The role of gender in housing for individuals with severe mental illness: a qualitative study of the Canadian service context: Table 1

OBJECTIVE: This study was undertaken to examine the role of gender as it relates to access to housing among individuals with severe mental illness (SMI) in Canada. DESIGN: An exploratory, qualitative approach was used to assess the perspectives of Canadian housing experts. The focus of inquiry was on the role of gender and associated intersections (eg, ethnicity) in pathways to housing access and housing needs for individuals with SMI. SETTING: A purposeful sampling strategy was undertaken to access respondents across all Canadian geographic regions, with diversity across settings (urban and rural) and service sectors (hospital based and community based). PARTICIPANTS: –29 individuals (6 men and 23 women) considered to be experts in a housing service context as it pertains to SMI were recruited. On average, participants had worked for 15 years in services that specialised in the support and delivery of housing services to people with SMI. MEASURES: Semistructured interviews with participants focused on the role gender plays in access to housing in their specific context. Barriers and facilitators were examined as were intersections with other relevant factors, such as ethnicity, poverty and parenthood. Quantitative ratings of housing accessibility as a function of gender were also collected. RESULTS: Participants across geographic contexts described a lack of shelter facilities for women, leading to a reliance on exploitative circumstances. Other findings included a compounding of discrimination for ethnic minority women, the unique resource problems faced in rural contexts, and the difficulties that attend access to shelter and housing for parents with SMI. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that, along with a generally poor availability of housing stock for individuals with SMI, access problems are compounded by a lack of attention to the unique needs and illness trajectories that attend gender

Female mating biases for bright ultraviolet iridescence in the butterfly Eurema hecabe (Pieridae)

Exaggerated male-limited coloration is widespread among butterflies, yet convincing demonstrations of intraspecific mating preferences for signal brightness and/or chromaticity are relatively rare in this group. Here, I couple behavioral experiments involving manipulations of ambient light environments and male reflectance patterns with observation of wild mating patterns to investigate visual mating biases in the large grass yellow (Eurema hecabe). Males in this species possess exaggerated, limited-view ultraviolet (UV) iridescence across most of their dorsal wing surface that has putative sexual signaling function. In the first experiment, conducted in small (0.7--m-super-3) cages, individuals were significantly less likely to copulate when the UV portion of natural ambient illumination (i.e., 300--400 nm) was strongly reduced. In 2 subsequent experiments, conducted under full-spectrum sunlight in small and large (5 � 6 � 4 m) cages, males with their UV signal artificially dulled by 25% consistently copulated with fewer, and smaller, females than sham-control individuals. Importantly, the manipulated levels of UV brightness in these experiments fall well within the naturally occurring bounds of variation in male UV reflectance. These findings therefore unanimously support the presence of a UV signal--based female bias. In apparent contrast, comparison of 161 in-copula and 188 free-flying males from a high-density field assemblage revealed that copulating males were significantly older and henceforth actually possessed (subtly) less UV bright wings. Copulating male UV brightness was, however, positively related to the size of their mate, which echoes the experimental findings and may represent a signature of mutual mate choice. I discuss these results in light of the full complexities of the butterfly mating system and the potential signaling value of iridescent coloration in butterflies and animals generally. Copyright 2008, Oxford University Press.

Male mating bias and its potential reproductive consequence in the butterfly Colias eurytheme

Male mating biases may be a widespread feature of animal mating systems but the phenotypic consequences of these biases are often unclear, especially in species for which the operational sex ratio is strongly male-biased. In Colias butterflies, male choice is thought to be one of the factors responsible for maintaining a female-limited genetic color polymorphism, in which female wings appear either yellowish-orange or white (the "alba" variant). Previous studies have indicated that alba females of two montane Colias species mate fewer times during their lifetime, possibly as a partial consequence of this bias. Here we report the results of a field study of male mating behavior and female mating biology in Colias eurytheme, conducted under conditions of high (summer) and low (spring) population densities. Our data show that despite a substantial male bias in approaching alba vs yellowish-orange phenotypes [ratios of 0.08:1 (spring) and 0.28:1 (summer)], alba females did not contain, on average, fewer or smaller spermatophores. Not one of the 308 sampled females was virgin, but females of both phenotypes accumulated spermatophores with age, and tended to carry fewer, larger spermatophores in spring. These data suggest that significantly fewer (or lighter) spermatophores need not be an obligatory or simple consequence of a strong male bias in butterflies. We discuss these findings in light of the known, thermally and density-dependent complexities of alba reproductive biology and of the Colias mating system