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The dinosaur Plateosaurus engelhardti is the most abundant dinosaur in the Late Triassic of Europe and the best known basal sauropodomorph. Plateosaurus engelhardti was one of the first sauropodomorph dinosaurs to display a large body size. Remains can be found in the Norian stage of the Late Triassic in over 40 localities in Central Europe (France, Germany, and Switzerland) and in Greenland. Since the first discovery of P. engelhardti no juvenile specimens of this species had been described in detail. Here we describe the first remains of juvenile individuals, isolated cervical and dorsal neural arches from Switzerland. These were separated postmortem from their respective centra because of unfused neurocentral sutures. However the specimens share the same neural arch morphology found in adults. Morphometric analysis suggests body lengths of the juvenile individuals that is greater than those of most adult specimens. This supports the hypothesis of developmental plasticity in Plateosaurus engelhardti that previously had been based on histological data only. Alternative hypotheses for explaining the poor correlation between ontogenetic stage and size in this taxon are multiple species or sexual morphs with little morphological variance or time-averaging of individuals from populations differing in body size.

Abstract This paper explores how the idea of climate change travels to the islands of Micronesia and how discourses are translated in radically different ways in local life-worlds. Building on long-term fieldwork in Chuuk, the paper first conceptualizes climate change as a 'travelling idea' which takes its departure to the islandscape of Oceania in 'Western' island conceptions of 'insularity' and feed the 'vulnerability trajectories' that turned the islands into the world's canary for the impact of climate change. It secondly examines why the issue of climate change remains a non-topic or a secondary aspect to many of the islanders, who are simultaneously put at the frontline in the global campaign against global warming.

Over Easter 2012, Rebecca Hofmann travelled to Nómwiin, an outer atoll of Chuuk State in the Paafeng Islands (literally 'lying to the north', also known as Hall Islands after the first European to have encountered them). This special article contains some of her interviews with Nómwiin islanders, and photographs.

Abstract Over Easter 2012, Rebecca Hofmann travelled to Nómwiin, an outer atoll of Chuuk State in the Paafeng Islands (literally ‘lying to the north’, also known as Hall Islands after the first European to have encountered them). This special article contains some of her interviews with Nómwiin islanders, and photographs.

Time discounting – the degree to which individuals value current more than future resources – is an important component of natural resource conservation. As a response to climate change impacts in island communities, such as sea level rise, discounting the future can be a rational response due to increased stress on natural resources and uncertainty about whether future generations will have the same access to the same resources. By incorporating systematic responses of discount rates into models of resource conservation, realistic expectations of future human responses to climate change and associated resource stress may be developed. This paper illustrates the importance of time discounting through a theoretical agent-based model of resource use in island communities. A discount rate change can dramatically change projections about future migration and community-based conservation efforts. Our simulation results show that an increase in discount rates due to a credible information shock about future climate change impacts is likely to speed resource depletion. The negative impacts of climate change are therefore likely to be underestimated if changes in discount rates and emerging migration patterns are not taken into account.

The dinosaur Plateosaurus engelhardti is the most abundant dinosaur in the Late Triassic of Europe and the best known basal sauropodomorph. Plateosaurus engelhardti was one of the first sauropdomorph dinosaurs to display a large body size. Remains can be found in the Norian stage of the Late Triassic in over 40 localities in Central Europe (France, Germany, Greenland and Switzerland). Since the first discovery of P. engelhardti no juvenile specimens of this species had been found. Here we describe the first remains of juvenile individuals, isolated cervical and dorsal neural arches. These were separated postmortem from their respective centra because of unfused neurocentral sutures. However the specimens share the same neural arch morphology found in adults. Morphometric analysis suggests a body lengths of the juvenile indivduals that is greater than those of most adult specimens. This supports the hypothesis of developmental plasticity in Plateosaurus engelhardti that previously had been based on histological data only. Alternative hypotheses for explaining the poor correlation between ontogenetic stage and size in this taxon are multiple species or sexual morphs with little morphological variance or time-averaging of individuals from populations differing in body size.