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<p>Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka vilken sorts maskulinitet som Jack Sparrow i filmen Pirates of the Caribbean – Svarta pärlans förbannelse representerar. Uppsatsen bygger på Robert W. Connells maskulinitetsteori med fokus på den hegemoniska maskuliniteten. Vårt urval består av tre scener i filmen Pirates of the Caribbean – Svarta pärlans förbannelse. För att uppnå vårt syfte har vi utgått från semiotisk metod och använt oss av Keith Selby & Ron Cowderys analysmodell för television.</p><p>Vi har i vår analys kommit fram till att Jack Sparrow i filmen Pirates of the Caribbean – Svarta pärlans förbannelse framställs som en ambivalent och komplex man. Vi kan se tecken på att han är bärare av den hegemoniska maskuliniteten men också tecken på att han bryter mot den. Sammantaget tycker vi att Jack Sparrow kan ses som ett uttryck för att det Connell benämner som den hegemoniska maskuliniteten är i förändring.</p>

The male house sparrows has two assumed visible sexual traits which are 1) the colouration (or brightness) of the beak and 2) the size of the black badge on the bird’s throat and chest. Earlier research has shown that the testosterone concentration play an important part in determine the beak colour, with a higher testosterone concentration giving the bird a darker beak and as such making the male more attractive to females.     Even though stress has been counted for as a changing factor of phenotypes and behaviour it is not certain how vast effect stress has on different animals. This study is focusing on how and if the individuals fundamental stress level (fundamental corticosterone concentration) is affecting the morphological appearance, in this case the visible sexual traits (beak colour and badge size) and mask (an indicator of age), within the house sparrows in the Lundy Island population. In this study there was no relationship between beak colour and corticosterone concentrations, stating that beak brightness is not determined by fundamental stress. Likewise there was no relationship between the corticosterone concentrations and the size of the badge. Mask measurements in relationship to corticosterone showed no significant effect. These results indicate that there is no relationship between the corticosterone concentration in the blood and the mask size or the beak colour and badge size as visible sexual traits. / Många forskare är ense om att gråsparvshannen använder sig av två synliga karaktärsdrag för att attrahera honor. Den första är mörkhetsgraden på näbben och den andra är storleken på hannens svarta bröstlapp, placerad på hals och bröst. Tidigare forskning har visat att näbbfärgen påverkas kraftigt av hannens testosteron nivå och att en högre testosteron nivå leder till en mörkare näbb, vilket är mer attraktivt för honorna.    Även om stress har visat sig påverka både fenotyp och beteende hos många olika djurgrupper är det fortfarande oklart hur stor effekt stress har på olika djur. Denna studie fokuserar på hur och om den individuella fundamentala stressnivån (den fundamentala kortikosteron nivån) påverkar de synliga attraherande karaktärsdragen (näbbfärg och bröstlappsstorlek) hos gråsparvshannarna. I denna rapport analyseras även hannarnas masker, vilka fungerar som åldersindikatorer, i relation till de individuella kortikosteron koncentrationerna. Inget samband kunde hittas mellan näbbfärg och kortikosteron nivå hos de analyserade individerna. Likaså kunde inget samband hittas mellan kortikosteron nivån och storleken på hannens bröstlapp. Inte heller maskstorleken visade samband med kortokosteron nivån. Resultatet indikerar således att stress inte påverkar hannens sexuellt attraktiva karaktärsdrag eller mask.

Anti-predator behaviour, sexual selection and reproductive success in the House Sparrow Passer domesticus Alena Klvaňová Summary of the thesis Individual components of parental care are disproportionally distributed among the parents in the House Sparrow. While the female broods the nestlings more often and feeds them more frequently, the male defends the nest more intensely. In an experimental study the parents did not adjust their nest defence intensity to behaviour of their partners, nor to brood parameters. Only males tended to defend the sooner broods more intensely, which is in concordance with the "brood value hypothesis". Male contribution to nestling feeding affected their body mass. Male nest defence intensity increased with the size of their melanin ornament. Thus, we assume that the ornament could signal male investment in this component of parental care, while it does not correlate with feeding frequency and time spent by incubation. This output is probably caused by pleiotropic effect of genes regulating melanogenesis, affecting e. g. testosterone plasma level, which is associated with increased agression and lower intensity of other components of parental care as nestling provisioning or incubation. We have also aked the question whether the anti-predator strategy in House Sparrow is stable...

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka vilken sorts maskulinitet som Jack Sparrow i filmen Pirates of the Caribbean – Svarta pärlans förbannelse representerar. Uppsatsen bygger på Robert W. Connells maskulinitetsteori med fokus på den hegemoniska maskuliniteten. Vårt urval består av tre scener i filmen Pirates of the Caribbean – Svarta pärlans förbannelse. För att uppnå vårt syfte har vi utgått från semiotisk metod och använt oss av Keith Selby &amp; Ron Cowderys analysmodell för television. Vi har i vår analys kommit fram till att Jack Sparrow i filmen Pirates of the Caribbean – Svarta pärlans förbannelse framställs som en ambivalent och komplex man. Vi kan se tecken på att han är bärare av den hegemoniska maskuliniteten men också tecken på att han bryter mot den. Sammantaget tycker vi att Jack Sparrow kan ses som ett uttryck för att det Connell benämner som den hegemoniska maskuliniteten är i förändring.

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Widespread extinction is a critical threat to biodiversity and is largely caused by human overexploitation of habitat and populations. A widely used and hence well studied organism group for indication of biodiversity is birds. In Europe especially, farmland specialists have suffered from intensified agricultural practices such as increase of monoculture, use of pesticides, and heavy machinery. This has been shown to be partly caused by an EU legislation called the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). A specific type of farmland, termed High Nature Value (HNV) farmland, seems to be particularly advantageous for farmland specialist birds and makes up an important conservation target. The current study was done in the Natura2000 reserve Târnava Mare, Romania, to find out which habitat types play an essential role for occurrence of farmland species. Farmlands in Târnava Mare are highly diverse in structure, characterizing a mosaic of grassland, meadows and fields, and low-intensity farming practices. With bird point count survey data from 2015 to 2019, I evaluated the effect of different habitat types on five species listed in the Farmland Bird Indicator (FBI) and as farmland specialists: red-backed shrike (Lanius collurio), yellowhammer (Emberiza citrinella), Eurasian skylark (Alauda arvensis), Eurasian tree sparrow (Passer montanus), and common whitethroat (Sylvia communis). I compared habitat proportion in presence and absence of the species for 2019’s data with Mann-Whitney tests. They all showed significant results for meadow proportion. All species except the common whitethroat showed significant results for crop proportion, while only two species (red-backed shrike and yellowhammer) showed significant results for scrub. Independent of which habitat type was tested (meadow, crop or scrub), all species with significant result – except for Eurasian skylark with a negative relationship in crop habitat - showed a positive response to a higher proportion of the tested habitat. The same species except Eurasian tree sparrow were modelled with the generalized N-mixture model of Dail and Madsen (2011) to evaluate what is influencing abundance, recruitment rates, survival probabilities and detectability over five years. The day of the season affected the detectability of almost all species. The effect of habitat on recruitment rate and survival probability, however, could only be shown for yellowhammer. For the latter, proportion of meadow affected recruitment and proportion of reed affected survival. In conclusion, the presence of species seems to be generally higher in habitats associated with low-intensity farming on the single season scale. Over time, however, a significant effect on population dynamic parameters for the same species could not be shown for most species. This could be a result of insufficient data for each year, too few years of data, or that the tested habitat types are not affecting these parameters over time.

Increased growth of the mid-continent population of Lesser Snow Geese (LSGO) has led to the degradation of coastal salt marsh and sedge meadow habitats across Canadian Arctic and sub-Arctic ecosystems. It is believed that a human-induced trophic cascade caused by agricultural habitat modification along migratory routes and wintering grounds has contributed to the increase in LSGO numbers, which has resulted in the alteration of habitat quality and connectivity along northern breeding and stopover sites used by various avian species. This habitat degradation has been shown to decrease the presence and temporal persistence of ground-nesting passerine and shorebird species at a local level and may lead to decreases of Arctic / sub-Arctic breeding avian species across landscapes that LSGO utilize and degrade. In 1999, four paired study plots were established, and used in conjunction with a single study plot from 1976, in order to measure the composition of habitat parameters (barren ground extent; graminoid and shrub cover) and to estimate the number of avian nests found in these plots. Using this historical data along with our findings from 2010 and 2011, our main objectives were to: 1) document the change in the aforementioned habitat parameters over time; 2) estimate the local nesting occupancy rates of the common Savannah Sparrow (SAVS), a robust and adaptable ground nester; and 3) determine which habitat variables are indicative of the rates of change and occurrence of nesting by SAVS within the study plots. By using ANOVA, linear mixed effects, and multi-state occupancy models, results suggest that an increase in barren ground, decreases in shrub and graminoid cover, and a loss of connectivity between suitable nesting patches has led to a 10% (λ = 0.90) annual decline in the probability that SAVS nesting occurred across the study plots from 1999 to 2010. These model results may be used to estimate long-term trends in persistence of breeding SAVS and other similar ground-nesting avian species that share habitats with LSGO along Arctic and sub-Arctic ecosystems. (93 pages)

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The Bachman’s sparrow (Peucaea aestivalis) is a ground-dwelling, pine-obligate species experiencing range-wide population declines due to land development and fire exclusion. We explored the effects of fire seasonality on wintering Bachman’s sparrow abundance in Southern Mississippi from 2021-2022. We used generalized linear mixed models to investigate differences in sparrow abundance and vegetation characteristics following dormant and growing season fire. We explored the effects of growing season fire on breeding territory vegetation characteristics. Our results indicate that burn type (dormant vs. growing season), native grass groundcover, and shrubs over 1m were the most significant predictors for wintering Bachman’s sparrow abundance. Additionally, native grass groundcover increased in growing season breeding territories post-fire while grass standing crop and shrubs over 1m decreased. We recommend a combination of dormant and growing season fire when feasible to promote a matrix of conditions suitable for Bachman’s sparrows throughout their life cycle in the Southeastern United States.