Affordable housing is the biggest challenge being faced by the city of Mumbai, which styles itself as an emerging Global Financial Centre. The city has the image of being home to a stark dualism, with slums abutting modern skyscrapers. Over the years, adequate policy attention has been given to slums and with the implementation of the Slum Rehabilitation Scheme slum dwellers are being provided with housing in multi-storey buildings and are being granted tenancy rights to the dwellings. However, an emerging area of concern is the large housing stock that is non-slum but is old and dilapidated. The collapse of an old and dilapidated building in Dongri in July 2019 that killed twelve people and the one at Bhendi Bazaar in 2017 that killed thirty-three has brought this problem into the mainstream and new policies have been initiated to address the problem. Implementing these policies seems to be a challenge, and this is the result of different factors. This article looks at the housing problem in Mumbai from a policy perspective and analyses the implementation challenges of the new policy aimed at redeveloping the old and dilapidated housing stock.
The chiggers (Acari: Trombiculidae) Blankaartia sinnamaryi (Floch et Fauran, 1956), Parasecia soucouyanti (Brennan et Yunker, 1966), Eutrombicula lipovskyana (Wolfenbarger, 1952) and Neoschoengastia dalmati Brennan, 1951 were found in Honduras on a total of twelve bird species. Parasecia soucouyanti was recorded parasitising birds for the first time. All these mites are here reported from Honduras for the first time., Stanislav Kalúz, Ivan Literák, Stanislav Kolenčík., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The ongoing growth of the human population will increase the rate of wildlife-human interactions. High levels of animal tolerance and flexible responses towards human presence seem to be among the key mechanisms behind successful wildlife-human coexistence, but this behaviour remains unexplored for most populations and species of animals. Here, we investigate the escape behaviour (measured as flight initiation distance) of the Crimean population of a charismatic and declining bird species, the lesser grey shrike (Lanius minor). We examined its relationship with starting distance of the approaching human, directness of that approach (direct or tangential), habitat type (rural or suburban), and height of the perch used by shrikes. We found that the starting distance was significantly associated with escape responses of shrikes to approaching humans. In contrast, we found no significant association between escape responses and directness of approach, habitat type, or height of perch. Our results indicate that the lesser grey shrike may exhibit low flexibility in their escape responses towards humans which may have implications for their conservation management. Our results also indicate that the widely used 30 m threshold for minimum starting distance may be insufficient for rural populations, even of small passerines.
In this paper, I analyse the post-war development of social rental housing in Norway. During the 20th century, Norwegian municipalities created some of the more means-tested and market-oriented social housing sectors in Europe. Given developmentsin other countries in recent decades, the Norwegian case is therefore highly relevant to the general debate on the residualisation of social housing in Europe. Using the case of Oslo as the main point of departure, I discuss key challenges of residual and market-oriented social rental housing. Drawing on city council debates, local government reports, and previous studies, I argue that the logic of extreme meanstesting creates policy dilemmas connected to contradictory policy goals.
Caligus brevicaudatus Scott, 1901, a common but poorly known species of parasitic copepod, is redescribed from newly collected specimens of both sexes. The new material was collected from the body surface of tub gurnards, Chelidonichthys lucerna (Linnaeus), caught in eastern Mediterranean waters off the Turkish coast. Inadequately described female structures from earlier descriptions are redescribed and illustrated in detail and the male of C. brevicaudatus is described for the first time. The new material of C. brevicaudatus is compared with material collected by A. Scott and stored in the collections of the Natural History Museum, London. In addition, a voucher specimen of Caligus uranoscopi Vaissière, 1955, stored in the collections of the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris is re-examined. Caligus uranoscopi is recognised as a junior subjective synonym of C. brevicaudatus since it does not differ in any substantive characters., İbrahim Demirkale, Argun Akif Özak, Geoffrey Allan Boxshall., and Obsahuje bibliografii
This paper questions the uncritical transfer of neoliberal concepts, such as financialisation and overreliance on conceptual dichotomies like formal/informal, as the lenses through which to understand practices of housing provision and consumption in the post-communist space. To this end, it introduces the newly-established ‘diverse economies’ framework, which has been used elsewhere to reveal existing and possible alternatives to advanced capitalism. Applied to the Romanian case, the lens of diverse economic practices helps shed light on the ways in which the current housing system was historically constituted, with implications for how housing consumption is now stratified across some related housing typologies. The paper invites debate on the theoretical usefulness of the diverse economies framework to study housing phenomena, particularly its implications for understanding patterns of inequality and poverty, its potential to devise useful analytical categories, and its effect of directing attention to acts of resistance to neoliberal capitalism.
Food webs are of crucial importance for understanding any ecosystem. The accuracy of food web and ecosystem models rests on the reliability of the information on the feeding habits of the species involved. Water boatmen (Corixoidea) is the most diverse superfamily of water bugs (Heteroptera: Nepomorpha), frequently the most abundant group of insects in a variety of freshwater habitats worldwide. In spite of their high biomass, the importance of water boatmen in aquatic ecosystems is frequently underestimated. The diet and feeding habits of Corixoidea are unclear as published data are frequently contradictory. We summarise information on the feeding habits of this taxon, which exemplify the difficulties in evaluating published data on feeding habits in an invertebrate taxon. It is concluded that Corixoidea are, unlike other true bugs, capable of digesting solid food, but their feeding habits are still insufficiently known. The dominant feeding strategy in this taxon is zoophagy, but several species consume other foods, particularly algae and detritus. Only members of the subfamily Cymatiainae seem to be exclusively predators. In other subfamilies, the diet of different species and different sexes or populations of a single species may vary depending on the food available or is still unknown. We conclude, that a multi-method approach is needed to elucidate the feeding habits of aquatic insects and invertebrates in general., Christian W. Hädicke, Dávid Rédei, Petr Kment., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Honey bees are not only important for honey production but also as pollinators of wild and cultivated plants. The Eastern honeybee (Apis cerana) is more resistant to several pathogens than the Western honeybee (Apis mellifera), and the genomes of two strains of the nominotypical subspecies, A. cerana cerana, northern (Korea) and southern (China) strains, have been sequenced. Apis cerana japonica, another subspecies of A. cerana, shows many specific features (e.g. mildness, low honey production and frequently absconds) and it is important to study the molecular biological and genetic aspects of these features. To accelerate the genetic research on A. cerana japonica, we sequenced the genome of this subspecies. The draft genome sequence of A. cerana japonica presented here is of high quality in terms of basic genome status (e.g. N50 is 180 kbp, total length is 211 Mbp, and largest contig length is 1.31 Mbp) and BUSCO results. The gene set of A. cerana japonica was predicted using AUGUSTUS software and the set of genes was annotated using Blastp and InterProScan, and GO terms were added to each gene. The number of genes is higher than in A. mellifera and in the two strains of A. cerana cerana sequenced previously. A small number of transposable elements and repetitive regions were found in A. cerana japonica, which are also in the genomes of A. mellifera and the northern and southern strains of A. cerana cerana. Apis cerana is resistant to several pathogens that seriously damage A. mellifera. We searched for 41 orthologs related to the IMD and Toll pathways, which have key roles in the immune reaction to invading pathogens. Some orthologs were not identified in the genome of the northern strain of A. cerana cerana. This indicates that the Toll and IMD pathways function in the same way as in A. mellifera and Drosophila melanogaster., Kakeru Yokoi, Hironobu Uchiyama, Takeshi Wakamiya, Mikio Yoshiyama, Jun-Ichi Takahashi, Tetsuro Nomura, Tsutomu Furukawa, Shunsuke Yajima, Kiyoshi Kimura., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Livestock guarding dogs (LGDs) are used across the world to reduce livestock depredation by free-ranging predatory wildlife. In doing so, they reduce the need for lethal predator control and are considered beneficial for conservation. However, LGDs might be perceived as predators by wildlife and induce a multitude of both positive and negative ecological effects. We conducted a literature review to evaluate the ecological effects of LGDs and found 56 publications reporting LGDs interacting with or affecting wildlife. Featuring in 77% of the publications, LGDs were widely reported to chase and kill wildlife, leading to species-specific behavioural responses. A total of 80 species were affected by LGDs, 11 of which are listed as Near Threatened or higher on the IUCN Red List. Of the affected species, 78% were non-target species, suggesting that any benefits arising from the use of LGDs likely occur simultaneously with unintended ecological effects. However, the frequency of LGD-wildlife interactions and the magnitude of any resulting ecological effects have rarely been quantified. Therefore, more empirical studies are needed to determine the net ecological outcome of LGD use, thereby ensuring that negative outcomes are minimised, while benefiting both farmers and wildlife.
Herbivory on liverworts is rarely reported. We studied the effects of feeding by larvae of the sciarid fly Scatopsciara cunicularius on the growth of the thalloid liverwort Marchantia polymorpha at two different constant temperatures, 12°C and 22°C. Larvae reared at the lower temperature fed slower and over a longer period of time, which resulted in more damage and a greater reduction in the growth of the liverwort than that caused by those reared at the higher temperature. The reduction in growth of the liverwort was positively density-dependent in terms of number of larvae at both temperatures. These results indicate that the larvae of S. cunicularius are likely to be an effective means of controlling M. polymorpha, which is a common weed in plant nurseries and greenhouse cultures., Weerachon Sawangproh, Johan Ekroos, Nils Cronberg., and Obsahuje bibliografii