validated with respect to A data of 39 Canadian field soils, three standard sands, and 10 Chinese soils. The average standard deviations (SD) were + 0.093 W & sdot;m-1 & sdot;K-1 for 17 coarse soils, +0.068 W & sdot;m-1 & sdot;K-1 for 22 fine soils, and + 0.079 W & sdot;m-1 & sdot;K-1 for all Canadian soils. For the three standard sands, the average SD was +0.143 W & sdot;m-1 & sdot;K-1, demonstrating good performance. Among the 10 Chinese soils, the model demonstrated good performance of +0.142 W & sdot;m-1 & sdot;K-1 for five coarse soils, while delivering superior estimates of +0.094 W & sdot;m-1 & sdot;K-1 for the remaining five fine soils. The results confirm the outstanding superiority of the model with respect to the original model by de Vries, in terms of its simplicity and A predictions.

Victim age polymorphism describes a pattern of sexual offending in which individuals target victims from multiple distinct age categories (e.g., both child and adult victims). Research on victim age polymorphism and its association with risk-related domains - namely atypical sexuality and antisociality - and recidivism is mixed, potentially due to methodological differences across studies (e.g., how victim age is classified). This meta-analysis (k = 23, N = 12,333) examined associations between victim age polymorphism, the two main risk-related domains (atypical sexuality, antisociality), and recidivism. Meta-regression and the between-level Q statistic were used to examine various methodological differences that might contribute to disparate findings. Results indicated that victim age polymorphism was associated with multiple paraphilias, psychopathy, and recidivism. Moderator analyses were limited due to the small number of studies and did not consistently explain the variation in effect sizes. Overall, individuals who are polymorphic share more clinically relevant similarities to individuals who offend exclusively against adults than those who exclusively offend against children. These findings suggest that a greater focus on generalist criminogenic needs (e.g., antisociality) may be warranted in the management of individuals who are polymorphic.

We investigate the ergodicity of star formation in simulated galaxies from the FIRE-2 (Feedback In Realistic Environments) project. We restrict ergodicity considerations to being related to deviations from the star-forming main sequence (SFMS), and in turn whether ensemble averages across populations match time-averaged star formation histories (SFHs) based on simulated observable properties. We find that in these high-resolution simulations the deviations of individual galaxies from the SFMS tend to approach ergodic behavior over time, regardless of the SFMS definition adopted and the star formation estimator used. This trend persists when galaxy morphology, as traced by Sérsic index, is considered despite the spheroid-dominated morphologies showing a smaller range of SFMS deviations than the disk-dominated morphologies. Unsurprisingly, we find more rapid convergence to ergodic behavior for star formation estimators based on shorter time scales (10^7 years) as opposed to longer (10^9 years). We caution that these findings should be considered in the context of the current sample and that further studies, particularly of high redshift evolution and the impact of active galactic nuclei should be investigated.