5 Abstract Morphological traits give information about the adaptations of the studied species, the resources, which it uses, and they can generally tell us about the use of ecological space. Intraspecific morphological variability reflects various adaptations of local populations thus variability reflect different way of life. The subject of this thesis is an ecologically interesting group of specialized tropical songbirds - Sunbirds (Nectarinidae). The taxon exhibits number of adaptations to specific food collecting a combination of nectarivory and insect hunting. I focused here on the intraspecific variability of three species (Cyanomitra oritis, Cinnyris reichenowi and C. bouwieri) living in different habitats in Cameroon. The aim of this work was to find out in what morphological characters are this species sexually dimorphic. Furthermore, if their populations living in remote locations differ? Finally, if all studied species show similar trend of intraspecific variability of the traits, which could have common ecological causes. The following traits were measured: wing and tail feather length, beak dimensions, total body weight and other characters. The analysis is based on field data collected between 2003 and 2015 and museum collections. Overall, we collect information about ca. 1200 individuals for...

No description available.

Cichlid visual system is highly adaptive to the environment. Fish visual abilities are deter- mined by composition of opsin-based photosensitive pigments located in photoreceptor cells (rods and cones) as well as their distribution. In this thesis, four species of Lake Barombi Mbo cichlids were targeted: Stomatepia mariae, Konia eisentrauti, Konia dikume and Myaka myaka. Shallow-water cichlids K. eisentrauti and S. mariae express these types of cone opsin genes: LWS, RH2A (RH2Aβ more than RH2Aα), SWS2A and SWS2B. Contra- rily, both seasonally deep-water M. myaka and deep-water K. dikume lack expression of SWS2B and LWS in their retinae, but they express SWS2A and RH2Aα more than RH2Aβ, which corresponds to modified light conditions in deep water - a dimmer habitat lacking marginal parts of the spectrum (i.e., ultraviolet and red wavelengths). The photoreceptor distribution of selected species was investigated by means of fluorescent in situ hybridi- zation (FISH) in order to understand the performance and evolution of their visual per- ception with emphasis on the effect of depth. Distinctively, cichlid cones are arranged in a retinal mosaic consisting of short-wavelength sensitive single cones, each surrounded by four long-wavelength sensitive double cones. In this thesis, the same arrangement is...

The purpose of this work is to measure the degree of intelligibility of native and non-native English speech as well as analyse the major sources of intelligibility failure when speakers of these varieties of English interact. British and American English (henceforth BrE and AmE) and Cameroon English (hereafter CamE) are used as a case study with focus on segmental and supra segmental features. The study was motivated by a number of concerns, several of which are more prominent: First, it was motivated by the trepidation scholars like Gimson (1965, 1980); Prator (1968); etc. nursed that the unprecedented spread of English across the globe and the emergence of non-native varieties would cause English to disintegrate into mutually unintelligible languages, in the way Romance languages devolved from their Latin ancestor. The second motivation was that previous researchers (Bansal 1969, Tiffen 1974) on intelligibility have often concentrated their efforts on the traditional approach, which sees intelligibility from a one-sided perspective. To them, the non-native varieties of English are deficient and not different varieties from the native varieties. They were seen as substandard, incorrect, and unintelligible and thus needed remediation at all costs. The native varieties were seen as prestigious, correct, intelligible and the sole norm that must be emulated by non-native English speakers. In this way any interaction between a native speaker and a non-native speaker should be characterised by the non-native speaker making all the efforts to be understood as well as to understand the native English-speaking partner. This explains in large part why these researchers concentrated on measuring the intelligibility of non-native speech to native speakers and never vice versa. It was as if it was treasonable to measure the intelligibility of native speech to non-native speakers. Even if some researchers managed to do this, the comments that followed such data still showed that the aim was not to test the intelligibility of native speakers but to find out how efficient the non-native speakers were in understanding the native speaker. Another aim could also be to reinforce the teaching of the native norm, which was seen as “correct” against non-native features, which were seen as “incorrect”, to measuring intelligibility. While accepting that these studies reflected the conventional wisdom of the time, this study aims to move the debate forward by looking at intelligibility from a two-sided perspective. It sees communication between speakers of different varieties as a game of give and take, where both participants “tune in” to make the process successful rather than one participant being obliged to make all the efforts because s/he speaks a new English variety. That explains why we are testing not only the intelligibility of non-native speakers to native speakers but also native speakers to non-native speakers. / Gegenstand der vorgelegten Promotionsarbeit ist die Untersuchung der gegenseitigen Verständlichkeit von muttersprachlichem und nicht-muttersprachlichem Englisch. Im besonderen werden die Hauptquellen und Ursachen des Scheiterns von Verständlichkeit in einer empirischen Studie bestimmt, klassifiziert und analysiert. Die Untersuchung wird exemplarisch anhand des Kamerunischen Englisch einerseits und des Britischen und Amerikanischen Englisch anderseits vorgenommen. Motiviert ist diese Arbeit vor allem durch folgende Punkte. Erstens bedarf es der Auseinandersetzung mit den durch eine Reihe von Autoren geäußerten Befürchtungen (z.B. Gimson 1965, 1980 und Prator 1968), daß die Herausbildung und Entwicklung neuer Varianten des Englischen letztlich zu einer Auflösung des Englischen in gegenseitig nicht mehr verständliche Sprachen führt, ein Prozeß, wie er sich historisch bei der Entstehung der romanischen Sprachen aus dem Lateinischen vollzog. Derartige Befürchtungen werden genährt durch die bisher ohnegleichen fortschreitende Verbreitung des Englischen über den gesamten Globus. Hier ergibt sich die dringende Notwendigkeit vergleichender Studien zur gegenseitigen Verständlichkeit zwischen den bestehenden Varianten. Zweitens folgen die meisten zu diesem Thema vorliegenden Untersuchungen im wesentlichen einer traditionellen, überkommenen Grundperspektive: die nicht-muttersprachlichen Varianten des Englischen werden als „abweichend“ bzw. sogar „defizitär“ aus Sicht der muttersprachlichen betrachtet, nicht aber als eigenständige Sprachformen (z.B. Bansal 1969; Tiffen 1974). Dies führt nach Auffassung des Autors zu einer einseitigen Betrachtung und Bewertung. Im besonderen wird in der sprachlichen Interaktion bei einem solchen Zugang die Last zu verstehen und für den Kommunikationspartner verständlich zu sein einseitig dem nicht-muttersprachlichen Sprecher übertragen. Auf diesem Hintergrund untersuchen die vorliegenden Studien anderer Autoren primär die Verständlichkeit nicht-muttersprachlicher Sprachformen für den muttersprachlichen Sprecher, nicht jedoch die umgekehrte Konstellation. Wenn die umgekehrte Perspektive überhaupt berücksichtigt wird, so zeigen die Kommentare, daß nicht die Verständlichkeit muttersprachlicher Sprecher für den Nichtmuttersprachler eigentliches Ziel und Gegenstand der Untersuchung war, sondern vielmehr die Frage, wie effizient sich Nichtmuttersprachler beim Verstehen muttersprachlicher Äußerungen zeigten. Des weiteren stehen diese Studien oft im Kontext des Bestrebens, im institutionalisierten Spracherwerb die muttersprachlichen Normen gegen die nicht-muttersprachlichen Merkmale durchzusetzen, die als „nicht korrekt“ angesehen werden. Diese Positionen, der zugrundeliegende Zugang und die einseitige Ausrichtung bedürfen einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung.

No description available.

Originally presented as the author's Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universiteit van Amsterdam, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 389-408). Also issued online.

The Gulf of Guinea Highlands is a unique mountane range of volcanic origin, situated on the African mainland in the borther of Nigeria and Cameroon, and the Gulf of Guinea islands of Bioko, S?o Tomé and Príncipe. This area is highly unique as the only large mountains in central and western Africa. The high degree of isolation of these mountains generated high degree of endemism of many groups of organisms; the whole region is thus one of the world biodiversity hotspots (known as the West African Forests). Despite its tremnedous conservation importance, this mountain range is under strong anthropogenic influence, as one of the most densely populated areas in tropical Africa. Despite all these factors, the conservation efforts in West Africa focused mainly on lowland areas of rain forests, whilst only few conservation effort is focused to the mountain habitats. As the other result, the lack of comprehensive biogeographic and phytogeographical studies of mountain flora and fauna is obvious. In this work, I have summarized the results of all crucial studies of the biogeography of the Gulf of Guinea Highlands. I also obtained sequences of three mitochondrial genes (COI, COII, and ND1) of an endemic montane butterfly Bicyclus anisops. Variability in the studied genes was relatively low. Phylogenetic analyses separated haplotypes into 7 well-established groups (1st Mt. Cameroon, 2nd Nkogam I, 3rd Nkogam II, 4th Bakossi-Kupe-Manengouba-Bani, 5th Mbam, 7th Hosséré Enla Fabo 6th all others localities (tj. Bamenda-Banso Mts., Acha Tugi, Mbam, Ngel Nyaki, Gotel Mts.)) but did not significantly resolved relationships among them. Based on the hyplotype diversity of B. anisops as an umbrella species, Mt. Cameroon, Nkogam, Mbam Massif, Mbiame, Hosséré Enla Fabo, Mt. Manengouba, Mt. Kupe and Mt. Oku are considered as localities of the highest conservation importance.

This study aimed at determining whether the use of indigenous techniques of communication can have a positive impact on the motivation of the learner of English as a foreign language in Cameroon. By indigenous techniques of communication we mean techniques like role-play, songs, the telling of folktales, riddles and proverbs. This work is intended as a contribution to the search for improvement of student motivation and enthusiasm, whereby they can be more responsive as they participate spontaneously in learning English as a foreign language. Some writers agree that it is beneficial to learn a foreign language using the material that the learners are familiar with (Lado 1964, Gee 1987, Post and Rathet 1996). The telling of folktales, role-play, songs, and the use of riddles and proverbs are found in all societies and every indigenous society uses them in teaching in one way or the other. Most foreign language learners are familiar with them. Their abundance in the Cameroonian society presents an excellent opportunity for foreign language teaching/learning. My interest in this research has been substantially influenced by my experience of working for almost a decade with learners of English as a foreign language in Francophone secondary/high schools in Cameroon. This work led me to the realization that students respond to English language teaching with very little motivation and enthusiasm. They make little or no progress in learning the language, much less in communicating in it. One of the major questions I have often asked myself is why Francophone students find English language learning boring and what could be done to solve the problem of teaching English to these students. I have tried on a number of occasions to tell folktales or teach a song in class when I found the students were bored with the lessons and discovered that the students immediately became alert. Their alertness was probably not for the direct purpose of making any linguistic gain but for the sheer entertainment of listening to a story or taking part in the singing, all of which they seemed to enjoy. Based on this positive change in the students, it was hypothesized that the introduction of some indigenous techniques of communication in the foreign language classroom might help improve its learning. The results from this study indicate that the recommendations for the use of these techniques in language teaching will help improve on the present negative attitude of foreign language learners. This study is significant to foreign language teaching/learning in all developing countries but most especially to the Cameroonian educational system where the study was carried out. Its relevance is due to the fact that most of the facilities that are presently used for the teaching of foreign languages in advanced countries are absent in developing countries. To help improve on the enthusiasm of the learner of a foreign language therefore, educational planners should resort to the use of indigenous techniques, which this study has found out could be very helpful in any foreign language classroom if properly applied. / Es ist allgemein anerkannt, dass es für Schüler, die eine Fremdsprache erlernen sollen, von Vorteil ist, wenn ihnen vertrautes Material im Unterricht verwendet wird (Lado 1964, Post und Rathet 1996). Das Ziel der vorliegenden Studie ist deshalb, die positive Wirkung von indigenen Kommunikationsstrategien und –techniken auf die Lernermotivation kamerunische Schülern und Schülerinnen zu ermitteln, welche Englisch als Fremdsprache erwerben. Unter indigenen Kommunikationstechniken verstehen wir Rollenspiele, Lieder, das Erzählen von Märchen, Rätseln und Sprichwörtern. Die vorliegende Studie soll einen Beitrag bei der Suche nach Verbesserungsmöglichkeiten von Schülermotivation und Enthusiasmus leisten und dazu beitragen, das Schülerinteresse durch spontanes, teilnehmendes Erlernen zu wecken.

Host-parasite associations are born by cospeciations or by host switches. Feather lice have traditionally been used as model parasites for studying these events and underlying ecological factors. By now tens of analyses have addressed comparisons of host and parasite phylogenies to study cospeciations and host switches in lice, however, these analyses are strongly biased towards the temperate zone. Tropical environment could provide new insight into the origin of host-parasite interactions, because it is ecologically unique. This work aims to supplement the knowledge of host-parasite associations in lice using coevolution analyses of two feather lice genera and their passerine hosts in tropical rainforest in Cameroon. It shows that lice in the tropics cospeciate rarely. To assess whether host switches are non-random and occur preferentially between hosts with specific traits, this work also analyses relations between parasite genetic distances and hosts' trait similarities. No effect of host morphology and spatial distribution was found. However, genetic distances of the lice strongly correlate with genetic distances of their hosts.

The purpose of this work is to measure the degree of intelligibility of native and non-native English speech as well as analyse the major sources of intelligibility failure when speakers of these varieties of English interact. British and American English (henceforth BrE and AmE) and Cameroon English (hereafter CamE) are used as a case study with focus on segmental and supra segmental features. The study was motivated by a number of concerns, several of which are more prominent: First, it was motivated by the trepidation scholars like Gimson (1965, 1980); Prator (1968); etc. nursed that the unprecedented spread of English across the globe and the emergence of non-native varieties would cause English to disintegrate into mutually unintelligible languages, in the way Romance languages devolved from their Latin ancestor. The second motivation was that previous researchers (Bansal 1969, Tiffen 1974) on intelligibility have often concentrated their efforts on the traditional approach, which sees intelligibility from a one-sided perspective. To them, the non-native varieties of English are deficient and not different varieties from the native varieties. They were seen as substandard, incorrect, and unintelligible and thus needed remediation at all costs. The native varieties were seen as prestigious, correct, intelligible and the sole norm that must be emulated by non-native English speakers. In this way any interaction between a native speaker and a non-native speaker should be characterised by the non-native speaker making all the efforts to be understood as well as to understand the native English-speaking partner. This explains in large part why these researchers concentrated on measuring the intelligibility of non-native speech to native speakers and never vice versa. It was as if it was treasonable to measure the intelligibility of native speech to non-native speakers. Even if some researchers managed to do this, the comments that followed such data still showed that the aim was not to test the intelligibility of native speakers but to find out how efficient the non-native speakers were in understanding the native speaker. Another aim could also be to reinforce the teaching of the native norm, which was seen as “correct” against non-native features, which were seen as “incorrect”, to measuring intelligibility. While accepting that these studies reflected the conventional wisdom of the time, this study aims to move the debate forward by looking at intelligibility from a two-sided perspective. It sees communication between speakers of different varieties as a game of give and take, where both participants “tune in” to make the process successful rather than one participant being obliged to make all the efforts because s/he speaks a new English variety. That explains why we are testing not only the intelligibility of non-native speakers to native speakers but also native speakers to non-native speakers. / Gegenstand der vorgelegten Promotionsarbeit ist die Untersuchung der gegenseitigen Verständlichkeit von muttersprachlichem und nicht-muttersprachlichem Englisch. Im besonderen werden die Hauptquellen und Ursachen des Scheiterns von Verständlichkeit in einer empirischen Studie bestimmt, klassifiziert und analysiert. Die Untersuchung wird exemplarisch anhand des Kamerunischen Englisch einerseits und des Britischen und Amerikanischen Englisch anderseits vorgenommen. Motiviert ist diese Arbeit vor allem durch folgende Punkte. Erstens bedarf es der Auseinandersetzung mit den durch eine Reihe von Autoren geäußerten Befürchtungen (z.B. Gimson 1965, 1980 und Prator 1968), daß die Herausbildung und Entwicklung neuer Varianten des Englischen letztlich zu einer Auflösung des Englischen in gegenseitig nicht mehr verständliche Sprachen führt, ein Prozeß, wie er sich historisch bei der Entstehung der romanischen Sprachen aus dem Lateinischen vollzog. Derartige Befürchtungen werden genährt durch die bisher ohnegleichen fortschreitende Verbreitung des Englischen über den gesamten Globus. Hier ergibt sich die dringende Notwendigkeit vergleichender Studien zur gegenseitigen Verständlichkeit zwischen den bestehenden Varianten. Zweitens folgen die meisten zu diesem Thema vorliegenden Untersuchungen im wesentlichen einer traditionellen, überkommenen Grundperspektive: die nicht-muttersprachlichen Varianten des Englischen werden als „abweichend“ bzw. sogar „defizitär“ aus Sicht der muttersprachlichen betrachtet, nicht aber als eigenständige Sprachformen (z.B. Bansal 1969; Tiffen 1974). Dies führt nach Auffassung des Autors zu einer einseitigen Betrachtung und Bewertung. Im besonderen wird in der sprachlichen Interaktion bei einem solchen Zugang die Last zu verstehen und für den Kommunikationspartner verständlich zu sein einseitig dem nicht-muttersprachlichen Sprecher übertragen. Auf diesem Hintergrund untersuchen die vorliegenden Studien anderer Autoren primär die Verständlichkeit nicht-muttersprachlicher Sprachformen für den muttersprachlichen Sprecher, nicht jedoch die umgekehrte Konstellation. Wenn die umgekehrte Perspektive überhaupt berücksichtigt wird, so zeigen die Kommentare, daß nicht die Verständlichkeit muttersprachlicher Sprecher für den Nichtmuttersprachler eigentliches Ziel und Gegenstand der Untersuchung war, sondern vielmehr die Frage, wie effizient sich Nichtmuttersprachler beim Verstehen muttersprachlicher Äußerungen zeigten. Des weiteren stehen diese Studien oft im Kontext des Bestrebens, im institutionalisierten Spracherwerb die muttersprachlichen Normen gegen die nicht-muttersprachlichen Merkmale durchzusetzen, die als „nicht korrekt“ angesehen werden. Diese Positionen, der zugrundeliegende Zugang und die einseitige Ausrichtung bedürfen einer kritischen Auseinandersetzung.