Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons^™

A Case Study: Observations Of Behaviors & Vocalizations In A Captive Asian Elephant (Elephas Maximus) During Quarantine, Alexandra L. Dilley

Theses and Dissertations

Bozie, an Asian elephant (Elephas maximus), was relocated from the Baton Rouge Zoo to Smithsonian’s National Zoo. During a requisite 29-day quarantine period, I recorded Bozie’s stress-related behaviors and the vocalizations she produced when she was alone and with her keepers in free and protected contact.

Investigating The Nest Sanitation Hypothesis In A Rejecter Species: Is Sanitation A Proximate Link, Pre-Adaptation, Or By-Product Of Egg Ejection?, Alec B. Luro

Theses and Dissertations

Nest sanitation, a behavior similar in motor pattern to egg ejection, has been proposed repeatedly as a potential pre-adaptation to foreign egg ejection in avian brood parasites hosts. We found no support for the sanitation hypothesis--therefore we suggest egg ejection may have evolved independently of sanitation.

Resilient Rivers Hpr 132g, Joanna Burkhardt

Library Impact Statements

No abstract provided.

The Origin And Expansion Of The Eastern Red Fox, Adrienne Egge Kasprowicz

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

When new populations are first identified in a region there are multiple potential sources: introduction of a non-native species, extra-range expansion of a nearby population, or demographic growth of a previously unnoticed species. Red foxes were absent or rare in the mid-eastern portion United States until the late 1800s. Their origins potentially include natural population increase/expansion, translocations from Europe, and, eventually, 20th century fur farming. In this study I attempt to identify the relative impact of native expansion versus human mediated introductions of both colonial era European foxes and early 20^th century fur-farm foxes on the establishment of red …

Plastic Pollution And The Global Throwaway Culture: Environmental Injustices Of Single-Use Plastic, Kristin L. Mcdermott

ENV 434 Environmental Justice

The global throwaway culture has created a cross-ecosystem plastic pollution injustice. The first to suffer this injustice will be the most vulnerable. Our oceans have become our dumpsters. The throwaway culture has created a disrespect of material goods that has turned the earth’s resources into rubbish after a single use. Eighty percent of the yearly 8 million tons of plastic that enter the ocean is single use plastic, such as plastic bottles, plastic shopping bags, or cigarette lighters.[1] Plastic has destroyed ecosystems, robbing impoverished communities of natural resources and of a healthy and safe living environment. First to suffer …

Changes In Floristic Composition In The State Forests In Worcester County (Massachusetts) Over 34 Years, Flor A. Monroe

Sustainability and Social Justice

ABSTRACT

CHANGES IN FOREST DIVERSITY OF STATE FOREST IN WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS, OVER 34 YEARS PERIOD

The forest in Massachusetts has changed since the earliest colonial settlement and today the floristic composition is more homogeneous. This study investigates the potential change in the floristic composition over thirty years in Worcester County State Forests. Shannon, richness and evenness indices for two periods were compared, and Jaccard index was used to analyze similarity in composition between the periods. The possible influence of severe weather events was also analyzed.

It was found Changes in the floristic composition, but the magnitude of the changes …

Efficiency Of The Male Effect With Photostimulated Bucks Does Not Depend On Their Familiarity With Goats, A. L. Muñoz, M. Bedos, R. M. Aroña, J. A. Flores, H. Hernández, C. Moussu, Elodie F. Briefer, P. Chemineau, M. Keller, J. A. Delgadillo

Reproductive Behavior Collection

In ewes, the ovulatory response of females exposed to familiar rams is lower than the response of those exposed to novel ones. In goats, males rendered sexually active by exposure to long days are more efficient to induce ovulation in seasonal anestrous females than untreated males. Two experiments were conducted to determine 1) whether male goats remain familiar to females after 45 days of separation; and 2) whether photostimulated males are able to stimulate the sexual activity of females, independently of their familiarity with them. In Experiment 1, three groups of goats (n = 10 goats per group) were put …

Evaluation Of Alternative Strategies To Prevent Leopard Predation On Livestock Around Yala National Park, Sri Lanka, Sanjiv Fernando

Sustainability and Social Justice

In recent years, many livestock herders living near Yala National Park, Sri Lanka have reported livestock losses due to predation by leopards (Panthera pardus kotiya). Despite herders’ attempts to safeguard their cattle, livestock depredation remains an issue, sometimes causing herders to kill leopards in retaliation. In an effort to mitigate the human-leopard conflict, protective cattle enclosures made from steel pipes and mesh wire were introduced to prevent leopard attacks on cattle. This study aims to assess the severity of leopard predation on livestock, understand the methods used in retaliatory killings, examine the effectiveness of existing livestock protection methods, …

Design Science 5 | Steam Intelligence, Schedule, Edna W. Lawrence Nature Lab

Design Science Symposia

Schedule of events.

Foraging Time And Food Resource Use Of Geoffroy’S Tamarin (Saguinus Geoffroyi) In An Urban Forest Landscape, Parque Natural Metropolitano, Ciudad De Panamá, Panamá, Rachael Pruitt

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Saguinus geoffroyi, a small neotropical primate that ranges from the Chocó region of Colombia along the Pacific coast of Panamá to the eastern side of the Azuero peninsula. They are known to be a disturbance tolerant species and are mostly found in secondary growth and forest edges where understory growth is moderately dense. They have 3 main food sources: insects, small fruits and exudates (plant saps), which are located in different layers of the forest, although the composition of these may change depending on the season. This study attempted to determine the common food resources, foraging time and location of …

Epigeal Fauna Of Bosque Protector Cerro Candelaria, Justine Albers

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Pitfall traps are commonly used to sample epigeal fauna, and are especially utilized for the collection of ground-dwelling arthropods; however, this sampling method has yet to be employed in Cerro Candelaria, a protected cloud forest reserve in Tungurahua, Ecuador. Pitfall trap systems were established at two different sites in the reserve that differed in elevation and forest type. Although individuals from 4 different phlya, 11 classes and 17 orders were encountered over the duration of the study, pitfalls were most effective at sampling Coleoptera, which comprised 40% of the total catch across both sites. The two communities of beetle …

Effects Of Environmental Factors On The Abundance Of Blacklegged Ticks, Jasmine L. Miller, Roger A. Lebrun, Howard S. Ginsberg

Senior Honors Projects

The nymphal stage of the blacklegged tick, Ixodes scapularis, is the major vector of Lyme disease, the most common vector-borne disease in North America. Tick abundance has generally been estimated using either flag/drag samples or samples from hosts. However, the biases of these sampling methods have not been adequately studied. We compared samples using both methods from sites in Massachusetts and Wisconsin. Tick abundance was compared with variables related to weather (temperature, relative humidity, and tick adverse moisture events), vegetation (canopy cover, tree density, shrub density, ground vegetation, and leaf litter cover), and host abundance (mice, small mammals, medium …

The Line Drawn On Pain Still Holds, Bjorn H. Merker

Animal Sentience

The many substantive criticisms raised against Key by me and by many of the other commentators will not disappear by ignoring or waving them aside with meta-discourse about anthropomorphism, just-so stories, or celestial teapots. The conceptual edifice Key inhabits and defends with such gusto may look like an impregnable fortress from the inside – and Key behaves as if it were. From the outside, however, it looks more like a ramshackle structure gaping with holes and pieced together from imperfectly understood neuroscience and often faulty literature citations.

Slavery, Welfare And The Sixth Extinction, Stephen R. Clark

Animal Sentience

Ng’s laudable concern for animal welfare would be welcome to any sensible slave-owner wishing to preserve his investment. What welfarism – for slave-owners and animal husbandmen – fails to call into question is whether we have the right to breed, hold captive and kill animals at all: If it matters, as the widely recognized slogan of ‘Five Freedoms’ suggests, that animals have the chance to live a ‘normal’ life, then more matters than keeping them ‘happy’ in subjection. Their lives – and also the lives of wild things – also deserve respect.

Wild Animal Suffering And Vegan Outreach, Eze Paez

Animal Sentience

Ng’s strategic proposal seems to downplay the potential benefits of advocacy for wild animals and omit what may be the most effective strategy to reduce the harms farmed animals suffer: vegan outreach.

To Minimize Animal Suffering, Broaden The Definition Of Animal Cruelty, Eleonora Gullone

Animal Sentience

Mandatory veterinary reporting of suspected abuse might discourage caregivers from seeking treatment for their injured animals. Animal abusers are more likely to be brought to justice by raising community awareness about the link between animal cruelty and human violence and its implications for the wellbeing of both humans and animals. Commonly accepted definitions of animal cruelty focus only on cruelty that is socially unacceptable, excluding an enormous amount of unnecessary animal suffering caused by humans. Only by broadening the definition of animal cruelty can we bring about the cultural change necessary to minimize this animal suffering.

Animal Suffering And Human Bias, Stijn Bruers

Animal Sentience

Ng proposes concrete ways to decrease animal suffering on the basis of commonsense economic logic and research in welfare biology. But to reduce animal suffering effectively in livestock farming, animal experimentation or the natural environment we have to become more aware of our pervasive and spontaneous but unreliable intuitive moral judgments. These can generate biases that prevent us from decreasing animal suffering effectively.

A Systems Approach To Animal Communication, Eileen A. Hebets, Andrew B. Barron, Christopher N. Balakrishnan, Mark E. Hauber, Paul H. Mason, Kim L. Hoke

Eileen Hebets Publications

Why animal communication displays are so complex and how they have evolved are active foci of research with a long and rich history. Progress towards an evolutionary analysis of signal complexity, however, has been constrained by a lack of hypotheses to explain similarities and/or differences in signalling systems across taxa. To address this, we advocate incorporating a systems approach into studies of animal communication—an approach that includes comprehensive experimental designs and data collection in combination with the implementation of systems concepts and tools. A systems approach evaluates overall display architecture, including how components interact to alter function, and how function …

An Animal Victim's Best Chance: Veterinary Legal Duty To Report Cruelty In The U.S., Lora Dunn

Animal Sentience

Legislation throughout the U.S. recognizes animal sentience and the importance of veterinary reporting to combat the ongoing suffering of these animal victims: All 50 states have felony penalties available for animal cruelty crimes, and veterinary reporting is permitted or required in the majority of states. The remaining minority of U.S. states should take action to require veterinarians to report animal cruelty and render veterinarians immune for good faith reporting.

Veterinary Medical Associations Need To Educate Veterinarians For Mandatory Reporting Of Suspected Animal Abuse, Melinda V. Merck

Animal Sentience

When animals are suffering, we have a duty to take action. With appropriate incentive and educational support mandatory veterinary reporting can be a great legal avenue to help ensure their safety and welfare.

Fish Pain's Burden Of Proof, Carl Safina

Animal Sentience

A hypothesis like Key’s, that fish cannot feel pain, should really be stated as a null hypothesis — an assumption that there is no difference in the things being compared. Then evidence — including anecdotal evidence — for and against rejecting the null hypothesis can be examined and weighed. Key (2016a) has proven only that fish lack mammalian brains.

Burden Of Proof Lies With Proposer Of Celestial Teapot Hypothesis, Brian Key

Animal Sentience

Bertrand Russell famously imagined the existence of a celestial teapot to highlight that the burden of proof of a hypothesis lay with its proposer and it was not the responsibility of others to refute it. Those who propose that fish feel pain must bear the burden of proof for their hypothesis. There are several common arguments adopted by those defending the position that fish feel pain. For instance, proponents envisage that pain is so important for human survival that they can’t imagine fish could exist without it. Out of this argument from incredulity emerges the idea that pain must have …

Animal Suffering In China, Peter J. Li

Animal Sentience

Chinese policy has been aimed at maximizing GDP; it is time to focus also on minimizing animal suffering.

Science And Sensibility, Bernard E. Rollin

Animal Sentience

The sentience and suffering of animals is obvious to common sense, even if science and industry claim to be agnostic. Economic incentives to reduce the suffering of animals are welcome, but it is not clear whether animals can turn to science for help.

When The Client Is Not The Abuser, But One Of The Abused, Tania Signal

Animal Sentience

The question of client confidentiality and reporting animal abuse is complicated when the client is not the abuser, and when the abuse (of both people and animals) may escalate precisely because it has been (or may be) reported.

When Human-Leopard Conflict Turns Deadly: A Cross-Country Situational Analysis, Julie S. Viollaz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Habitat destruction and pollution are two of the main causes for the decline of the planet’s biodiversity. Yet environmentalists are now recognizing that illegal wildlife killings, both poaching and retaliatory killings due to human-wildlife conflict, are perhaps the next major threat. Biologists have researched illegal killings and their effect on species conservation, but few researchers have applied criminological principles of crime reduction to them. This research will explore the situational factors that drive retaliatory leopard killings in parts of South Africa, Kenya, and India. These factors, human and environmental, include local expectations from wildlife, sensitivity to environmental issues, communication between …

Climate Change And Its Impact On Wheat Production In Kansas, Joshua C. Howard, Esin Cakan, Kamal Upadhyaya

Economics & Business Analytics Faculty Publications

This paper studies the effect of climate change on wheat production in Kansas using annual time series data from 1949 to 2014. For the study, an error correction model is developed in which the price of wheat, the price of oats (substitute good), average annual temperature and average annual precipitation are used as explanatory variables with total output of wheat being the dependent variable. Time series properties of the data series are diagnosed using unit root and cointegration tests. The estimated results suggest that Kansas farmers are supply responsive to both wheat as well as its substitute (oat) prices in …

Patuxent’S Long-Term Research On Wolves, L. David Mech

United States Geological Survey, Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center: Publications

The gray wolf (Canis lupus) was one of the first species placed on the Endangered Species List in 1967. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 legally protected the wolf along with other listed species.

Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (Patuxent) in Laurel, MD, began its Endangered Wildlife Program in 1966, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) biologist Ray Erickson was assigned to lead it. In 1973, I was transferred to the program from Region 3 of the USFWS, having been employed there since 1969 to study wolves in Minnesota.

Endangered Species Act protection of the wolf fostered its quick …

Wire Netting Reduces African Elephant (Loxodonta Africana) Impact To Selected Trees In South Africa, Kelly Derham, Michelle Henley, Bruce A. Schulte

Biology Faculty Publications

African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are ecosystem engineers in that they substantially alter the environment through their unique foraging and feeding habits. At high densities, elephants potentially have negative impacts on the environment, specifically for large trees. Because of this, recent increases of elephants in the Associated Private Nature Reserves (APNR) on the western boundary of the Kruger National Park (KNP), South Africa, have caused concern regarding the survival of several tree species. Our objective was to assess the effectiveness of wrapping protective wire netting around the trunk of the tree for preventing and reducing bark stripping, branch breaking, …

Use Of Qualitative Behaviour Assessment As An Indicator Of Welfare In Donkeys, Michela Minero, Emanuela Dalla Costa, Francesca Dai, Leigh Anne Margaret Murray, Elisabetta Canali, Françoise Wemelsfelder

Animal Welfare Collection

One of the objectives of the Animal Welfare Indicators project was to develop animal-based indicators to assess donkey welfare, including their emotional state. This study aimed to develop a fixed rating scale of Qualitative Behaviour Assessment (QBA) for donkeys, to evaluate the inter-observer reliability when applied on-farm, and to assess whether the QBA outcomes correlate to other welfare measures.

A fixed list of 16 descriptors was designed on the basis of a consultation in a focus group. The fixed list was then used by four trained observers to score nine 2 min videos of groups of donkeys owned by six …