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Full-Text Articles in Biology
Abundance, Site-Fidelity, And Association Patterns Of Coastal Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus) Off Southeast Florida, Graysen D. Boehning
Abundance, Site-Fidelity, And Association Patterns Of Coastal Bottlenose Dolphins (Tursiops Truncatus) Off Southeast Florida, Graysen D. Boehning
All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations
The coastal bottlenose dolphin is well studied throughout its natural range, however, most of the study areas comprised wide, well-protected habitats such as bays and estuaries, and not narrow coastal sandbanks. This study identifies a residential group of coastal bottlenose dolphins utilizing the narrow sandbanks within the Northwestern Atlantic waters off the coast of Palm Beach County, Florida, USA. From 2014-2020, 313 boat surveys were conducted, and 585 individual dolphins were identified using photo-ID. Twenty-four animals were determined to be full-time and 66 animals were determined to be part-time residents. Full-time and part-time residents associated in three social tribes, with …
Play Behavior And The Development Of Boldness And Caution In Juvenile Belding’S Ground Squirrels (Urocitellus Beldingi), Madelene Shehan
Play Behavior And The Development Of Boldness And Caution In Juvenile Belding’S Ground Squirrels (Urocitellus Beldingi), Madelene Shehan
Master's Theses
The ubiquity of play among juvenile mammals suggests it provides adaptive benefits, potentially through influences on the development of temperament in young animals. Juvenile Belding’s ground squirrels (Urocitellus beldingi) must balance competing demands for boldness and caution imposed by the fundamental trade-off between their short active season and their vulnerability to predation. In this study, I evaluated whether play helps to facilitate the development of an appropriate balance between boldness and caution in juvenile U. beldingi.I observed the play behavior of juvenile U. beldingiand conducted flight-initiation distance tests to measure boldness-caution at the beginning and toward …
Bubble Stream Production By Belugas (Delphinapterus Leucas), Megan Slack
Bubble Stream Production By Belugas (Delphinapterus Leucas), Megan Slack
Theses
Bubble stream production in belugas has been poorly characterized and its function is not well understood. I examined behavioral states when producing bubble streams (“bubbling”), and when bubbling calls, to determine whether bubbling was significantly associated with a particular call category or behavioral state. Using 19 hours of video and audio recordings collected over a two-day period, I quantified bubble streams of a 4-month old calf and an unrelated adult female housed together. Based on the overall activity budgets and pool of vocalizations for both animals, I calculated the expected counts of bubble streams with and without vocalizations, assuming that …
Bats And Disease: Behavioral And Community Responses Of Southern Bat Populations During The White-Nose Syndrome Epizootic, Riley Fehr Bernard
Bats And Disease: Behavioral And Community Responses Of Southern Bat Populations During The White-Nose Syndrome Epizootic, Riley Fehr Bernard
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation investigates regional differences in the behavior and activity of bats in eastern North America during the white-nose syndrome epizootic, specifically in the understudied region of the Southeastern United States. An introductory section provides a brief review of the history of white-nose syndrome, an emerging infectious disease in bats, and its introduction into North America. Chapter one provides the first documented evidence of bat activity outside of hibernacula throughout winter. The research presented in chapter two attempts to explain the variation in load and prevalence of P. destructans among species, sites and between years. Finally, chapter three examines the …
Host And Seasonal Effects On The Infection Dynamics Of Skrjabinoptera Phrynosoma (Ortlepp) Schulz, 1927, A Parasitic Nematode Of Horned Lizards, Kathryn Claire Hilsinger
Host And Seasonal Effects On The Infection Dynamics Of Skrjabinoptera Phrynosoma (Ortlepp) Schulz, 1927, A Parasitic Nematode Of Horned Lizards, Kathryn Claire Hilsinger
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Author's Abstract: Skrjabinoptera phrynosoma (Ortlepp) Schulz, 1927 is a common parasitic nematode of horned lizards. The life cycle of S. phrynosoma was described by Lee in 1957, but has received little attention since. The present study addressed effect of season as well as host characteristics on the infection dynamics in lizard hosts. In the Alvord Basin in southeastern Oregon, S. phrynosoma were collected from Phrynosoma platyrhinos Gerard 1852 horned lizards via stomach flushes, cloaca flushes and fecal pellet collections. Parasite load variables (number of nematodes per host, length of those nematodes, and total worm burden (ΣL)) were analyzed within three …