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Friendships and other relationships are crucial to human fitness, yet such relationships often terminate acrimoniously. We explore the pattern of relationship conflict, and the processes of reconciliation that are used to repair them. In this sample, an individual fell out with one member of their extended network, on average, every 7.2 months. Conflict with very close family is surprisingly high; nonetheless, most conflicts involve unrelated individuals (friends, colleagues), suggesting that kin relationships are relatively more buffered against the stresses that trigger conflict (reflecting the “kinship premium”). Around 40% of conflicts remain unreconciled after a year. There were striking sex differences in the intimacy of the relationships involved in breakdown, and the precipitating causes, as well as whom participants reported falling out with. These patterns may reflect women’s preference for fewer, more intimate (and correspondingly more fragile) relationships. The functional origins of this gender difference are not well understood.
Abstract
The extent of soil erosion in some Spanish semiarid regions has caused great concern regarding the sustainability of soil resources. Accelerated soil erosion, particularly in some Mediterranean areas, is likely to be one of the main environmental problems associated with climate change. Fallout 137Cs has been shown to provide a reliable basis for assessing soil erosion rates in different environments around the world. However, existing information concerning the spatial variation of 137Cs inventories at reference sites has identified a need for further investigation of the factors affecting their spatial variability in semiarid environments, where stony and skeletal soils are predominant. Reference sites at three locations in the central Ebro valley were selected to investigate the 137Cs content of several grain size fractions. Each site included both natural vegetated conditions and cultivated land and the three sites were characterized by different values of mean annual rainfall. The results obtained demonstrate the influence of lithology, land use and climate on the spatial variability of 137Cs inventories that increase from 1190, to 1500 and 1710 Bq·m−2 with increasing annual rainfall values from 300 to 500 mm at the study sites. The soils on marls at the Valareña site had the highest proportion of 137Cs in the coarse fractions of cultivated soils (12%) in comparison with soils developed on limestones at Loma Negra (5%), whereas no 137Cs content was found in the coarse fractions of soils on glacis-terrace materials at Peñaflor. The 137Cs reference inventories are higher in soils on marls and sands at cultivated locations at Valareña and Peñaflor, but have similar values in soils at cultivated and uncultivated locations on limestones at Loma Negra. Therefore, in absence of level undisturbed soils with natural vegetation cover, cultivated flat soils on hard rocks could provide reliable reference inventories.
