Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
- Publication
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Animal Sciences
Tick Infestations And Their Consequences For Migratory Songbirds During Spring Stopover, Johnny Michael Sellers Jr.
Tick Infestations And Their Consequences For Migratory Songbirds During Spring Stopover, Johnny Michael Sellers Jr.
Master's Theses
Migratory birds face a number of challenges during their seasonal movement from tropical/sub-tropical Central and South America to more temperate North America. Maintaining health during migration is of particular concern. This study seeks to understand how haematophageous ectoparasites, such as ticks (Ixodida), impact host body condition as they feed on passerines during migration. We hypothesized that foraging location would impact tick acquisition by migrants and that tick burdens during migration would negatively impact body condition. We surveyed 2,064 birds during spring 2009 and 2010 and found that 2.4% of the surveyed birds were infested with one or more …
Information Acquisition And Sociality Among Migratory Birds, Zoltán Németh
Information Acquisition And Sociality Among Migratory Birds, Zoltán Németh
Dissertations
Information use is a key feature of adaptive behavior: the better informed an individual, the better it is able to adjust its behavior to meet the demands of a variable world. Therefore, most animals attempt to reduce environmental uncertainty by gathering information when it is available. However, tracking unpredictable ecological factors may carry costs as individuals invest valuable time and energy in the process of information acquisition. Social learning (i.e., use of social information inadvertently produced by other individuals) enables the individual to gain rapid and more complete assessment of its novel environment. This process may be particularly important for …