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This study examines preschoolers’ beliefs concerning their transfer into primary education. Data from 1386 Finnish preschoolers were obtained using interviews with parents at the end of the children’s preschool year. The qualitative content analysis revealed categories, which encompassed peer relationships, relationship with teacher, learning, formal schoolwork, informal activities, comfortable school entry and no concerns. The results indicated that children’s beliefs concerning their prospective school entry centred on maintaining and making friendships, and that children possessed both negative and positive expectations about their relationship with their future teacher. Both girls and boys expressed concerns about managing school life. One-third of the children did not express any concerns. Children anticipated new learning experiences and were eager to meet more challenging tasks. The anticipation of positive learning encounters emphasizes the gradual, proactive construction of children’s self-conceptions as learners. Some differences were found between genders, as well as the type of preschool context. peerReviewed

Parents can influence offspring dispersal through breeding site selection, competition, or by directly moving their offspring during parental care. Many animals move their young, but the potential role of this behavior in dispersal has rarely been investigated. Neotropical poison frogs (Dendrobatidae) are well known for shuttling their tadpoles from land to water, but the associated movements have rarely been quantified and the potential function of tadpole transport in dispersal has not been addressed. We used miniature radio-transmitters to track the movements of two poison frog species during tadpole transport, and surveyed pool availability in the study area. We found that parental males move farther than expected by the distance to the nearest pool and spread their offspring across multiple pools. We argue that these movement patterns cannot be fully explained by pool quality and availability, and suggest that adaptive benefits related to offspring dispersal also shape the spatial behavior of parental frogs. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1007/s10682-019-09994-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Previous investigations have shown that inducing meta-stability\ud in behavior can be achieved by overlapping affordances through constraint\ud manipulation, allowing cooperative and competitive tendencies to\ud functionally coexist. The purpose of this paper was to test a number of\ud conditions applying these design principles on performance during skills\ud practice and transfer. Of additional interest, was whether the existing\ud skill level interacted with the environmental properties of the\ud experimental tasks (varying indoor climbing routes). Two skill groups\ud practised on three routes per session over four separate sessions. At the\ud end of the final session, climbers undertook a transfer test. Routes,\ud matched for difficulty, were manipulated in terms of hand-hold design.\ud Route-1 and Route-2 were designed with holds with a single graspable\ud edge, aligned entirely parallel or perpendicular to the ground plane\ud respectively. Route-3 had at each hold, two graspable edges (one parallel\ud and one perpendicular to the ground plane). Behavioral exploration at the\ud hip and hands were largest under the metastable condition (Route-3).\ud Skill level also interacted with route properties during practice and\ud influenced transfer. Data suggest meta-stability induces exploratory\ud behaviors. Less skilled individuals explore both hand and hip levels,\ud whereas, more experienced climbers explore at the hip level.

Success rates for conservation translocations of species are low and there is a need for increased understanding of how this activity is best applied. Here, using static species distribution models and a spatially-explicit dynamic simulation model, RangeShifter, we examine the impacts of habitat cover in recipient landscapes, allocation of individuals into multiple sites and species trait characteristics on the long-term fate of hypothetical translocations of a grassland specialist butterfly, Maniola jurtina, in Finland. While persistence of populations introduced to climatically suitable locations northwards of the current range can be increased by selecting sites with increasing habitat cover and by allocation of individuals to multiple release sites, local population growth rate is shown to be the key parameter in determining likely translocation success. We conclude that the long-term persistence of translocated habitat specialist butterflies, particularly with low growth rates, appears to be uncertain in modern-day fragmented grassland networks and that translocation activities should prioritize management that improves local growth rate.

Translocations have been advocated as a conservation tool helping species adapt to climate and land-use change, but well-documented examples of invertebrates’ translocations are rare. The paper describes a successful translocation of the threatened Clouded Apollo butterfly ( Parnassius mnemosyne ) in Finland, compares this to a specific failed translocation, and presents conclusions for conservation planning as to factors contributing to the success. Two apparent key characteristics of the successful translocation were greater abundance of larval resources and less open landscape. The successful site was surrounded by forest, which strongly restricted emigration, crucially supporting the survival of the small initial population. Based on 20 mated females’ translocation in 2000, the local population increased slowly, reaching 600 butterflies in 2011. A large translocation patch together with host-plant abundance enabled successful establishment of the local population. Availability of other suitable grassland patches sufficiently nearby was an additional key characteristic, facilitating the Clouded Apollo’s expansion. However, the expansion rate was low; it took seven years for the butterflies to colonise the five nearest patches, only 10–200 m from the translocation patch. By 2013, they had colonised all suitable semi-natural grassland patches within 2 km from the translocation site and established a seemingly viable metapopulation with 11 subpopulations. The results point to the significance of local habitat area and landscape quality, along with conditions restricting emigration, in determination of suitable translocation sites.