Summary 1. Understanding the interaction among predators and between predation and climate is critical to understanding the mechanisms for compensatory mortality. We used data from 1999 radio‐marked neonatal elk (Cervus elaphus) calves from 12 populations in the north‐western United States to test for effects of predation on neonatal survival, and whether predation interacted with climate to render mortality compensatory. 2. Weibull survival models with a random effect for each population were fit as a function of the number of predator species in a community (3–5), seven indices of climatic variability, sex, birth date, birth weight, and all interactions between climate and predators. Cumulative incidence functions (CIF) were used to test whether the effects of individual species of predators were additive or compensatory. 3. Neonatal elk survival to 3 months declined following hotter previous summers and increased with higher May precipitation, especially in areas with wolves and/or grizzly bears. Mortality hazards were significantly lower in systems with only coyotes (Canis latrans), cougars (Puma concolor) and black bears (Ursus americanus) compared to higher mortality hazards experienced with gray wolves (Canis lupus) and grizzly bears (Ursus horribilis). 4. In systems with wolves and grizzly bears, mortality by cougars decreased, and predation by bears was the dominant cause of neonatal mortality. Only bear predation appeared additive and occurred earlier than other predators, which may render later mortality by other predators compensatory as calves age. Wolf predation was low and most likely a compensatory source of mortality for neonatal elk calves. 5. Functional redundancy and interspecific competition among predators may combine with the effects of climate on vulnerability to predation to drive compensatory mortality of neonatal elk calves. The exception was the evidence for additive bear predation. These results suggest that effects of predation by recovering wolves on neonatal elk survival, a contentious issue for management of elk populations, may be less important than the composition of the predator community. Future studies would benefit by synthesizing overwinter calf and adult‐survival data sets, ideally from experimental studies, to test the roles of predation in annual compensatory and additive mortality of elk.

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This study investigated the intelligibility of native and Mandarin-accented English speech for native English and native Mandarin listeners. The word-final voicing contrast was considered (as in minimal pairs such as `cub' and `cup') in a forced-choice word identification task. For these particular talkers and listeners, there was evidence of an interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners (i.e., native Mandarin listeners were more accurate than native English listeners at identifying Mandarinaccented English words). However, there was no evidence of an interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for talkers (i.e., native Mandarin listeners did not find Mandarin-accented English speech more intelligible than native English speech). When listener and talker phonological proficiency (operationalized as accentedness) was taken into account, it was found that the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit for listeners held only for the low phonological proficiency listeners and low phonological proficiency speech. The intelligibility data were also considered in relation to various temporal-acoustic properties of native English and Mandarin-accented English speech in effort to better understand the properties of speech that may contribute to the interlanguage speech intelligibility benefit.

The first institutional feeding of elk (Cewus elaphus) in North America was in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where several thousand elk are fed most winters at the National Elk Refuge. Winter-feeding of elk is employed on an annual basis by state agencies in Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. During 1995-1999, an average 3 1,000 elk were fed in those 5 states at a cost of $1.6 million. Most feeding programs originated due to conflicts between elk and agricultural uses of historic elk winter range. Wildlife managers generally resorted to feeding to reduce crop damage caused by elk, and to provide economic benefits of maintaining more elk than diminished winter habitat could sustain. Several negative consequences result fiom feeding elk. These include (1) the monetary costs of feeding, which divert dollars from other resource programs, (2) excessive herbivory that alters plant community structure and consequently affects the value of habitats used by other wildlife species near elk feed grounds, (3) changes in elk behavior that are both of spatial and philosophical ~i~c a n c e , (4) diseases that are more readily transmitted among densely concentrated animals, threaten the welfare of elk and other species, and shape resource management, and (5) public perceptions that may lead to the devaluing of habitat. I suggest proactive alternatives to winter-feeding, which may avert conflict situations that precipitate public and political pressures to feed elk.

Using the voices of six subjects, representing various social and educational backgrounds, fifty-four synthetic voices were generated by computer. Each normal voice was both increased and decreased in rate by 121/2, 25, 371/2, and 50 per cent. Judges evaluated the fifty-four voices using a series of adjectives representing two major personality factors of " competence " and " benevolence ". Several statistical analyses were performed, and it was found that the competence factor was much more sensitive to rate manipulations than was the benevolence factor. Ratings of competence were found to increase as rate increases and decrease as rate decreases, in a linear fashion. Benevolence had an inverted U-relationship with speech rate; the highest benevolence ratings occurred with normal speech rate.