Biology Commons^™

Songbird Use Of Problem-Solving Feeders In Urban And Rural Areas, Kayce Miller

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Behavioral flexibility is important for animals to adapt to novel situations in their environment. It has been suggested that birds living in complex environments (e.g., urban areas) should be more flexible than conspecifics in less complex environments. Birds are a particularly well studied group, where novel foraging problems are used to assess flexibility and problem-solving performance of urban and rural animals of the same species; however, this is most frequently done in a lab setting with wild-caught birds originating from different habitats. Using a field-based method to test problem-solving performance should give additional insight into other factors influencing birds’ flexibility. …

The Functional, Ecological, And Evolutionary Morphology Of Sea Lampreys (Petromyzon Marinus), Bradley Morgan Wood

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Lampreys (Petromyzontiformes) are jawless vertebrates with an evolutionary history lasting at least 360 million years and are often used in comparisons with jawed vertebrates because some of their morphological aspects, such as the segmented trunk musculature with curved myosepta and a non-mineralized skeleton fibrous skeleton, are thought to resemble the condition of early vertebrates before the evolution of jaws. Although earlier authors studied the morphology of the skeleto-muscular system of the trunk of lampreys, their studies are not detailed and complete enough to allow a functional and biomechanical analysis that is needed as a basis for modeling the mechanics of …

Evaluating The Effect Of Time Of Day On Singing Behavior In Anna’S Hummingbirds, Adrian D. Macedo, Maxine R. Mota

IdeaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Works and Research from Cal Poly Humboldt

No abstract provided.

Comparative Brain Anatomy Of Lamniform Sharks (Elasmobranchii: Lamniformes) And Its Implications To Function, Behavioral Ecology, And Evolution, Francesco Guzzo

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Understanding the diversity of brain morphology is important to understand the evolution of cognitive ability and how ecology and phylogeny have influenced the variation in brain complexity. I examined the morphological variation of the brain in the shark order Lamniformes based on museum specimens and literature. Where I illustrate a wide range of morphological diversity in lamniform brains, my study shows that there is a strong positive correlation between brain size and body size that sharks with a larger brain tend to have a more foliated cerebellum, but that the body weight over brain weight did not correlate with cerebellar …

An Arduino-Based Rfid Platform For Animal Research, Eli S. Bridge, Jay Wilhelm, Darren S. Proppe, Charles Holwerda

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology has been broadly applied in the biological sciences to yield new insights into behavior, cognition, population biology, and distributions. RFID systems entail wireless communication between small tags that, when stimulated by an appropriate radio frequency transmission, emit a weak, short-range wireless signal that conveys a unique ID number. These tags, which often operate without a battery, can be attached to animals such that their presence at a particular location can be detected by an RFID reader. This paper describes an RFID data-logging system that can serve as the core for a wide variety of field …

Modification Of Host Behavior And Transmission In The Acanthocephalan Acanthocephalus Dirus: Effects Of Development, Intraspecific Conflict, And Host Sex, Sara R. Teemer

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Parasites are organisms that live on or in another in order to survive. In some cases, parasites require more than one host to complete their life cycle and rely on a predation event for transmission to the next host. Inside the host, the parasite must access host resources to grow and develop from the non-infective to infective stages. At the infective stage, the parasite is able to survive within the definitive host. Development to this stage has been correlated with changes in antipredatory behaviors, body size and color, and reproduction of intermediate hosts in ways that may increase predation by …

The Kinesin‐3 Motor, Klp‐4, Mediates Axonal Organization And Cholinergic Signaling In Caenorhabditis Elegans, Margaret E. Magaletta, Kendall J. Perkins, Catherine P. Deuchler, Jay N. Pieczynski

Faculty Publications

Microtubule plus‐end directed trafficking is dominated by kinesin motors, yet kinesins differ in terms of cargo identity, movement rate, and distance travelled. Functional diversity of kinesins is especially apparent in polarized neurons, where long distance trafficking is required for efficient signal transduction‐behavioral response paradigms. The Kinesin‐3 superfamily are expressed in neurons and are hypothesized to have significant roles in neuronal signal transduction due to their high processivity. Although much is known about Kinesin‐3 motors mechanistically in vitro, there is little known about their mechanisms in vivo. Here, we analyzed KLP‐4, the Caenorhabditis elegans homologue of human KIF13A and KIF13B. …

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 …

The Effects Of Electrofishing On Different Life Stages Of Ozark And Eastern Hellbenders, Stephanie Kay Morrison

MSU Graduate Theses

Electrofishing, a common method of freshwater fish sampling, has been shown to negatively affect some fish species, but the effects on non-target species, such as hellbenders, have not been well studied. I tested effects of electrofishing on the behavior of several life stages of captivereared Ozark (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis bishopi) and eastern (C. a. alleganiensis) hellbenders. Ozark hellbender eggs were exposed to different voltages in the laboratory, and embryos in higher voltages had higher incidences of twitching during exposures and higher numbers of morphological deformities after exposures. For hatchling Ozark hellbenders, which typically are sedentary, individuals moved more during exposure to …

Developing Sensory Behavioral Assays For Zebrafish Autism Model, Shannon Wagner

Honors College Theses

Individuals of all ages can suffer from a wide variety of symptoms and disabilities that could be diagnosed as Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Due to new methods and technology, individuals are now being diagnosed in the first two years of their life, which is when the signs of ASD are initially exhibited. Individuals diagnosed with ASD share many similar disabilities and symptoms such as hyperactivity to social, visual, and auditory stimuli, as well as hyposensitivity to olfactory stimuli. Neural circuit-based alterations are widely considered as a cause for these behavioral aberrations. We have created behavioral assays using zebrafish larvae to …

Law And Behavioral Biology, Owen D. Jones, Timothy H. Goldsmith

Owen Jones

Society uses law to encourage people to behave differently than they would behave in the absence of law. This fundamental purpose makes law highly dependent on sound understandings of the multiple causes of human behavior. The better those understandings, the better law can achieve social goals with legal tools. In this Article, Professors Jones and Goldsmith argue that many long held understandings about where behavior comes from are rapidly obsolescing as a consequence of developments in the various fields constituting behavioral biology. By helping to refine law's understandings of behavior's causes, they argue, behavioral biology can help to improve law's …

The Impact Of Male-Exposure In The Neuronal Response Of The L3 Auditory Intemeuron To Model Calls, Shekinah Dosunmu

Honors Theses

The L3 auditory neuron in female cricket Acheta domesticus responds to phonotactically attractive calls with decrement: a reduction in the number of action potentials in response to consecutive sound pulses within a chirp. Such unique response has been reported only in virgin females. This study evaluates the response of the L3 in male-exposed females to determine whether they respond to auditory stimuli differently from those exhibited by virgin female crickets.

Preliminary data indicate that L3 in young exposed female crickets responds with different decrement patterns as those reported for virgin females. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Neuronal And Behavioral Response Relationships In Virgin Females Of Acheta Domesticus, Brandon Shin

Honors Theses

Animals that communicate acoustically serve as models for investigating how organisms respond to sound. For instance, in field crickets, females exhibit phonotaxis (directed movement towards the sound's source) to calls with a specific frequency, intensity, and syllable period (SP) - the time between the beginning of one sound pulse and the beginning of another within the same chirp. Additionally, auditory neurons in females produce action potentials in direct response to the sound pulses of a male 's call. A previous study on the species Gryllus bimaculatus demonstrated a relationship between an individual female's behavioral and neuronal responses; however, no such …

Sex Differences In Behavioral Responses To Repeat Subconcussive Events, Rebecca J. Wilson

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Although concussions, especially those in athletes and military, have become a popular focus of neurotrauma research, subconcussions occur with higher frequency and are less well-studied. A subconcussion is loosely defined as an impact to the head that does not result in a diagnosable concussion but can result in neuronal alterations. Repeat subconcussions have been shown to produce behavioral impairments along with neuropathology that is similar to or worse than those seen in a single concussion injury. These studies have primarily included male subjects. Given the potential effects of hormones and NIH’s call for sex-inclusion in biomedical research, assessing female responses …

Evaluation Of Reproductive Phenology And Ecology Of Eastern Wild Turkey (Meleagris Gallopavo Silvestris) Across The Southeastern United States, Nicholas W. Bakner

LSU Master's Theses

Avian reproduction is known to be a driver of population dynamics across species and systems. Behavioral decisions during incubation such as habitat selection and nest attentiveness are thought to affect nest success. The incubation process is a costly period during which individuals are sedentary and must balance survival with reproductive success and overall fitness. Current understanding of Eastern wild turkey incubation behavior provides a limited view of the incubation period. Using GPS data collected from Eastern wild turkeys (n = 220), I evaluated nest fate as it relates to recess frequency, distance travelled during recess, and habitat selection during …

Cognition And The Brain Of Brood Parasitic Cowbirds., David F Sherry, Mélanie F Guigueno

Psychology Publications

Cowbirds are brood parasites. Females lay their eggs in the nests of other species, which then incubate the cowbird eggs and raise the young cowbirds. Finding and returning to heterospecific nests presents cowbirds with several cognitive challenges. In some species, such as brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater), females but not males search for and remember the locations of potential host nests. We describe recent research on sex differences in cognition and the hippocampus associated with this sex difference in search for host nests. Female brown-headed cowbirds perform better than males on some, but not all, tests of spatial memory and females …

Ecology, Monogamy, And The Evolution Of Animal Families, Jacqueline Rae Dillard

Theses and Dissertations--Biology

Family-living has been recognized as a necessary prerequisite for the evolution of advanced cooperative societies, yet the evolutionary and ecological processes that drive the coupling of different forms of cooperation in family-based societies are still poorly understood. In my dissertation, I investigate the correlated evolution of parental care, monogamy, and cooperative breeding in a variety of family-based taxa. I explore the mating and social behavior of family-living beetles with incipient cooperation to better understand the factors driving these social traits. Specifically, I evaluate different causes of extra-pair mating in socially monogamous beetles, the potential benefits that young adult offspring may …