Seed Testing and Quality-Assurance
H igh-quality seed is the basis for profitable and productive agriculture, be it a large commercial field operation, a small familyowned farm, or a greenhouse-based operation producing bedding plants or specialty horticultural crops. Assessing seed quality and assuring the buyer of the validity of the seed label (Fig. 1) has been an important mission of the various seed regulatory agencies of state and federal governments and service-testing provided by commercial seed-testing laboratories around the world. Based on validity of labeling, commercial sales of seed have been a profitable business to both the seed producer and the consumer. In the United States and Canada, seed-testing rules have been developed and standardized by the Assn. of Official Seed Analysts (AOSA) and in other countries around the world by the Inter-
Pollination by a Lizard on a Mediterranean Island
Pollen and nectar are eaten by a wide variety of animals including geckos, skinks (Whitaker, 1987) and lacertid lizards (Elvers, 1978; PerezMellado and Corti, 1993; Saez and Traveset, 1995). This feeding behavior suggests potential pollen transport and the possibility of pollination by lizards (Elvers, 1978; Whitaker, 1987; Saez and Traveset, 1995). Here we show the role of the Balearic lizard, Podarcis lilfordi (Sauria, Lacertidae) in the pollination of a Mediterranean Umbelliferae, the sea fern, Crithmum maritimum on the islet of Nitge (surface area 10.6 hectares; Perez-Mellado, 1989), close to Menorca Island (Balearic Archipelago, Spain). Lizards from Nitge are Podarcis lilfordi fenni, isolated on this islet at least 9000 years ago (Perez-Mellado and Salvador, 1988). The population density is very high (Perez-Mellado, 1989; Brown et al., 1992; Brown and PerezMellado, 1994), with marked annual fluctuations.
“To those who choose to follow in our footsteps”: making women/LGBT+ soldiers (in)visible through feminist “her-story” theater
Building on Judith Butler ’ s understanding of visibility as “ the object of continuous regulation and contestation, ” art/aesthetics studies in international relations, and feminist theater studies, we identify feminist “ her-story ” theater as a unique site where Western “ gender-/sexuality-inclusive ” soldiering is visibilized, contested, and subverted. Drawing on ethnographic observations of two award-winning dramas, interviews with artists and military hosts, and ﬁ ndings from a wider research project on contemporary British military culture, we reveal the key role of heteronormative and patriarchal cultural discourses in reproducing the ambivalent positionalities of women/LGBT+ soldiers. We argue that the very visibility of women/LGBT+ soldiers on the stage paradoxically operates to make the complexities of – and struggles against – masculinized heteronormative military cultures invisible. Furthermore, despite artists ’ attempts to dissociate empowerment through soldiering from the problematic context of modern con ﬂ icts, “ her-story ” theater ultimately entrenches gendered/racialized hierarchies that normalize Western military interventions. We conclude that only through sustained feminist re ﬂ ection on the contours of “ imagined ” futures of female/ LGBT+ soldiering can this persistently problematic (in)visibility be productively disrupted.