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1. Rebel Territorial Control, Governance, and Political Accountability in Civil War: Evidence from the Communist Insurgency in the Philippines

   https://doi.org/10.7916/D86H60VJ  

   Rubin, Michael A. (May 2018, Academic commons)

   Under what conditions do rebel organizations control territory during civil war? How do civilians influence the distribution of territorial control? Why do rebels invest in governance, and why do they target civilians with violence, in some locations but not others? This dissertation advances a political accountability theory to explain how civilians influence the distribution of territorial control and governance during civil war. Existing research explaining variation in rebel territorial control and behavior have emphasized structural and organizational factors, identity politics, economic conditions, and geography. However, the classic insurgency literature and recent counterinsurgency doctrine emphasize the importance of securing civilian support and protecting the population to achieving military objectives in civil war. If true, civilians retain at least some power over rebel personnel. The accountability theory of rebel conduct provides a unified framework linking inter-related conflict processes associated with rebel groups’ territorial control, governance, and strategic use of violence during civil war. It argues that community collective action capacity, the ease with which communities facilitate collective action to pursue common interests, influences the distribution territorial control and belligerent conduct during civil war. The empirical strategy draws upon complementary quantitative and qualitative methods to test the accountability against plausible alternatives using village-level data from the communist insurgency in the Philippines. The results provide robust support for the accountability theory over plausible alternatives, and yield policy implications for peace-building and economic development in conflict-affected states. 

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2. Territory Sizes and Patterns of Habitat Use by Forest Birds Over Five Decades: Ideal Free or Ideal Despotic?

   https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.14525  

   Zammarelli, Miranda B; Ayres, Matthew P; ter_Hofstede, Hannah M; Lutz, David A; Holmes, Richard T (December 2024, Ecology Letters)

   Relations among territoriality, abundance and habitat suitability are fundamental to the ecology of many animal populations. Theory suggests two classes of possible responses to increasing abundance in territorial species: (1) the ideal free distribution (IFD), which predicts smaller territory sizes and decreased fitness as individuals adaptively pack into suitable habitats, and (2) the ideal despotic distribution (IDD), which predicts stable territory sizes and fitness in preferred habitats for dominant individuals and increased use of marginal habitats, reduced fitness and changes in territory sizes for subordinate individuals. We analysed the territory sizes and locations of seven migratory songbird species occupying a 10‐ha plot in the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, New Hampshire, USA over a 52‐year period. Species varied in abundance over years from twofold to 22‐fold, and all species displayed clear patterns of habitat preference within the study plot. Consistent with IFD, and contrary to IDD, territory sizes decreased with local abundance for all species, irrespective of habitat preferences. There was at least a twofold variation in territory size within years. Conformity of territory size to predictions of the IFD argues for the efficacy of territorial defence in songbirds and has general consequences for population dynamics. 

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3. Support for Vladimir Putin in Russia's neighbors: Survey evidence from an endorsement experiment in six post-Soviet countries

   https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.103014  

   O'Loughlin, John; Linke, Andrew M.; Toal, Gerard; Bakke, Kristin M. (January 2024, Political Geography)

   The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 has again drawn attention to the geopolitical aims of President Vladimir Putin in the states of the former Soviet Union, the ‘Near Abroad’. While Putin's actions have been widely condemned in the West, the reaction among the former Soviet states has been more mixed. Using representative national surveys from late 2019 - early 2020, the article reports the results of an endorsement experiment to gage the support that Putin had in six countries of the former Soviet space (Ukraine, Moldova, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Georgia and Armenia). Direct questioning about Putin revealed that half of the 8420 respondents said that they had ‘no trust at all’ though views varied a lot by country. Given the sensitivity around perceptions of Putin, an endorsement experiment elicits more accurate results. Five expectations of who supports Putin are tested in models with socio-demographic controls. Respondents with more close-minded personalities show significantly more support for Vladimir Putin, our key test. People who are skeptical of scientific expertise and those with traditional views (measured by a question about patriarchal dominance in marriages) are also more likely to support Putin. In contrast, support for Putin is not significantly greater by those who subscribe to conspiracy theories, and by those with little interest in politics. Country level results are generally in line with the results of the overall model, but demonstrate some interesting variation. Vladimir Putin overall has higher trust and support in Belarus, Armenia, and Kazakhstan than in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova but the respondents in all countries behave in a manner consistent with their personal traits in endorsing or opposing Putin's positions. 

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4. Are testosterone pulses a physiological mechanism for expanding activity beyond territories?

   https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.231198  

   Petric, Radmila; Kalcounis-Rueppell, Matina; Marler, Catherine A (October 2024, Royal Society Open Science)

   We ask whether artificially induced testosterone pulses (T-pulses), administered to males in the wild at the territory boundary, adjust location preferences within the territory. Multiple transient T-pulses occurring after social interactions in males can alter behaviour and spatial preferences. We previously found that T-pulses administered at the nest induce male California mice, a biparental and territorial species, to spend more time at the nest likely through conditioned place preferences. We hypothesized that T’s reinforcing effects would increase future time by the T-injected males at the boundary and promote territorial defence. Contrary to predictions, T-pulses induced a decrease in male time at the boundary, and instead appeared to promote male territorial/home range expansion, accompanied by shorter sustained vocalizations (SVs) and decreased proportion of three SV bouts. Shorter SVs are associated with aggression in the laboratory. Furthermore, in response to T-male behavioural changes, uninjected female partners decreased boundary time. Our results suggest new functions for socially induced T-pulses, such as extending territorial boundaries/home ranges. Location preferences induced through reinforcing/rewarding mechanisms may be more plastic and dependent on physical and social contexts than previously thought. Moreover, the results suggest that location preferences produced through rewarding/reinforcing mechanisms can be viewed from adaptive perspectives to influence future behaviour. 

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5. Temporal vs. spatial variation in stress-associated metabolites within a population of climate-sensitive small mammals

   https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coab024  

   Whipple, Ashley L; Ray, Chris; Wasser, Max; Kitchens, James N; Hove, Alisa A; Varner, Johanna; Wilkening, Jennifer L (January 2020, Conservation Physiology)

   Cooke, Steven (Ed.)

   ABSTRACT Temporal variation in stress might signify changes in an animal’s internal or external environment, while spatial variation in stress might signify variation in the quality of the habitats that individual animals experience. Habitat-induced variations in stress might be easiest to detect in highly territorial animals, and especially in species that do not take advantage of common strategies for modulating habitat-induced stress, such as migration (escape in space) or hibernation (escape in time). Spatial and temporal variation in response to potential stressors has received little study in wild animals, especially at scales appropriate for relating stress to specific habitat characteristics. Here, we use the American pika (Ochotona princeps), a territorial small mammal, to investigate stress response within and among territories. For individually territorial animals such as pikas, differences in habitat quality should lead to differences in stress exhibited by territory owners. We indexed stress using stress-associated hormone metabolites in feces collected non-invasively from pika territories every 2 weeks from June to September 2018. We hypothesized that differences in territory quality would lead to spatial differences in mean stress and that seasonal variation in physiology or the physical environment would lead to synchronous variation across territories through time. We used linear mixed-effects models to explore spatiotemporal variation in stress using fixed effects of day-of-year and broad habitat characteristics (elevation, aspect, site), as well as local variation in habitat characteristics hypothesized to affect territory quality for this saxicolous species (talus depth, clast size, available forage types). We found that temporal variation within territories was greater than spatial variation among territories, suggesting that shared seasonal stressors are more influential than differences in individual habitat quality. This approach could be used in other wildlife studies to refine our understanding of habitat quality and its effect on individual stress levels as a driver of population decline. 

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