<p>I use morphological, vocal, molecular, behavioural, ecological and distributional data to re-evaluate the systematics of three passerine bird groups, the <i>Mirafraassamica </i>complex (bush-larks), the genus <i>Seicercus</i> ("spectacled-warblers"; with emphasis on the the <i>S. burkii</i> complex) and the genus <i>Motacilla</i> (wagtails). Two new species are described: <i>Seicercus soror</i> and <i>Motacilla samveasnae</i>. I propose that the polytypic species <i>M. assamica</i> should be treated as four separate species: <i>M. assamica</i>, <i>M. affinis</i>, <i>M. microptera</i> and <i>M. marionae</i> (it is also remarked that the proper name of the latter is <i>M. erythrocephala</i>). That is primarily supported by vocalisations and mitochondrial DNA. The latter data set also suggests that <i>M. assamica</i> sensu lato is paraphyletic, since <i>M. erythroptera</i>, which is always treated as a separate species, is nested within the <i>M. assamica</i> complex. I propose that the polytypic species <i>S. burkii</i> comprises six sibling species. Some of these are found to breed sympatrically, although mainly or entirely segregated altitudinally. Mitochondrial DNA suggests that the <i>S. burkii</i> complex is non-monophyletic, and also that the divergence of the different taxa is much older than indicated by morphological and vocal data. According to the molecular phylogeny, both the genera <i>Seicercus</i> and its assumed sister genus <i>Phylloscopus</i> are paraphyletic. That is corroborated by independent data. The phylogenetic study of the genus <i>Motacilla</i> reveals incongruence between mitochondrial DNA, nuclear DNA and non-molecular data. I conclude that the nuclear gene tree reflects the organismal phylogeny more faithfully than the mitochondrial gene tree. The latter is likely to have been affected by introgressive hybridisation, possibly also stochastic lineage sorting. The most remarkable result that is strongly supported by both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA is that <i>M. flava</i> is non-monophyletic.</p>

<p>This thesis deals with evolutionary relationships within the asterids, a group of plants comprising about one-third of all flowering plants.</p><p>Two new families are recognised: Pennantiaceae and Stemonuraceae. The woody <i>Pennantia</i> from New Zealand and Australia is the sole genus of Pennantiaceae. Stemonuraceae consist of a dozen woody genera with a pantropical distribution and a centre of diversity in South East Asia and the Malesian islands. They are characterised by long hairs on their stamens and/or fleshy appendages on their fruits. Both families were formerly included in Icacinaceae. While Pennantiaceae are unrelated to any of the former Icacinaceae and placed in the order Apiales, other former Icacinaceae genera are related to <i>Cardiopteris</i>, a twining herb from South East Asia and Malesia. The monogeneric family Cardiopteridaceae is enlarged as to include also these. Cardiopteridaceae and Stemonuraceae are sister groups and placed in Aquifoliales. The three other families of Aquifoliales are monogeneric and closely related. The Asian Helwingiaceae and the Central/South American Phyllonomaceae are suggested to be merged into Aquifoliaceae (hollies). The genera of Icacinaceae in the traditional sense not placed in any of the above families (all euasterids II) are members of early diverging lineages of the euasterids I and possibly included in the order Garryales.</p><p>The three woody Australasian families Alseuosmiaceae, Argophyllaceae, and Phellinaceae are confirmed as members of Asterales, despite traditional placements not close to that order. They are, moreover, supported as each other’s closest relatives.</p><p>The results are based mainly on parsimony analysis of DNA sequence data, but morphological studies have revealed characters in support for the molecularly based conclusions. The gene that has provided most new information is the chloroplast <i>ndh</i>F gene. The results are, however, drawn from combined analyses of sequences from one or several additional genes (<i>atp</i>B, <i>mat</i>K, <i>rbc</i>L, <i>18S</i> rDNA). The data have also been explored with Bayesian analysis, a statistical, model-based method that most recently has been developed for phylogeny reconstruction.</p>

Echiochilon, Ogastemma and Sericostoma are revised resulting in the recognition of 15 species of Echiochilon and one Ogastemma species. Several species are placed in synonymy and three new species are described, E. baricum, E. callianthum and E. cyananthum. The single species of Sericostoma is shown to be nested within Echiochilon. The plastid atpB gene was sequenced for Echiochilon and Ogastemma from the Old World and Antiphytum from the New World, plus for a selection of 33 other Boraginaceae taxa. They were analysed together with selected outgroup taxa to give a framework of the tribes of Boraginoideae. The analysis gave support for establishing the new tribe Echiochileae for Antiphytum, Echiochilon and Ogastemma, and for merging the traditionally accepted tribe Eritrichieae with Cynoglosseae. The ITS region was sequenced for all but one species of Echiochilon and for representatives of Antiphytum and Ogastemma. Phylogenetic analysis of Echiochilon revealed that the strongly zygomorphic-flowered species form a paraphyletic group. The morphological data gave results fairly congruent with the ITS phylogeny. Biogeographic interpretations of the ITS and atpB phylogenies indicated a trans-Atlantic dispersal of Antiphytum as the most plausible explanation to the Old/New World disjunction. Analyses using DIVA (Dispersal Vicariance Analysis) of the distributions of the Echiochilon species indicated an ancestor to Echiochilon with a wide distribution over northern Africa and Arabia to India.

The species of Amomum Roxb. (Zingiberaceae) in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam are revised. Thirty-five species and two varieties are recognised, all names are typified, and detailed descriptions and a key are provided. Nine new species are described and one species is validated. Whilst revising Amomum for the Flore du Cambodge, du Laos et du Viêtnam, we have proposed to conserve the name Amomum villosum Lour. with a recent collection from Laos, which was not included in the protologue, as its type. Our research on the use of Amomum focuses on the use of plants during pregnancy, parturition, postpartum recovery and infant healthcare among three ethnic groups, the Brou, Saek and Kry. The investigations aim to identify culturally important traditions that may facilitate implementation of culturally appropriate healthcare. Data were collected in Khammouane province, Lao PDR, through group and individual interviews with women by female interviewers. More than 55 plant species are used in women's healthcare, of which &gt; 90 % are used in postpartum recovery. This wealth of novel insights into plant use and preparation will help to understand culturally important practices such as confinement, dietary restrictions, mother roasting and herbal steam baths and their incorporation into modern healthcare. Through chemical analyses of Amomum we have recorded compounds with antimicrobial, analgesic and sedative effects that point to an empirical development of the traditional treatments around childbirth. Essential oils of three species used in hotbed and mother roasting, Amomum villosum Lour. Amomum microcarpum C.F.Liang &amp; D.Fang and Blumea balsamifera (L.) DC. were found to contain significant amounts of the following terpenes: b-pinene, camphor, bornylacetate, borneol, linalool, D-limonene, fenchone, terpinen-4-ol and a-terpinene.

The notion of the organism has a somewhat ambiguous status in Kant’s philosophy. On the one hand it belongs to natural science, on the other hand it is based on an analogy with the structure of reason. Biology therefore has a peculiar place among the sciences according to Kant: it is a natural science constituted by the use of a regulative maxim. The present study places Kant’s views on biological teleology in the larger context of transcendental idealism. It consists of five essays. The first one treats the notions of things in themselves and appearances, arguing for an interpretation in terms of two aspects or perspectives rather than two worlds. The importance of the discursivity of our cognitive capacity is stressed, as well as the need to separate Kant’s various reflective perspectives. In the second essay this interpretation is applied to the third section of the Groundwork, arguing that this text does not belong to theoretical metaphysics, but rather to the articulation of a specifically practical perspective. The third essay discusses similarities and differences between Kant’s a priori conditions for cognition and conceptions of innate ideas in the rationalist tradition. Kant’s comparison of the system of categories with the biological theory of epigenesis is considered in connection to eighteenth century theories of generation. The comparison is viewed as an analogy rather than as a naturalistic theory of the a priori. In the fourth essay Kant’s account of functional attribution in biology is explicated in the context of the present day debate of the issue. It is claimed that Kant’s neo-Aristotelian approach avoids some of the difficulties in the dominant naturalistic accounts of today. Kant’s view differs from the Aristotelian in that it involves a distinction of levels, making it possible to take functional attributions on the one hand as objective from the standpoint of biology but on the other hand as having a merely regulative status from a philosophical point of view. In the fifth essay an interpretation of the antinomy of teleological judgment in the Critique of Judgment is offered. The antinomy is taken to consist in the dialectical tendency to treat the regulative maxims of teleology and mechanism as constitutive principles. The difference between the discursivity of the human understanding and the idea of a non-discursive understanding, an important theme in Kant’s solution of the antinomy, puts the question of biological teleology in relation to central tenets of transcendental idealism.

I use morphological, vocal, molecular, behavioural, ecological and distributional data to re-evaluate the systematics of three passerine bird groups, the Mirafraassamica complex (bush-larks), the genus Seicercus ("spectacled-warblers"; with emphasis on the the S. burkii complex) and the genus Motacilla (wagtails). Two new species are described: Seicercus soror and Motacilla samveasnae. I propose that the polytypic species M. assamica should be treated as four separate species: M. assamica, M. affinis, M. microptera and M. marionae (it is also remarked that the proper name of the latter is M. erythrocephala). That is primarily supported by vocalisations and mitochondrial DNA. The latter data set also suggests that M. assamica sensu lato is paraphyletic, since M. erythroptera, which is always treated as a separate species, is nested within the M. assamica complex. I propose that the polytypic species S. burkii comprises six sibling species. Some of these are found to breed sympatrically, although mainly or entirely segregated altitudinally. Mitochondrial DNA suggests that the S. burkii complex is non-monophyletic, and also that the divergence of the different taxa is much older than indicated by morphological and vocal data. According to the molecular phylogeny, both the genera Seicercus and its assumed sister genus Phylloscopus are paraphyletic. That is corroborated by independent data. The phylogenetic study of the genus Motacilla reveals incongruence between mitochondrial DNA, nuclear DNA and non-molecular data. I conclude that the nuclear gene tree reflects the organismal phylogeny more faithfully than the mitochondrial gene tree. The latter is likely to have been affected by introgressive hybridisation, possibly also stochastic lineage sorting. The most remarkable result that is strongly supported by both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA is that M. flava is non-monophyletic.

This thesis deals with evolutionary relationships within the asterids, a group of plants comprising about one-third of all flowering plants. Two new families are recognised: Pennantiaceae and Stemonuraceae. The woody Pennantia from New Zealand and Australia is the sole genus of Pennantiaceae. Stemonuraceae consist of a dozen woody genera with a pantropical distribution and a centre of diversity in South East Asia and the Malesian islands. They are characterised by long hairs on their stamens and/or fleshy appendages on their fruits. Both families were formerly included in Icacinaceae. While Pennantiaceae are unrelated to any of the former Icacinaceae and placed in the order Apiales, other former Icacinaceae genera are related to Cardiopteris, a twining herb from South East Asia and Malesia. The monogeneric family Cardiopteridaceae is enlarged as to include also these. Cardiopteridaceae and Stemonuraceae are sister groups and placed in Aquifoliales. The three other families of Aquifoliales are monogeneric and closely related. The Asian Helwingiaceae and the Central/South American Phyllonomaceae are suggested to be merged into Aquifoliaceae (hollies). The genera of Icacinaceae in the traditional sense not placed in any of the above families (all euasterids II) are members of early diverging lineages of the euasterids I and possibly included in the order Garryales. The three woody Australasian families Alseuosmiaceae, Argophyllaceae, and Phellinaceae are confirmed as members of Asterales, despite traditional placements not close to that order. They are, moreover, supported as each other’s closest relatives. The results are based mainly on parsimony analysis of DNA sequence data, but morphological studies have revealed characters in support for the molecularly based conclusions. The gene that has provided most new information is the chloroplast ndhF gene. The results are, however, drawn from combined analyses of sequences from one or several additional genes (atpB, matK, rbcL, 18S rDNA). The data have also been explored with Bayesian analysis, a statistical, model-based method that most recently has been developed for phylogeny reconstruction.

Zebrafish, a novel vertebrate model organism, has a high nucleotide sequence homology with human genes. Its transparent and fast developing embryo allows the analysis of physiological and anatomical characteristics, many of which are similar to those of mammals. Although the prolific nature of zebrafish can facilitate genetic studies, linking genes and behaviour is difficult because behaviour is not well investigated in zebrafish. The aim of this project is to develop robust behavioural tests that can quantify shoaling with conspecifics and fear responses to natural predators. Eight conditions using different computer-animated stimuli were used to induce behavioural responses. The results demonstrate that shoaling behaviours and fear responses can be successfully induced. More importantly, the behaviours caused by the computer-animated images confirm previous research findings using natural conspecifics and predators. Thus, computer-animated images will help standardize behavioural tests in zebrafish and will lead the way to more sophisticated and better controlled experiments.

Zebrafish, a novel vertebrate model organism, has a high nucleotide sequence homology with human genes. Its transparent and fast developing embryo allows the analysis of physiological and anatomical characteristics, many of which are similar to those of mammals. Although the prolific nature of zebrafish can facilitate genetic studies, linking genes and behaviour is difficult because behaviour is not well investigated in zebrafish. The aim of this project is to develop robust behavioural tests that can quantify shoaling with conspecifics and fear responses to natural predators. Eight conditions using different computer-animated stimuli were used to induce behavioural responses. The results demonstrate that shoaling behaviours and fear responses can be successfully induced. More importantly, the behaviours caused by the computer-animated images confirm previous research findings using natural conspecifics and predators. Thus, computer-animated images will help standardize behavioural tests in zebrafish and will lead the way to more sophisticated and better controlled experiments.

Wangechi Mutu is an internationally recognized Kenyan-born artist who lives and works in Brooklyn. She creates collaged female figures composed of human, animal, object, and machine parts. Mutu’s constructions of the female body provide a transcultural critique on the female persona in Western culture. This paper contextualizes Mutu’s work and artistic strategies within feminist, postmodern, and postcolonial narratives on collage, while exploring whether collage strategies are particularly useful for feminist artists. In their fusion of machine and organism, Mutu’s characters are visual metaphors for feminist cyborgs, particularly those outlined by Donna Haraway. In this paper, I examine parallels between collage as an aesthetic strategy and the figure of the cyborg to suggest meaningful ways of approaching differences between women and how they experience life in contemporary Western culture.