Animal Studies Commons^™

The Developmental Plasticity Of Fruit Fly Vision, John Paul Currea

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation we explore the morphological and neural plasticity underlying vision at different scales—within and between species of Drosophila—to elucidate the role of eye development in the evolution of vision. In chapter 2, we offer a tool to accelerate large-scale research into compound eye morphology, and validate it on the eyes of several insect orders and image media. Then, in chapter 3 we demonstrate the developmental plasticity of eye morphology and neural summation in fruit flies, finding an interesting interplay between the two systems. In chapter 4, we elucidate the role of visual plasticity and neural summation in the …

Individual Exposure Potential Assessment For Livestock Based On Spatial-Temporal Analysis Of Gps Data And Behavior Patterns Classification In Cove Wash Watershed, Arizona, Zhuoming Liu

Geography ETDs

This thesis examined the geospatial and temporal grazing patterns of domesticated livestock to model individual-level exposure potential to abandoned uranium mine (AUM) waste in a tribal community in the Southwest United States. Lotek Litetrack Global Positioning System (GPS) collars collected data at 20-minute-intervals for 2 flocks of sheep and goats during the Spring and Summer of 2019. Depending on the flock and individual animals, tracking time ranges from 10 days to four months. This research developed a GIS-based exposure potential framework that built on existing methodologies in time geography, GIS, and exposure mapping. This thesis aims to: 1) classify GPS …

Empathy And Fairness In Nonhuman Primates: Evolutionary Bases Of Human Morality, Colt Halter

Intuition: The BYU Undergraduate Journal of Psychology

Darwin offered an evolutionary perspective on the origins of human morality, suggesting that humans share a biological foundation with nonhuman primates. This paper reviews the current literature on moral and prosocial behaviors of nonhuman primates, specifically examining whether nonhuman primates exhibit behaviors that are typical of empathy and fairness. The literature documents that nonhuman primates exhibit empathetic behaviors regarding emotional contagion and sympathetic concern. There is also evidence that nonhuman primates have a sense of fairness, seen in their reciprocal behaviors and aversion to inequity. Taken together, this suggests that there are evolutionary roots of morality, lending empirical support to …

Wild Legalities: Animals And Settler Colonialism In Palestine/Israel, Irus Braverman

Journal Articles

This article examines the underlying biopolitical premises of wildlife management in Palestine/Israel that make, remake, and unmake this region's settler colonial landscape. Drawing on interviews with Israeli nature officials and observations of their work, the article tells several animal stories that illuminate the hierarchies and slippages between wild and domestic, nature and culture, native and settler, and human and nonhuman life in Palestine/Israel. Animal bodies are especially apt technologies of settler colonialism, I show here. They naturalize and normalize settler modes of existence, while criminalizing native livelihoods and relations. Utilizing the terra nullius doctrine, creating biblical landscapes by reintroducing extirpated …

“We Planted Rice And Killed People:” Symbiogenetic Destruction In The Cambodian Genocide, Andrew Woolford, Wanda June, Sereyvothny Um

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

In recent years, genocide scholars have given greater attention to the dangers posed by climate change for increasing the prevalence or intensity of genocide. Challenges related to forced migration, resource scarcity, famine, and other threats of the Anthropocene are identified as sources of present and future risk, especially for those committed to genocide prevention. We approach the connection between the natural and social aspects of genocide from a different angle. Our research emanates out of a North American Indigenous studies and new materialist rather than Euro-genocide studies framework, meaning we see the natural and the social (or cultural) as inseparable, …

Understanding How Temperature Influences European Starling’S Reproductive Success, Grace Fatoyinbo, Sarah Guindre-Parker

Symposium of Student Scholars

Many habitats face fluctuating temperatures year round. The animals that live there are typically able to adjust their behaviors to match these conditions. When temperatures become too extreme, however, it could potentially start having a negative effect on the animal’s reproductive success. In birds, for example, severe climate can affect their eggs and nestlings due to nestlings lacking the ability to thermoregulate. The parents then have to bear the responsibility of thermoregulation for their young, through a behavior called incubation or brooding. European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) are a species of birds common across the United States where both …

Using Machine Learning Methods To Predict The Movement Trajectories Of The Louisiana Black Bear, Daniel Clark, David Shaw, Armando Vela, Shane Weinstock, John Santerre, Joseph D. Clark

SMU Data Science Review

In 1992, the Louisiana black bear (Ursus americanus luteolus) was placed on the U.S. Endangered Species List. This was due to bear populations in Louisiana being small and isolated enough where their populations couldn’t intersect with other populations to grow. Interchange of individuals between subpopulations of bears in Louisiana is critical to maintain genetic diversity and avoid inbreeding effects. Utilizing GPS (Global Positioning System) data gathered from 31 radio-collared bears from 2010 through 2012, this research will investigate how bears traverse the landscape, which has implications for gene exchange. This paper will leverage machine learning tools to improve upon existing …

Some (Im)Material Girls, Living In (Im)Material Worlds, With Seeds, Stars, And Shit, Matthew Weiderspon

Theses and Dissertations

This writing situates material and gestural vocabularies cultivated in my artwork in relation to my lived experience; primarily my rural upbringing in Colorado. Scattered floor dispersals, calling sounds, and bodily movements desire reconsiderations of hope in precarity through a disorientation of place, association, scale, and language.

Analysis Of Multigenerational Behavioral Effects Of Dietary Benzo[A]Pyrene Exposure In Adult Zebrafish, Mary Beth Gillespie

Honors Theses

Benzo[a]pyrene (BaP) is a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon that is linked to negative reproductive and developmental effects in humans and animals. Because BaP is carcinogenic, and its continued presence in the environment allows it to be inhaled and ingested, better understanding of the effects of BaP is needed. To determine the behavioral effects of BaP exposure, zebrafish were used as a model. Wild-type zebrafish (5D) underwent two separate 21-day dietary exposures to 2.5 and 25 μg BaP/g fish to compare how BaP exposure affects locomotor activity. Following the dietary exposure, fish were mated to obtain and raise the F1 generation to …

Influence Of Local- And Landscape-Scale Factors On Avian Assemblage In Fragmented Tallgrass Prairie Landscape, Pooja Panwar

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Agricultural expansion and increasing urbanization are driving rapid landscape modification in the Tallgrass prairies ecosystem and are affecting biodiversity at multiple spatial scales. Thus, the conservation of fragmented grassland and steeply declining grassland avifauna is dependent on the relationship between local- and landscape-scale factors and avian assemblage. We also need to understand how these factors, operating at different spatial scales, drive the occupancy of different guilds in the assemblage. We conducted repeated point count surveys during the breeding season of 2019 at 66 grassland sites across Arkansas and Missouri, USA. We developed a multi-species occupancy model to estimate species richness, …

Habitat Characteristics Or Protected Area Size: What Is More Important For The Composition And Diversity Of Mammals In Nonprotected Areas?, Wenbo Li, Jinhua Li, Peipei Yang, Bowen Li, Chao Liu, Lixing Sun

Biology Faculty Scholarship

The margins of protected areas are usually considered to have greater forest degradation, and given that most mammals live outside protected areas, researchers and conservation practitioners are increasingly recognizing that nonprotected areas must be incorporated into conservation strategy. However, the strategy used to manage these areas still involves increasing the size of protected areas, while not considering the habitat characteristics and requirements of the species. In this study, during a 3-year period, camera trap and habitat characteristic surveys were used to estimate composition, diversity, and habitat characteristics of mammals to determine habitat characteristics or increase the size of protected areas …

The Importance Of The Relationship Between Domestic Violence Victims And Their Pets, Emily Ryan

Master’s Theses and Projects

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the relationship between domestic violence and animal abuse with the goal of adding to the literature in this area. This study collected data from domestic violence and homeless shelters across the United States by sending a questionnaire via email. Two themes emerged based on the questionnaire responses, first, shelters reported that victims disclosed their fear of leaving an abusive situation due to abuse or threat of abuse to a family pet. And second, shelters indicated that they are unable to accommodate pets due to either, health and safety reasons, or financial difficulties. …

Shelter Dogs Need A Home: The Effect Of Enrichment And Human Contact On The Welfare And Adoptability Of Shelter Dogs, Hannah G. Clark

Honors Projects

It comes as no surprise that an animal shelter can be a stressful place for dogs. Shelter conditions, accompanied by multiple, novel stimuli, produce a stressful environment that cause hormonal and behavioral responses in dogs housed in shelters. Many of the stereotypical behaviors produced by the stress of living in a shelter, which tend to worsen as length of stay increases, are undesirable to potential adopters. However, many studies have shown that enrichment with a variety of toys, exercise, and human interaction can buffer the stress response in shelter dogs and improve their well-being. Implementing obedience training and temporary fostering …

Evaluation Of Weight Gain, Feed Intake, Feed Conversion And Oocyst Shedding Of Eimeria Maxima And Eimeria Acervulina In Broiler Chickens, Lauren Laverty

Poultry Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the day and the time of sample collection of an

experimental challenge with Eimeria maxima (EM) and Eimeria acervulina (EA) in broiler chickens. One day old male Cobb-Vantress broiler chickens were randomly allocated to one of three groups with ten replicates (n=8 chickens/replicate). Chickens were placed in battery cages with a controlled age-appropriate environment: Group 1) Negative control (no challenge or treatment); 2) Challenge control (Eimeria challenge only); 3) Challenge + Salinomycin. Challenged chickens were orally gavaged with the mixed culture of EM/EA (10,000 sporulated EM containing 4% wild-type EA) …

The Canine-Campus Connection: Roles For Dogs In The Lives Of College Students, Mary Renck Jalongo

Purdue University Press Book Previews

No abstract provided.

Quantifying The Leaching Of Nutrients And Metals In A Pasture Soil As Affected By Excreta Of Ruminants Fed Alternative Diets, Ian Kennedy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The leaching of nitrate through the soil profile and into adjacent water systems has been a leading cause of water pollution and results in the loss of a valuable nutrient from animal production systems. Forage-based animal production systems may be improved through manipulation of animal diets that incorporate tannins and total polyphenolic compounds with feed, increasing the amount of nitrogen (N) retained by an animal/decreasing rates of digestion and altering the N-containing compounds that are excreted and deposited onto soil. Incorporating the forage legumes sericea lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneate [Dumont de Courset] G. Don) and lablab (Lablab purpurues L.) into the …

Role Of Reptile-Invertebrate Interactions In Enigmatic Reptile Declines, Meredith Swartwout

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Reptile populations are declining world-wide and the mechanisms behind many of these declines remain enigmatic. Food web interactions (i.e., reduced prey availability or increased predation) have been implicated behind some reptile declines. However, relatively little is known about predation on lizard and snake eggs, despite egg survival being important for population dynamics of some species. Ants are important predators of squamate reptile eggs in tropical and temperate systems. In Costa Rica, long-term declines in terrestrial anole lizards were linked with reduced leaf litter depth, a factor that could influence egg vulnerability to ant predation. Fire ants (genus Solenopsis) are aggressive …

Methods To Reducing Weaning Stress In Early Weaned Spring Beef Calves, Matthew Daniel Hahn

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Reducing weaning stress in beef calves can have dramatic benefits to the health, growth, and performance to beef calves post-weaning. Studies have shown that providing creep feed to calves during the pre-weaning period can improve their nutritional status, which can better prepare them for the stresses they will be exposed to during the weaning process. Studies have also shown that two-stage weaning can reduce the stresses associated with weaning. Previous research has suggested that this method resulted in dramatic changes in behavioral signs associated with stress. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of two-stage weaning with …

Exploring How Maternal Phosphorus Status Affects Calf Growth And Performance, Elizabeth Lafferty

Animal Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study will focus on how maternal phosphorus status of beef heifers affects the growth and performance of their calves. Heifers have been offered free-choice mineral with either 0 or 4% supplemental phosphorus from 30 days after weaning until calving. A study by H. Hilfiker, a University of Arkansas honors student, investigated the effects of these treatments from 30 days after weaning until 60 days after the breeding season when heifers were confirmed to be bred or open. For this developing heifer project 64 crossbred Angus heifers were assigned randomly into 8 groups (8 heifers/ group) before assigning each group …

Evaluation Of Nutritional Factors That Influence The Efficacy Of Tributyrin As A Feed Additive For Broilers, Brooke Bodle

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tributyrin (TB) is a glyceride ester of butyrate that has the potential to improve broiler performance and intestinal development. Therefore, to fully evaluate this potential, three experiments were conducted to evaluate effect of tributyrin (TB) on broiler growth performance, nutrient digestibility, carcass characteristics, intestinal morphology, and gastrointestinal function in birds fed diets varying in composition reared in battery cages and floor pens. Experiment 1 explored the supplementation of graded doses of TB and its impact upon growth performance, nutrient digestibility, and carcass characteristics in a step-down program when added to a reduced energy and amino acid diet. A linear reduction …