Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Psychology

Institution
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type

Articles 541 - 570 of 722

Full-Text Articles in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Similarities And Differences Between Heterosexual And Homosexual Couples Based On Marq Data, Kraig S. Shattuck Jan 2015

Similarities And Differences Between Heterosexual And Homosexual Couples Based On Marq Data, Kraig S. Shattuck

Wayne State University Theses

There has been a lack of comparative research on homosexual couples, comparing them to heterosexual couples, which is also grounded in solid theory. In order to remedy this, evolutionary theory is used to make predictions on similarities and differences between heterosexual and homosexual couples within three domains, relationship satisfaction, jealousy, and mate guarding. It was predicted that 1) homosexual couples would not differ from heterosexual couples in relationship satisfaction; 2) some gender differences relating to jealousy would be the same and some would be reversed in homosexual individuals; 3) mate guarding would be present, but lower, in homosexual individuals as …

Go to article

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 …

Go to article

Multidimensional Approach To Comparative Avian Visual Systems, Bret Alan Moore Oct 2014

Multidimensional Approach To Comparative Avian Visual Systems, Bret Alan Moore

Open Access Dissertations

Since the birth of visual ecology, comparative studies on how birds see their world have been limited to a small number of species and tended to focus on a single visual trait. This approach has constrained our ability to understand the diversity and evolution of the avian visual system. The goal of this dissertation was to characterize multiple visual dimensions on bird groups that are highly speciouse (e.g., Passeriformes), and test some hypotheses and predictions, using modern comparative tools, on the relationship between different visual traits and their association with visual information sampling behaviors. First, I developed a novel method …

Go to article

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. …

Go to article

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 …

Go to article

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 …

Go to article

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 …

Go to article

Habitat Effects On Chick-A-Dee Call Complexity, Jacqueline Renee Lynch Jul 2014

Habitat Effects On Chick-A-Dee Call Complexity, Jacqueline Renee Lynch

Open Access Theses

Past studies on the communication systems of species in urban environments (such as Common Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos Brehm), brown-headed cowbirds ( Molothrus ater), Southern brown tree frogs (Litoria ewingii )) have shown multiple ways that species change vocal signaling behavior to adjust to urban habitats (e.g. alarm calls and singing). This study further investigates the changes in signaling in relation to the chick-a-dee call of the Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis). A secondary goal of this study was to compare both the amount of information and rate of calling across …

Go to article

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 …

Go to article

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 …

Go to article

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 …

Go to article

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 …

Go to article

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 …

Go to article

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 …

Go to article

Nest Destruction Elicits Indiscriminate Con- Versus Heterospecific Brood Parasitism In A Captive Bird, Rachel C. Shaw, William E. Feeney, Mark E. Hauber Jan 2014

Nest Destruction Elicits Indiscriminate Con- Versus Heterospecific Brood Parasitism In A Captive Bird, Rachel C. Shaw, William E. Feeney, Mark E. Hauber

Publications and Research

Following nest destruction, the laying of physiologically committed eggs (eggs that are ovulated, yolked, and making their way through the oviduct) in the nests of other birds is considered a viable pathway for the evolution of obligate interspecific brood parasitism. While intraspecific brood parasitism in response to nest predation has been experimentally demonstrated, this pathway has yet to be evaluated in an interspecific context. We studied patterns of egg laying following experimental nest destruction in captive zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata, a frequent intraspecific brood parasite. We found that zebra finches laid physiologically committed eggs indiscriminately between nests containing conspecific eggs …

Go to article

Sustainability Policy’S Inherent Dilemmas – Exemplified Via Critical Examination Of The Las Vegas Metropolitan Sustainability Campaign, Kathryn A. Zimmerman Jan 2014

Sustainability Policy’S Inherent Dilemmas – Exemplified Via Critical Examination Of The Las Vegas Metropolitan Sustainability Campaign, Kathryn A. Zimmerman

All Master's Theses

In response to a dual problem of critical water scarcity and rapid population growth, leaders of metropolitan Las Vegas implemented a region-wide, internationally marketed sustainability campaign. Preliminary studies found that, while sustainability policy attains its rhetorical goals, solutions initiated not only perpetuate but also purposefully expand the original dual problem to justify continuous water resource acquisitions. To examine this sustainability conundrum constructed by leadership—problem-perpetuation rather than problem-resolution—a critical examination in resource management asked two basic questions: what is being sustained and by what means? Via this inquiry, specific processes by which leaders perpetuate problems can be identified; and, so-informed, new …

Go to article

Goats Favour Personal Over Social Information In An Experimental Foraging Task, Luigi Baciadonna, Alan G. Mcelligott, Elodie F. Briefer Sep 2013

Goats Favour Personal Over Social Information In An Experimental Foraging Task, Luigi Baciadonna, Alan G. Mcelligott, Elodie F. Briefer

Ethology Collection

Animals can use their environments more efficiently by selecting particular sources of information (personal or social), according to specific situations. Group-living animals may benefit from gaining information based on the behaviour of other individuals. Indeed, social information is assumed to be faster and less costly to use than personal information, thus increasing foraging efficiency. However, when food sources change seasonally or are randomly distributed, individual information may become more reliable than social information. The aim of this study was to test the use of conflicting personal versus social information in goats (Capra hircus), in a foraging task.We found that goats …

Go to article

Animals Represent The Past And The Future, Thomas R. Zentall Jul 2013

Animals Represent The Past And The Future, Thomas R. Zentall

Psychology Faculty Publications

It has been proposed by some that only humans have the ability to mentallytravel back in time (i.e., have episodic memory) and forward in time (i.e., have the ability to simulate the future). However, there is evidence from a variety of nonhuman animals (e.g., primates, dolphins, scrub jays, rats, and pigeons) that they have some ability to recover personal memories of what-where-when an event occurred (an earlier requirement of the ability to recover an episodic memory) and answer unexpected questions (another requirement to distinguish between semantic and episodic memory). Also, perhaps more critically, according to Tulving’s more recent definition of …

Go to article

Fallow Deer Polyandry Is Related To Fertilization Insurance, Elodie F. Briefer, Mary E. Farrell, Thomas J. Hayden, Alan G. Mcelligott Apr 2013

Fallow Deer Polyandry Is Related To Fertilization Insurance, Elodie F. Briefer, Mary E. Farrell, Thomas J. Hayden, Alan G. Mcelligott

Ethology Collection

Polyandry is widespread, but its adaptive significance is not fully understood. The hypotheses used to explain its persistence have rarely been tested in the wild and particularly for large, long-lived mammals. We investigated polyandry in fallow deer, using female mating and reproduction data gathered over 10 years. Females of this species produce a single offspring (monotocous) and can live to 23 years old. Overall, polyandry was evident in 12 % of females and the long-term, consistent proportion of polyandrous females observed, suggests that monandry and polyandry represent alternative mating strategies. Females were more likely to be polyandrous when their first …

Go to article

A Study Of Sharing And Reciprocity In Grey Parrots (Psittacus Erithacus), Franck Péron, Maria John, Stephanie Sapowicz, Dalila Bovet, Irene M. Pepperberg Mar 2013

A Study Of Sharing And Reciprocity In Grey Parrots (Psittacus Erithacus), Franck Péron, Maria John, Stephanie Sapowicz, Dalila Bovet, Irene M. Pepperberg

Sentience Collection

Demonstrations of nonhuman ability to share resources and reciprocate such sharing seem contingent upon the experimental paradigm used (note Horner et al. in PNAS 108:13847–13851, 2011). Here, such behaviour in Grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) was tested in two experiments, both designed to avoid possible issues involving apparatus complexity, visible reward options, and physical competition and/or limited communication between subjects. In both studies, two birds, working in dyads, took turns in choosing one of four different coloured cups with differing outcomes: empty (null, nonrewarding), selfish (keeping reward for oneself), share (sharing a divisible reward), or giving (donating reward to other). In …

Go to article

Application Of Qualitative Behavioural Assessment To Horses During An Endurance Ride, Patricia A. Fleming, Cheree L. Paisley, Anne L. Barnes, Françoise Wemelsfelder Feb 2013

Application Of Qualitative Behavioural Assessment To Horses During An Endurance Ride, Patricia A. Fleming, Cheree L. Paisley, Anne L. Barnes, Françoise Wemelsfelder

Sentience Collection

Endurance horses are considered subject to a unique set of training and competing pressures due to the long distances travelled. The health and welfare of these horses could be compromised if they have not been adequately trained or are pushed beyond their limits, and there are increasing concerns regarding the capacity of horses to cope with the exercise demands placed on them, with high elimination rates for lameness and metabolic reasons. Veterinary inspections during these rides are important for assessing physiological measures, but the inclusion of behavioural assessments is also warranted. We investigated the application of Qualitative Behavioural Assessment (QBA) …

Go to article

Inter-Observer Reliability Of Qualitative Behavioural Assessments Of Sheep, Clare Phythian, Eleni Michalopoulou, Jennifer Duncan, Françoise Wemelsfelder Feb 2013

Inter-Observer Reliability Of Qualitative Behavioural Assessments Of Sheep, Clare Phythian, Eleni Michalopoulou, Jennifer Duncan, Françoise Wemelsfelder

Sentience Collection

Qualitative Behaviour Assessment (QBA) is whole-animal methodology that assesses the expressive qualities of animal demeanour using descriptors such as ‘relaxed’, ‘anxious’ or ‘content’. This study aimed to examine the inter-observer reliability of 12 fixed-list QBA descriptors for sheep that had been generated in a previous Free-Choice Profiling study by experienced animal welfare inspectors, based on the same video footage used in the current study. The 12 QBA terms were scored by two different assessor groups consisting of two veterinary science students and four veterinary surgeons (Group 1), and seven farm assurance inspectors (Group 2). The two assessor groups met and …

Go to article

Pattern Of Social Interactions After Group Integration: A Possibility To Keep Stallions In Group, Sabrina Briefer Freymond, Elodie F. Briefer, Rudolf Von Niederhäusern, Iris Bachmann Jan 2013

Pattern Of Social Interactions After Group Integration: A Possibility To Keep Stallions In Group, Sabrina Briefer Freymond, Elodie F. Briefer, Rudolf Von Niederhäusern, Iris Bachmann

Ethology Collection

Horses are often kept in individual stables, rather than in outdoor groups, despite such housing system fulfilling many of their welfare needs, such as the access to social partners. Keeping domestic stallions in outdoor groups would mimic bachelor bands that are found in the wild. Unfortunately, the high level of aggression that unfamiliar stallions display when they first encounter each other discourages owners from keeping them in groups. However, this level of aggression is likely to be particularly important only during group integration, when the dominance hierarchy is being established, whereas relatively low aggression rates have been observed among stable …

Go to article

The Importance Of Female Choice: Evolutionary Perspectives On Constraints, Expressions, And Variations, David Frederick, Tania A. Reynolds, Maryanne L. Fisher Jan 2013

The Importance Of Female Choice: Evolutionary Perspectives On Constraints, Expressions, And Variations, David Frederick, Tania A. Reynolds, Maryanne L. Fisher

Psychology Faculty Books and Book Chapters

This chapter introduces the reader to some of the influential perspectives on female mate choice in human evolutionary biology, including parental investment theory. We then present two key theories in evolutionary psychology that have been applied to understand variations in women’s mating preferences and choices: sexual strategies theory and strategic pluralism theory. Although the importance of female choice has gained widespread acceptance in the biological sciences, the influence that female choice has on mating systems can be limited by many factors, such as control over mating decisions by parents and men’s control over women’s sexuality. Despite these constraints on female …

Go to article

Assumptions In Animal Cognition Research, Kristin Andrews, Brian Huss Jan 2013

Assumptions In Animal Cognition Research, Kristin Andrews, Brian Huss

Psychology Collection

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Differences In Relative Hippocampus Volume And Number Of Hippocampus Neurons Among Five Corvid Species, Kristy L. Gould, Karl E. Gilbertson, Andrew J. Hrvol, Joseph C. Nelson, Abigail L. Seyfer, Rose M. Brantner, Alan C. Kamil Jan 2013

Differences In Relative Hippocampus Volume And Number Of Hippocampus Neurons Among Five Corvid Species, Kristy L. Gould, Karl E. Gilbertson, Andrew J. Hrvol, Joseph C. Nelson, Abigail L. Seyfer, Rose M. Brantner, Alan C. Kamil

Avian Cognition Papers

The relative size of the avian hippocampus (Hp) has been shown to be related to spatial memory and food storing in two avian families, the parids and corvids. Basil et al. [Brain Behav Evol 1996;47: 156-164] examined North American food-storing birds in the corvid family and found that Clark’s nutcrackers had a larger relative Hp than pinyon jays and Western scrub jays. These results correlated with the nutcracker’s better performance on most spatial memory tasks and their strong reliance on stored food in the wild. However, Pravosudov and de Kort [Brain Behav Evol 67 (2006), 1-9] raised questions …

Go to article

The Lives Of Others: Social Rationality In Animals, Jeffrey R. Stevens, Andrew J. King Jan 2013

The Lives Of Others: Social Rationality In Animals, Jeffrey R. Stevens, Andrew J. King

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Darwin (1871) boldly claimed that humans and other animals differ very little in their cognition; a statement that has raised the ire of many scientists (Bolhuis & Wynne, 2009; Penn, Holyoak, & Povinelli, 2008). Rather than stating this continuity as a fact, we will explore the similarities and differences between humans and animals in the social rationality of their decision making. We find this a fruitful exercise because it can profit researchers of both humans and animals. Our purpose here is to provide an evolutionary background of social rationality: Why do animals attend to the lives of others? To this …

Go to article

Changing Room Cues Reduces The Effects Of Proactive Interference In Clark’S Nutcrackers, Nucifraga Columbiana, Jody L. Lewis, Alan C. Kamil, Kate E. Webbink Jan 2013

Changing Room Cues Reduces The Effects Of Proactive Interference In Clark’S Nutcrackers, Nucifraga Columbiana, Jody L. Lewis, Alan C. Kamil, Kate E. Webbink

Avian Cognition Papers

To determine what factors are important for minimizing interference effects in spatial memory, Clark’s Nutcrackers, Nucifraga columbiana were tested for their spatial memory for two serial lists of locations per day. In this experiment two unique landmark sets were either different between List 1 and List 2 or the same. We found that Nutcrackers were most susceptible to interference when the landmark sets were the same. This study suggests that repeatedly testing animal memory in the same room, with the same cues, can hamper recall due to interference.

Go to article

The Effect Of Visual Wulst Lesions And Trigeminal Nerve Sectioning On The Discrimination Of Magnetic Inclination In The Homing Pigeon (Columba Livia), Merissa Acerbi Jan 2013

The Effect Of Visual Wulst Lesions And Trigeminal Nerve Sectioning On The Discrimination Of Magnetic Inclination In The Homing Pigeon (Columba Livia), Merissa Acerbi

Honors Projects

The ability of homing pigeons to return to their loft from unknown places has fascinated scientists for centuries. It is well established that homing pigeons, like migratory birds, posses an innate magnetic inclination compass to determine direction by measuring the angle between the magnetic field vector and the Earth's surface. Recent work has indicated that the avian magnetic compass is light mediated and appears to mediate magnetic information to the brain. This occurs via a visual pathway with processing in the visual Wulst area of the forebrain. There is, however, also evidence from other avian species that magnetic direction may …

Go to article

Wild Justice Redux: What We Know About Social Justice In Animals And Why It Matters, Jessica Pierce, Marc Bekoff Jun 2012

Wild Justice Redux: What We Know About Social Justice In Animals And Why It Matters, Jessica Pierce, Marc Bekoff

Ethology Collection

Social justice in animals is beginning to attract interest in a broad range of academic disciplines. Justice is an important area of study because it may help explain social dynamics among individuals living in tightly- knit groups, as well as social interactions among individuals who only occasionally meet. In this paper, we provide an overview of what is currently known about social justice in animals and offer an agenda for further research. We provide working definitions of key terms, outline some central research questions, and explore some of the challenges of studying social justice in animals, as well as the …

Go to article

First Prev Next Last