The Global Energy Assessment (GEA) brings together over 300 international researchers to provide an independent, scientifically based, integrated and policy-relevant analysis of current and emerging energy issues and options. It has been peer-reviewed anonymously by an additional 200 international experts. The GEA assesses the major global challenges for sustainable development and their linkages to energy; the technologies and resources available for providing energy services; future energy systems that address the major challenges; and the policies and other measures that are needed to realize transformational change toward sustainable energy futures. The GEA goes beyond existing studies on energy issues by presenting a comprehensive and integrated analysis of energy chalenges, opportunities and strategies, for developing, industrialized and emerging economies. This volume is a invaluable resource for energy specialists and technologists in all sectors (academia, industry and government) as well as policymakers, development economists and practitioners in international organizations and national governments.

Global Energy Assessment: Toward a Sustainable Future

It is well known that reproductive performance improves with age in birds. Many hypotheses, involving factors such as differential survival, delayed breeding, breeding experience, foraging ability and reproductive effort, have been proposed to explain this pattern. Although these hypotheses are not mutually exclusive, they can be classified in three major groups relating to progressive appearance or disappearance of phenotypes, age-related improvements of competence, and optimization of reproductive effort. However, a closer examination of the literature reveals that only few studies have rigorously tested the hypotheses. Future work should focus on carefully designed tests that critically investigate the hypotheses.

Age and reproduction in birds — hypotheses and tests

Human pressure threatens many species and ecosystems, so conservation efforts necessarily prioritize saving them. However, conservation should clearly be proactive wherever possible. In this article, we assess the biodiversity conservation value, and specifically the irreplaceability in terms of species endemism, of those of the planet's ecosystems that remain intact. We find that 24 wilderness areas, all > or = 1 million hectares, are > or = 70% intact and have human densities of less than or equal to five people per km2. This wilderness covers 44% of all land but is inhabited by only 3% of people. Given this sparse population, wilderness conservation is cost-effective, especially if ecosystem service value is incorporated. Soberingly, however, most wilderness is not speciose: only 18% of plants and 10% of terrestrial vertebrates are endemic to individual wildernesses, the majority restricted to Amazonia, Congo, New Guinea, the Miombo-Mopane woodlands, and the North American deserts. Global conservation strategy must target these five wildernesses while continuing to prioritize threatened biodiversity hotspots.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/100/18/10309.full.pdf

Wilderness and biodiversity conservation

Studies on sodium-potassium-activated adenosine triphosphatase: I. Quantitative distribution in several tissues of the cat

We reviewed the avian literature for quantitative studies of sex biases in dispersal and found continued and strengthened support for the general pattern of female biased dispersal established by Greenwood in 1980. We report sex differences in dispersal patterns in natal and breeding dispersal as measured by 1) proportion leaving and 2) distance moved. Greenwood's review found evidence for male biased dispersal only within four species of the Anatidae. We find there is now evidence for male biased dispersal in twenty-two species representing twelve families.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3546885.pdf

Sex Biases in Avian Dispersal: A Reappraisal

Breeding biology of the Adélie penguin

DDT Residues in Adelie Penguins and A Crabeater Seal from Antarctica

THE much-discussed problem of whether marine birds drink sea-water has recently led to the unexpected discovery that the kidney is not always the major organ of salt excretion. It was found that in cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) much salt may be excreted extra-renally in the form of a highly concentrated solution of sodium chloride, discharged from the nasal (salt) glands1.

Nasal Salt Secretion in the Humboldt Penguin

Establishment of pair and breeding site bonds by young known-age adelie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae)

The biting louse Trinoton anserinum serves as the intermediate host in the life cycle of the filarial heartworm, Sarconema eurycerca. Microfilariae, second-, and third-stage larvae were dissected from 39 of 89 lice infesting whistling swans, Cygnus columbianus columbianus, in North America and mute swans, Cygnus olor, in the Black Sea, U.S.S.R. Infective third-stage larvae obtained from lice collected from heartworm-parasitized whistling swans were injected subcutaneously into each of two hand-reared, nonparasitized mute swan cygnets. Both of these birds developed heartworm infections, one becoming microfilaremic at 14 weeks. The results of this study provide conclusive evidence that a mallophagan serves as a natural cyclodevelopmental vector of a filarial parasite.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/194/4266/739.full.pdf

William J. L. Sladen

Papers

Breeding biology of the Adélie penguin

DDT Residues in Adelie Penguins and A Crabeater Seal from Antarctica

Nasal Salt Secretion in the Humboldt Penguin

Establishment of pair and breeding site bonds by young known-age adelie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae)

A mallophaga, Trinoton anserinum, as a cyclodevelopmental vector for a heartworm parasite of waterfowl