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My sense was that this interpretation of work on the “behavioral sink” is quite off. I think most reasonable biologists and ecologists would agree that density-
by ckrapu 4y ago
My sense was that this interpretation of work on the “behavioral sink” is quite off. I think most reasonable biologists and ecologists would agree that density-dependent stress tends to cause the pathologies of the type that are described in Calhoun’s work.
The fact that there are occasional sparse zones in the pen is relevant insofar as it usually implied strong individuals excluding access to those parts of the pen; it’s not a very strong argument against crowding as a chief mechanism for the sink.
That said, there is probably something interesting going on right now with regard to density and abnormal behavior - I’m just not sure that falling birth rates will exacerbate that.
- sim1collins 4y agoWe're not sure either (I wrote this with the primary author), but we agree there's something interesting going on. The research is brought up in the deep dive more as an interesting reference point and less as any sort of primary argument.
- ckrapu 4y agoTo play along more with the ideas you guys are raising, I think that strong spatial heterogeneity driven by falling birth rates in sink-type effects are having an outsized effect on how we think about nations even if the sink is due to density. Societies and cultures which are pre- or post-sink might look at clusters of pathological behaviors as signs of cultural or genetic inferiority, causing some degree of conflict and bias.