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Full-Text Articles in Behavior and Ethology

Theatre For Development: “The Wanna Be”, Joshua Dominguez Dec 2014

Theatre For Development: “The Wanna Be”, Joshua Dominguez

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The college experience in American culture is a popular topic that is being questioned throughout the media. It is being questioned on a weekly basis in today’s media and brings to light issues that have not been questioned for decades. Some of the main issues such as diversity within institutions, the "Greek System", and sexual assault are all being spotlighted and widely advertised as problems that need focusing on putting an end to. This new era of college students are being challenged to recognize these heavy, yet important issues that are effecting campuses across the nation. Through Theatre for Development …


Defining And Assessing Animal Pain, Lynne U. Sneddon, Robert W. Elwood, Shelley A. Adamo, Matthew C. Leach Nov 2014

Defining And Assessing Animal Pain, Lynne U. Sneddon, Robert W. Elwood, Shelley A. Adamo, Matthew C. Leach

Experimentation Collection

The detection and assessment of pain in animals is crucial to improving their welfare in a variety of contexts in which humans are ethically or legally bound to do so. Thus clear standards to judge whether pain is likely to occur in any animal species is vital to inform whether to alleviate pain or to drive the refinement of procedures to reduce invasiveness, thereby minimizing pain. We define two key concepts that can be used to evaluate the potential for pain in both invertebrate and vertebrate taxa. First, responses to noxious, potentially painful events should affect neurobiology, physiology and behaviour …


Age-Related Aspects Of Mirror-Use By Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus), Rachel A. Morrison Oct 2014

Age-Related Aspects Of Mirror-Use By Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus), Rachel A. Morrison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Bottlenose dolphins are neuroanatomically different and evolutionarily divergent from primates yet they exhibit mirror self-recognition (MSR), a rare cognitive ability in non-human animals. This research investigated the developmental and age-related aspects of MSR in this species. During a longitudinal study, a social group of bottlenose dolphins at the National Aquarium, Baltimore, MD were exposed to a mirror and their behavioral responses were recorded to: 1) further confirm the presence of MSR in this species, 2) determine the age of emergence of MSR and 3) draw comparisons with data documenting the emergence of this ability in humans and great ape species. …


Hsisp Annotated Bibliography: Moral & Character Education (1998-2013), Erich Yahner Sep 2014

Hsisp Annotated Bibliography: Moral & Character Education (1998-2013), Erich Yahner

Erich Yahner

No abstract provided.


Socialising Piglets In Lactation Positively Affects Their Post-Weaning Behaviour, Talia Morgan, John Pluske, David Miller, Teresa Collins, Anne L. Barnes, Françoise Wemelsfelder, Patricia A. Fleming Sep 2014

Socialising Piglets In Lactation Positively Affects Their Post-Weaning Behaviour, Talia Morgan, John Pluske, David Miller, Teresa Collins, Anne L. Barnes, Françoise Wemelsfelder, Patricia A. Fleming

Sentience Collection

Although commercial farrowing sheds keep individual litters separated, previous studies have suggested that housing systems that allow socialisation of piglets pre-weaning can reduce aggression after weaning. This study tested whether pigs socialised with non-littermates pre-weaning would show less aggression during mixing at weaning (when piglets are taken from their sows and mixed in group housing), and whether socialisation influenced the time budgets or behavioural expression of piglets at weaning. In total, 353 piglets were followed from birth through to one week after weaning. Piglets from 24 sows were allowed to socialise in groups of four litters (‘socialised’ treatment group) from …


A Description Of Vocalizations And Their Association With Mouthing Behaviors And Social Context In Bottlenose Dolphins, Tursiops Truncatus, Christina Elyse Perazio Aug 2014

A Description Of Vocalizations And Their Association With Mouthing Behaviors And Social Context In Bottlenose Dolphins, Tursiops Truncatus, Christina Elyse Perazio

Master's Theses

Dolphin communication is multimodal and incorporates physical behaviors and vocalizations. Dolphins often exchange information with conspecifics using different types of vocalizations, and these vocalizations are sometimes associated with specific behaviors. However, the relationship of vocalization type and mouthing behavior type has not been investigated. This thesis examines simultaneous acoustic and visual recordings of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) to determine the relationship between type of mouthing behavior and type of vocalization (whistle, whistle-squawk, chirp, moan, burst-pulse type A, burst-pulse type B, and click trains). The role of the social context of a mouthing behavior is also evaluated. Data were obtained opportunistically …


Male Brush-Turkeys Attempt Sexual Coercion In Unusual Circumstances, David A. Wells, Darryl N. Jones, David Bulger, Culum Brown Jul 2014

Male Brush-Turkeys Attempt Sexual Coercion In Unusual Circumstances, David A. Wells, Darryl N. Jones, David Bulger, Culum Brown

Reproductive Behavior Collection

Sexual coercion by males is generally understood to have three forms: forced copulation, harassment and intimidation. We studied Australian brush-turkeys, Alectura lathami, to determine whether some male behaviours towards females at incubation mounds could be classified as aggressive, whether males were attempting sexual coercion and, if so, whether the coercion was successful. We found that some male behaviours towards females were significantly more likely to be followed by the cessation of female mound activity, and hence could be classified as aggressive, while others were significantly more likely to be followed by the commencement of female mound activity, and hence could …


The Elephants Of Africa, Robert H.I. Dale Jun 2014

The Elephants Of Africa, Robert H.I. Dale

Robert H. I. Dale

Video review for the following title: The Elephants of Africa: Nature. Produced by Scorer Associates, 1997. 55 minutes. $19.95 + $4.95 S/H.


Two Matriarchs Speak, Robert H.I. Dale Jun 2014

Two Matriarchs Speak, Robert H.I. Dale

Robert H. I. Dale

Book review for the following titles: Elephants. By Joyce Poole, Stillwater, MN: Voyageur Press, 1997, 72 pages. $14.95 softcover Silent Thunder: In the Presence of Elephants. By Katharine Payne, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998, 286 pages. $25.00 hardcover


Elephant Days And Nights: Ten Years With The Indian Elephant, Robert H.I. Dale Jun 2014

Elephant Days And Nights: Ten Years With The Indian Elephant, Robert H.I. Dale

Robert H. I. Dale

Book review for the following title: Elephant Days and Nights. By Raman Sukumar (George B. Schaller, foreword), Oxford University Press, 1996, 200 pages.


Calf Development: Most Births At Night, Robert H.I. Dale Jun 2014

Calf Development: Most Births At Night, Robert H.I. Dale

Robert H. I. Dale

For many years, field researchers studying both African (Loxodonta africana) and Asian (Elephas maximas) elephants have indicated that they have observed relatively few births in situ, suggesting that most elephant dams give birth at night. For example, according to Cynthia Moss, "Possibly the majority of births occur at night and perhaps those that do take place in the daytime happen in secluded places" (1988, p. 151). Others, for example, Clive Spinage, have referred to "the old beliefs that the cows retreated to 'calving grounds' or that birth took place at night." (Spinage, 1994, p. 90). Although observers in several areas …


Variations In Radial Maze Performance Under Different Levels Of Food And Water Deprivation, Robert H.I. Dale, William A. Roberts Jun 2014

Variations In Radial Maze Performance Under Different Levels Of Food And Water Deprivation, Robert H.I. Dale, William A. Roberts

Robert H. I. Dale

Four groups of rats were tested on an eight-arm radial maze under a free-choice procedure. The subjects were maintained at either 80% or 100% of their preexperimental free-feeding weights through restricted access to either food or water. Water-deprived subjects received water in the maze; food-deprived subjects received food. Water-deprived subjects learned the task faster than food-deprived subjects. The four groups developed different response patterns. These were measured by the mean transition size, the average angular distance (in 45° units) between consecutively chosen arms. Rats foraging for food and water developed different search strategies, with water-deprived subjects exhibiting lower mean transition …


Spatial And Temporal Response Patterns On The Eight-Arm Radial Maze, Robert H.I. Dale Jun 2014

Spatial And Temporal Response Patterns On The Eight-Arm Radial Maze, Robert H.I. Dale

Robert H. I. Dale

Six maze-experienced hooded rats were timed during five trials on which they collected water from all arms of an eight-arm radial maze, then made five more choices. All subjects frequently exhibited a “task-completion pause:” The subjects rarely spent more than 1 sec in the center of the maze between choices until they had entered all eight arms, then stopped in the center of the maze. In contrast, the time spent in each arm gradually increased until all of the water had been obtained, then decreased slightly. Four subjects began every trial by choosing eight consecutive adjacent arms. The task-completion pause …


Studying Elephants: Awf Technical Handbook Series #7, Robert H.I. Dale Jun 2014

Studying Elephants: Awf Technical Handbook Series #7, Robert H.I. Dale

Robert H. I. Dale

Book review for the following title: Studying Elephants: AWF Technical Handbook Series #7. Edited by Kadzo Kangwana, Nairobi, Kenya: African Wildlife Foundation, 1996, 186 pages. $15 S&H.


Spatial Memory In Pigeons On A Four-Arm Radial Maze, Robert H.I. Dale Jun 2014

Spatial Memory In Pigeons On A Four-Arm Radial Maze, Robert H.I. Dale

Robert H. I. Dale

Pigeon spatial memory was examined using a four-arm radial maze. The maze had four arms, spaced at 90° intervals, extending radially from a central choice area. Subjects were forced into three arms, then permitted two choices to enter the remaining ann. Five subjects chose accurately (90% correct) with delays of 5 min or less, their choices depended on extramaze cues, and the food in the target arm provided no essential cues. After an incorrect first choice, subjects' second choices were more accurate than chance. These data suggest that, while spatial memory has many similar characteristics in rats and pigeons, pigeon …


A Survey Of The Management And Development Of Captive African Elephant (Loxodonta Africana) Calves: Birth To Three Months Of Age, Nicole L. Kowalski, Robert H.I. Dale, Christa L. H. Mazur Jun 2014

A Survey Of The Management And Development Of Captive African Elephant (Loxodonta Africana) Calves: Birth To Three Months Of Age, Nicole L. Kowalski, Robert H.I. Dale, Christa L. H. Mazur

Robert H. I. Dale

We used four surveys to collect information about the birth, physical growth, and behavioral development of 12 African elephant calves born in captivity. The management of the birth process and neonatal care involved a variety of standard procedures. All of the calves were born at night, between 7PM and 7AM. The calves showed a systematic progression in behavioral and physical development, attaining developmental milestones at least a quickly as calves in situ. This study emphasized birth-related events, changes in the ways that calves used their trunks, first instances of behaviors, and interactions of the calves with other, usually adult, elephants. …


Cognitive Ethology And The Cost Of Anthropomorphiphobia, Robert H.I. Dale Jun 2014

Cognitive Ethology And The Cost Of Anthropomorphiphobia, Robert H.I. Dale

Robert H. I. Dale

Book review for the following titles: Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness. By Donald R. Griffin, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, 376 pages. $27.50 softcover The Smile of a Dolphin: Remarkable Accounts of Animal Emotions. Edited by Marc Bekoff, New York: Discovery Books, 2000, 240 pages. $35.00 hardcover Minds of Their Own: Thinking and Awareness in Animals. By Lesley J. Rogers, Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1998, 224 pages. $19.00 softcover


The Relative Attenuation Of Self-Stimulation, Eating And Drinking Produced By Dopamine-Receptor Blockade, E. T. Rolls, B. J. Rolls, P. H. Kelly, S. G. Shaw, R. J. Wood, Robert H.I. Dale Jun 2014

The Relative Attenuation Of Self-Stimulation, Eating And Drinking Produced By Dopamine-Receptor Blockade, E. T. Rolls, B. J. Rolls, P. H. Kelly, S. G. Shaw, R. J. Wood, Robert H.I. Dale

Robert H. I. Dale

Spiroperidol, which blocks dopamine (DA) receptors, attenuated self-stimulation of the nucleus accumbens, septal area, hippocampus, anterior hypothalamus and ventral tegmental area. Dopamine is thus involved in self-stimulation of many sites (in addition to the lateral hypothalamus). The attenuation was not a simple motor impairment of the speed of bar-pressing in that the nucleus accumbens and septal self-stimulation rates were lower than those in treated animals self-stimulating at other sites (Experiment 1). Feeding was partly attenuated, and drinking was much less attenuated by the spiroperidol. Since the rats bar-pressed for brain- stimulation reward, chewed pellets to eat, and licked a tube …


Vocal Recognition In Mexican Free-Tailed Bats: Do Pups Recognize Mothers?, Jonathan Balcombe, Gary F. Mccracken Jun 2014

Vocal Recognition In Mexican Free-Tailed Bats: Do Pups Recognize Mothers?, Jonathan Balcombe, Gary F. Mccracken

Jonathan Balcombe, PhD

Mother Mexican free-tailed bats, Tadarida brasiliensis mexicana, produce 'directive' calls while searching for pups inside cave maternity roosts. These calls consist of highly repetitive pulses of sound uttered in rapid sequence. Calls are sufficiently intense that they are perceptible above the substantial background noise within roosts at distances of at least 1m. Calls are stereotyped within individuals, and statistically discriminable between individuals. These characteristics are expected for vocalizations that function for mother-pup reunions, and are shared with directive calls described previously in other bats. Mother T. b. mexicana directive calls are statistically no less discriminable than are the isolation calls …


Animal Pleasure And Its Moral Significance, Jonathan Balcombe Jun 2014

Animal Pleasure And Its Moral Significance, Jonathan Balcombe

Jonathan Balcombe, PhD

This paper presents arguments for, and evidence in support of, the important role of pleasure in animals’ lives, and outlines its considerable significance to humankind’s relationship to other animals. In the realms of animal sentience, almost all scholarly discussion revolves around its negative aspects: pain, stress, distress, and suffering. By contrast, the positive aspects of sentience – rewards and pleasures – have been rarely broached by scientists. Yet, evolutionary principles predict that animals, like humans, are motivated to seek rewards, and not merely to avoid pain and suffering. Natural selection favours behaviours that enhance survival and procreation. In the conscious, …


Vocal Recognition Of Pups By Mother Mexican Free-Tailed Bats, Tadarida Brasiliensis Mexicana, Jonathan P. Balcombe May 2014

Vocal Recognition Of Pups By Mother Mexican Free-Tailed Bats, Tadarida Brasiliensis Mexicana, Jonathan P. Balcombe

Jonathan Balcombe, PhD

The ability of Mexican free-tailed bat mothers and pups to recognize vocalizations of their presumptive kin (pup isolation calls and mother echolocation calls, respectively) was tested using playbacks of recorded calls. Captive individuals were presented with calls of two bats, one presumptive kin and the other a stranger, from opposite sides of a circular wire arena. Response was determined by amount of time spent on each side of the arena, time spent in contact with a cloth bat model in front of each speaker, and number of separate contacts with each model. For the latter two measures, mothers showed a …


Limitations On Spatial Memory In Mice, Robert H.I. Dale, Martin Bedard May 2014

Limitations On Spatial Memory In Mice, Robert H.I. Dale, Martin Bedard

Robert H. I. Dale

Rats have an impressive ability to remember locations they have visited. Two experiments used an eight-arm radial maze to determine whether mice showed two important characteristics of this spatial memory: its durability, and its dependence on stimuli outside the maze (extreme stimuli). In Experiment 1, food-deprived mice were allowed to eat from four of the eight arms of the maze then, after delays of 5 sec, 1 min, or 5 min, they were permitted to choose the remaining arms. Choice accuracy declined significantly with the longer delays, but always remained above chance. In Experiment 2, the maze was rotated 180° …


Interactions Between Response Stereotypy And Memory Strategies On The Eight-Arm Radial Maze, Robert H.I. Dale, Nancy K. Innis May 2014

Interactions Between Response Stereotypy And Memory Strategies On The Eight-Arm Radial Maze, Robert H.I. Dale, Nancy K. Innis

Robert H. I. Dale

Three groups of water-deprived rats collected water from the ends of the 8 arms of an 8-arm radial maze. Sighted subjects, and subjects blinded either with or without pre-enucleation experience on the radial maze, all retrieved the water efficiently. Most of the subjects exhibited the same response stereotypy, regularly choosing 8 adjacent arms of the maze, then stopping in the center of the maze. The strategies underlying this performance were analyzed by interrupting trials and rotating the maze 180° after the subject had made 3 choices. Sighted subjects depended on extramaze stimuli, naive-blind subjects depended on intramaze stimuli and experienced-blind …


Evolutionary Pressures On Primate Intertemporal Choice, Jeffrey R. Stevens May 2014

Evolutionary Pressures On Primate Intertemporal Choice, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

From finding food to choosing mates, animals must make intertemporal choices that involve fitness benefits available at different times. Species vary dramatically in their willingness to wait for delayed rewards. Why does this variation across species exist? An adaptive approach to intertemporal choice suggests that time preferences should reflect the temporal problems faced in a species' environment. Here, I use phylogenetic regression to test whether allometric factors (relating to body size), relative brain size, and social group size predict how long 13 primate species will wait in laboratory intertemporal choice tasks. Controlling for phylogeny, a composite allometric factor that includes …


Visual Search And Attention In Blue Jays (Cyanocitta Cristata): Associative Cuing And Sequential Priming, Kazuhiro Goto, Alan B. Bond, Marianna Burks, Alan C. Kamil Apr 2014

Visual Search And Attention In Blue Jays (Cyanocitta Cristata): Associative Cuing And Sequential Priming, Kazuhiro Goto, Alan B. Bond, Marianna Burks, Alan C. Kamil

Alan Bond Publications

Visual search for complex natural targets requires focal attention, either cued by predictive stimulus associations or primed by a representation of the most recently detected target. Because both processes can focus visual attention, cuing and priming were compared in an operant search task to evaluate their relative impacts on performance and to determine the nature of their interaction in combined treatments. Blue jays were trained to search for pairs of alternative targets among distractors. Informative or ambiguous color cues were provided before each trial, and targets were presented either in homogeneous blocked sequences or in constrained random order. Initial task …


Direct And Relational Representation During Transitive List Linking In Pinyon Jays (Gymnorhinus Cyanocephalus), Cynthia Wei, Alan Kamil, Alan B. Bond Feb 2014

Direct And Relational Representation During Transitive List Linking In Pinyon Jays (Gymnorhinus Cyanocephalus), Cynthia Wei, Alan Kamil, Alan B. Bond

Alan Bond Publications

The authors used the list-linking procedure (Treichler & Van Tilburg, 1996) to explore the processes by which animals assemble cognitive structures from fragmentary and often contradictory data. Pinyon jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) were trained to a high level of accuracy on two implicit transitive lists. They were then given linkage training on the single pair that linked the two lists into a composite, 10-item hierarchy. Following linkage training, the birds were tested on nonadjacent probe pairs drawn both from within (B-D and 2–4) and between (D-1, E-2, B-2, C-3) each original list. Linkage training resulted in a significant transitory disruption in …


Qualitative Behavioural Assessment Of The Motivation For Feed In Sheep In Response To Altered Body Condition Score, C. A. Stockman, T. Collins, A. L. Barnes, D. Miller, S. L. Wickham, E. Verbeek, L. Matthews, D. Ferguson, F. Wemelsfelder, P. A. Fleming Jan 2014

Qualitative Behavioural Assessment Of The Motivation For Feed In Sheep In Response To Altered Body Condition Score, C. A. Stockman, T. Collins, A. L. Barnes, D. Miller, S. L. Wickham, E. Verbeek, L. Matthews, D. Ferguson, F. Wemelsfelder, P. A. Fleming

Sentience Collection

Qualitative behavioural assessment (QBA) has been used to quantify the expressive behaviour of animals, and operant tests have been used to quantify measures of behavioural need. In this study we compared measures of behavioural expression and behaviour in operant tests. We examined the behavioural expression of pregnant ewes of body condition score (BCS) 2 and 3. The ewes were exposed to a feed motivation test in which they received a food reward. Pregnant ewes (48–70 days gestation) were assessed during a food motivation test after they had been maintained at BCS 3 (n = 7) or given a decreasing plane …


Applying Ethological And Health Indicators To Practical Animal Welfare Assessment, F. Wemelsfelder, S. Mullan Jan 2014

Applying Ethological And Health Indicators To Practical Animal Welfare Assessment, F. Wemelsfelder, S. Mullan

Animal Welfare Collection

There is a growing effort worldwide to develop objective indicators for animal welfare assessment, which provide information on an animal’s quality of life, are scientifically trustworthy, and can readily be used in practice by professionals. Animals are sentient beings capable of positive and negative emotion, and so these indicators should be sensitive not only to their physical health, but also to their experience of the conditions in which they live. This paper provides an outline of ethological research aimed at developing practical welfare assessment protocols. The first section focuses on the development and validation of welfare indicators generally, in terms …


Hatching Success Of Rainbowfish Eggs Following Exposure To Air, Lois J. Oulton, Penelope Carbia, Culum Brown Jan 2014

Hatching Success Of Rainbowfish Eggs Following Exposure To Air, Lois J. Oulton, Penelope Carbia, Culum Brown

Aquaculture Collection

Translocation of fishes within and between drainage basins is widely recognised as a threatening process to Australian native fishes. While many translocations are deliberate, for example for fisheries enhancement, it is possible that translocation can occur naturally. In the Wet Tropic region of Australia, the widespread eastern rainbowfish, Melanotaenia splendida, has begun to colonise the Atherton tablelands. This is of particular concern because the area is home to several endangered endemic species such as the Lake Eacham rainbowfish, M. eachamensis, and its allies. It is likely that some of the translocations have occurred through the use of this species as …