Life Sciences Commons^™

Geographic Variation In Alarm Calls Of Gunnison's Prairie Dogs, C. N. Slobodchikoff, S. H. Ackers, M. Van Ert

Communication Skills Collection

Geographic variation in alarm calls of Gunnison's prairie dogs (Cynomys gunnisoni) was analyzed at regional and local scales. Alarm calls in response to a common stimulus (the same human) were recorded at four colonies near Flagstaff, Arizona, and at six sites throughout the southwestern United States. The acoustic structure of calls was analyzed for seven call variables. Regional differences fit the prediction of greater differences with increased geographical separation. Differences between colonies at a local scale were not related to geographical distance, suggesting that local dialects exist within a region. Differences in the level of predation by humans …

Animal Organs In Humans: Uncalculated Risks And Unanswered Questions, Gillian R. Langley, Joyce D'Silva

Biomedicine and Animal Models in Research Collection

This report, produced jointly by the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and Compassion in World Farming, fills a number of significant gaps in the current debate about xenotransplantation.

In this report we also summarise the ethical and welfare issues concerning experiments on animals for xenotransplant research and their possible use as source animals for organs. Both these aspects are responsible for much pain and distress caused to many animals. We prefer the term “source animals” to “donor animals”, because animals do not choose to donate their organs for xenotransplantation.

Impact Of An Ecological Factor On The Costs Of Resource Acquisition: Fighting And Metabolic Physiology Of Crabs, L. U. Sneddon, F. A. Huntingford, A. C. Taylor

Ethology Collection

1. Current game theory models and recent experimental evidence suggests that the strategy an animal adopts in agonistic encounters is determined by individual state. Therefore manipulation of an individual’s state should elicit different behavioural responses. In this paper, mechanisms are examined that underlie state-dependent strategies using Shore Crabs, Carcinus maenas, and how, by altering the environment, behaviour and physiology are affected.
2. Fights were staged between pairs of male crabs under normoxic and severely hypoxic (< 15 torr) conditions to determine if the metabolic costs of fighting and resource acquisition are affected by water P_O2. After fighting, blood and tissue samples from each crab were taken and analysed for metabolites associated with anaerobiosis (L-lactate, glucose and glycogen).
3. The spectrum …

Assessment Of Side Effects Induced By Injection Of Different Adjuvant/Antigen Combinations In Rabbits And Mice, P.P.A.M. Leenaars, M. A. Koedam, P. W. Wester, V. Baumans, E. Claassen, C. F.M. Hendriksen

Biomedicine and Animal Models in Research Collection

We evaluated the side effects induced by injection of Freund's adjuvant (FA)and alternative adjuvants combined with different antigens. Rabbits and mice were injected subcutaneously, intramuscularly (rabbits) and intraperitoneally (mice)with different adjuvants (FA, Specol, RIBI,TiterMax, Montanide ISA50)in combination with several types of antigens (synthetic peptides, autoantigen, glycolipid, protein, mycoplasma or viruses). The effects of treatment on the animals' well-being were assessed by clinical and behavioural changes (POTand LABORASassays) and gross and histopathological changes. In rabbits, treatment did not appear to induce acute or prolonged pain and distress. Mice showed behavioural changes immediately after (predominantly secondary) immunization. Injection of several adjuvant/antigen mixtures …

Evolution And Animal Welfare, Marian Stamp Dawkins

Assessment of Animal Welfare Collection

Animal welfare is a topic often thought to reside outside mainstream biology. The complexity of the methods used to assess welfare (such as health, physiology, immunological state, and behavior) require an understanding of a wide range of biological phenomena. Furthermore, the "welfare" of an animal provides a framework in which a diversity of its responses can be understood as fitness-enhancing mechanisms. Different methods for assessing animal welfare are discussed, with particular emphasis on the role of an animal's own choices and reinforcement mechanisms. No part of biology is as yet able to explain consciousness, but by confronting the possibility that …

Fmri Of Monkey Visual Cortex, Lisa Stefanacci, Paul Reber, Jennifer Costanza, Eric Wong, Richard Buxton, Stuart Zola, Larry R. Squire, Thomas D. Albright

Neurology Collection

While functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is now used widely for demonstrating neural activity-related signals associated with perceptual, motor, and cognitive processes in humans, to date this technique has not been developed for use with nonhuman primates. fMRI in monkeys offers a potentially valuable experimental approach for investigating brain function, which will complement and aid existing techniques such as electrophysiology and the behavioral analysis of the effects of brain lesions. There are, however, a number of significant technical challenges involved in using fMRI with monkeys. Here, we describe the procedures by which we have overcome these challenges to …

A Comparison Of Encephalization Between Odontocete Cetaceans And Anthropoid Primates, L. Marino

Veterinary Science and Medicine Collection

There have been very few studies of brain size and encephalization in cetaceans and essentially none that have made direct quantitative comparisons of cetaceans and another mammalian group using large normative samples. In the present study two different measures of encephalization were calculated and used to rank and compare 21 odontocete species and 60 anthropoid primate species. Comparisons were made both within and between the two groups. Results show that the encephalization level of Homo sapiens is still extraordinary relative to that of nonhuman species. Nevertheless, a subset of delphinid odontocetes are significantly more highly encephalized than the most highly …

Translocation Effects On The Behavior Of Black-Tailed Prairie Dogs (Cynomys Ludovicianus), John P. Farrar, Karin L. Coleman, Marc Bekoff, Eric Stone

Ethology Collection

We examined the effects of translocation on Black-tailed prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) anti-predator behavior by recording response distances and response times to a human intruder in three colonies containing native, translocated, and combined native and translocated prairie dogs. The translocated prairie dogs barked alarms and concealed themselves at significantly greater intruder distances than mixed or native colonies. However, individuals in different colonies did not differ in the time taken to return to a burrow, to conceal themselves after a human approached the colony, or in the time elapsed after concealment until an animal reappeared. Translocated prairie dogs exhibited nearly twice …

Unrelieved Pain And Distress In Animals: An Analysis Of Usda Data On Experimental Procedures, Martin Stephens, Philip Mendoza, Adrianna Weaver, Tamara Hamilton

Experimentation Collection

Pain and distress are core issues in the field of animal experimentation and in the controversy that surrounds it. We sought to add to the empirical base of the literature on pain and distress by examining government data on experimental procedures that caused unrelieved pain and distress (UPAD) in animals. Of the species regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), most of the approximately 100,000 animals subjected to UP AD during the year analyzed (1992) were guinea pigs and hamsters. Most of these animals were used in industry laboratories for various testing procedures, primarily vaccine potency testing. We discuss …

Psychology's Use Of Animals: Current Practices And Attitudes, Kenneth J. Shapiro

Experimentation Collection

In this chapter, I present a psychology primer for the uninitiated, with special emphasis on psychology's uses of animals. After sketching the scope of the field generally, I review available data on present numbers and species of animals used in psychological research, level of suffering induced and current trends. I also provide several concrete examples of psychological research involving animals. Finally, the chapter concludes with a presentation of attitudes of psychologists toward animals and these practices.

‘Pleasures’, ‘Pains’ And Animal Welfare: Toward A Natural History Of Affect, D. Fraser, I. J.H. Duncan

Animal Welfare Collection

In hedonic theories of motivation, 'motivational affective states' (MASs) are typically seen as adaptations which motivate certain types of behaviour, especially in situations where a flexible or learned response is more adaptive than a rigid or reflexive one. MASs can be negative (eg unpleasant feelings of hunger or pain) or positive (eg pleasant feelings associated with eating and playing). Hedonic theories often portray negative and positive MASs as opposite ends of a one-dimensional scale.

We suggest that natural selection has favoured negative and positive affect as separate processes to solve two different types of motivational problems. We propose that negative …