This study examines the enduring effects of identity repression on ethnic identity transmission within the Greek minority in communist Albania (1945-1990) and post-communist Albania (1991-2004), using an ancestral name bank from the pre-communist era. The analysis employs a novel approach by exploring how a communist-era policy that recognized only a subset of an ethnic group influenced family-level decisions about their ethnic identity. The findings highlight the critical role of timing in determining whether repressed ethnic groups assimilate or revive their ancestral identities. Initially, repression led to assimilation; however, a resurgence of ethnic identity followed the collapse of the regime. The study broadens the scope of post-Soviet literature on Stalin’s ethnic policies---which has typically amplified the role of ethnic elites or pre-communist schooling---by revealing the significant impact of Stalinist-era policies on repressed populations in facilitating post-communist ethnic revival. It further amplifies the role of gender during repression and non-agricultural occupations prior to repression as predictors of using ancestral names.

A notable discovery is that the revival of ethnic identity among the repressed group began in the generation before the fall of Albania's communist regime, with a marked increase in females being given ancestral names during its period of intense repression---a departure from the male-dominated tradition as well as all other minority groups in the study. This shift and the mechanisms of identity transmission are further elucidated through ethnographic research and interviews with both recognized and repressed Greeks in Albania, detailing their experiences during and after communism. The research contributes to our understanding of how historical repression influences contemporary nationalist movements in post-communist settings and offers insights into the complex dynamics of identity transmission.

Taxa harboring high levels of standing variation may be more likely to adapt to rapid environmental shifts and experience ecological speciation. Here, we characterize geographic and host-related differentiation for 10,241 single nucleotide polymorphisms in Rhagoletis pomonella fruit flies to infer if standing genetic variation in adult eclosion time in the ancestral hawthorn (Crataegus spp.)-infesting host race, as opposed to new mutations, contributed substantially to its recent shift to earlier fruiting apple (Malus domestica). Allele frequency differences associated with early versus late eclosion time within each host race were significantly related to geographic genetic variation and host race differentiation across four sites, arrayed from north to south along a 430 km transect, where the host races co-occur in sympatry in the Midwest USA. Host fruiting phenology is clinal, with both apple and hawthorn trees fruiting earlier in the North and later in the South. Thus, we expected alleles associated with earlier eclosion to be at higher frequencies in northern populations. This pattern was observed in the hawthorn race across all four populations; however, allele frequency patterns in the apple race were more complex. Despite the generally earlier eclosion timing of apple flies and corresponding apple fruiting phenology, alleles on chromosomes 2 and 3 associated with earlier emergence were paradoxically at lower frequency in the apple than hawthorn host race across all four sympatric sites. However, loci on chromosome 1 did show higher frequencies of early eclosion associated alleles in the apple than hawthorn host race at the two southern sites, potentially accounting for their earlier eclosion phenotype. Thus, although extensive clinal genetic variation in the ancestral hawthorn race exists and contributed to the host shift to apple, further study is needed to resolve details of how this standing variation was selected to generate earlier eclosing apple fly populations in the North.

The Portraits of American Life Study (PALS) is an unprecedented, multi-level panel study focused on religion in the United States, with a particular focus on capturing ethnic and racial diversity. The PALS seeks to show the impact of religion in everyday life, and ultimately the connections between religious change and other forms of change in individuals and families over the course of their lives and across generations. It includes substantive modules on family relationships, deviance, health, civic participation and volunteering, moral and social attitudes, and race and ethnic issues. In time, this panel study is expected to develop into a multi-wave longitudinal study comprising both individual and congregational level data. This study was formerly known as the Panel Study of American Religion and Ethnicity (PS-ARE).