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Articles 1 - 12 of 12
Full-Text Articles in Behavior and Ethology
Effects Of Retinal Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone On Reproductive Behavior And Retinal Activity In The Cichlid Fish, Astatotilapia Burtoni, Chase Anselmo
LSU Master's Theses
Many animals use visual signals to evade predators, forage for food, and communicate with conspecifics. Some animals that shift into and out of breeding stages, such as fish, can modulate their visual sensitivity to better adapt to changing internal and external conditions. Previous work in our lab demonstrated that females of the cichlid fish Astatotilapia burtoni have improved visual sensitivity when they enter reproductive readiness. However, little is known about how fish and vertebrates more broadly modulate visual sensitivity across their reproductive cycle. We hypothesized that the hormone and neuromodulator gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) could modulate visual sensitivity because GnRH is …
The Behavioral Specialization Of African Ant-Following Birds On Dorylus Driver Ants, Patricia F. Rodrigues
The Behavioral Specialization Of African Ant-Following Birds On Dorylus Driver Ants, Patricia F. Rodrigues
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Ant-following birds, that forage on arthropods flushed by swarm raiding army ants, are an iconic phenomenon in tropical forests around the globe. Despite capturing the attention of naturalists for over a century, research on ant-following birds has largely focused on Neotropical species. Decades of research on Neotropical ant-following birds has revealed fascinating aspects of their specialization, including complex cognitive and behavioral adaptations that allow birds to locate and track nomadic army ants. Despite this breadth of research on Neotropical species, virtually nothing is known of the behavioral ecology of African ant-following birds, and it remains unknown whether they exhibit adaptations …
The Role Of Sexual Network Core Groups In Disease Epidemics, Jason Janeaux
The Role Of Sexual Network Core Groups In Disease Epidemics, Jason Janeaux
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) remain an economic and social burden, non-discriminately affecting sexually active individuals worldwide. The unique transmission of STIs is dependent upon host and pathogen life histories, as well as the underlying network structure of the host population. Within a population there is a group of individuals, the core group, that maintains STI presence and helps sustain ongoing transmission both within the core group and in the surrounding population. While the presence of these core groups is well documented, the criteria for inclusion into a sexual core group is not. In this dissertation, I explore common factors that …
Settling Preference Of Nipponaclerda Biwakoensis (Hemiptera: Aclerdidae) On Phragmites Australis Stems, Alexia Catherine Desoto
Settling Preference Of Nipponaclerda Biwakoensis (Hemiptera: Aclerdidae) On Phragmites Australis Stems, Alexia Catherine Desoto
LSU Master's Theses
Phragmites australis, a wetland grass that stabilizes the Louisiana coastline, has been undergoing a major die-off near the Mississippi River Delta (MRD) since the autumn of 2016. One suspected cause for this plant decline is the attack of an invasive scale insect, Nipponaclerda biwakoensis. We lack information on the host preference of the crawlers, the life stage that decides where to settle and when to start feeding on the plant. The objectives of this study were to identify what positions along the vertical stem N. biwakoensis prefers to settle and what host-plant traits may be influencing this choice. We recorded …
Sodium Mediates Developmentally Plastic Responses In Plants And Herbivores, Luis Santiago-Rosario
Sodium Mediates Developmentally Plastic Responses In Plants And Herbivores, Luis Santiago-Rosario
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Sodium plays a crucial role in organismal performance, trophic-level interactions, and eco-evolutionary dynamics. For plants, sodium impacts osmoregulation, growth, and water uptake. For animals, sodium is essential influencing osmoregulatory processes, muscle and neural development, and blood regulation. My dissertation aims to disentangle why sodium mismatch affects resource-consumer interactions and its influence on morphological and behavioral plasticity. First, I identified how sodium impacts plant performance and sodium accumulation strategies. I initially focused my research on understanding how increasing substrate sodium affects plant growth and tissue sodium accumulation strategies in controlled settings using a systematic review approach. I found that saltier plants …
Habitat Use And Morphology Of Birds In "Intact" Amazonia Under Changing Climate, Vitek Jirinec
Habitat Use And Morphology Of Birds In "Intact" Amazonia Under Changing Climate, Vitek Jirinec
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
Neotropical forests contain the core of global avian diversity. Of these, the Amazon rainforest is the largest, but ~20% has already been lost to deforestation, inspiring research into the effects of clearing and fragmentation on forest birds. These studies have consistently shown that insectivorous birds that forage on or near the ground are the most sensitive species to forest disturbance. As a preamble to our study, we synthesized bird capture data collected over 40 years within continuous forest far from human disturbance. Remarkably, we found that terrestrial and near-ground insectivores have shown substantial abundance declines even within primary forest. The …
Evaluation Of Space Use And Movement By Wild Turkey (Meleagris Gallopavo) During Extreme Climatic Disturbances And Annual Phenological States, David J. Moscicki
Evaluation Of Space Use And Movement By Wild Turkey (Meleagris Gallopavo) During Extreme Climatic Disturbances And Annual Phenological States, David J. Moscicki
LSU Master's Theses
Space use is driven by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors across space and time. Meaning a species demography and habitat requirements may vary across landscapes. Recent studies on wild turkeys (Meleagris gallopavo spp., hereafter turkey) have shown both direct and indirect demographic impacts of climatically driven events on turkey populations. Similarly, there is an abundance of information documenting turkey demographic parameters and space use, but few studies have addressed breeding phenology in great detail. We evaluated the impact on space use and movement patterns of Eastern wild turkeys (M. g. silvestris; n = 20) and Rio Grande wild …
Reproductive Parameters And Female Breeding Season Survival Of Rio Grande Wild Turkeys In South Central Texas, Jacob White
Reproductive Parameters And Female Breeding Season Survival Of Rio Grande Wild Turkeys In South Central Texas, Jacob White
LSU Master's Theses
Historically, Rio Grande wild turkeys in south central Texas have been at lower densities than other portions of the state. Within the Oak-Prairie Wildlife District of Texas, Rio Grande wild turkey regulatory restrictions are different for counties in the eastern and western portions of the ecoregion. Due to perceived increases in turkey density in the eastern portion of the ecoregion (hereafter 1-bird zone), Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) considered increasing the bag limit to match counties in the western portion of the district (hereafter 4-bird zone) in order to increase hunting opportunities. However, if regulatory changes are to be …
Effects Of Oil On Mollusk And Crustacean Populations, Behavior, And Predator-Prey Interactions, Elizabeth Marie Robinson
Effects Of Oil On Mollusk And Crustacean Populations, Behavior, And Predator-Prey Interactions, Elizabeth Marie Robinson
LSU Doctoral Dissertations
The Deepwater Horizon blowout and oil spill in April 2010 released ~5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Approximately 1,773 km of shoreline was oiled along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast, and ~60% of the oiling ended up on Louisiana salt marsh habitat. The objective of this dissertation was to examine the effects of DWH oil on predator-prey relationships between blue crabs and periwinkle snails, as well as mollusk and blue crab population structure. A broad spatial-temporal field study in Barataria and Terrebonne Bays was used to examine the legacy of oil on five species of …
A Study Of The Urban Red Fox (Vulpes Vulpes) Population In Baton Rouge, Louisiana Using Social Media, Ahsennur Soysal
A Study Of The Urban Red Fox (Vulpes Vulpes) Population In Baton Rouge, Louisiana Using Social Media, Ahsennur Soysal
LSU Master's Theses
Foxes are timid yet resourceful animals that are integrated into many urban environments. Because they are elusive, collecting information about the number of urban foxes, their diet and spatial distribution, their interactions with the ecological community in their urban habitat, as well as residents’ response to them, is difficult. Involving stakeholders to participate in the data collection on wildlife via citizen science on social media is one way to overcome this complication, while simultaneously engaging residents in the ecology happening around them. Therefore, we used social media as the platform to engage the public to document and map the foxes …
Cognitive Phenotypes And The Evolution Of Animal Decisions, Tamra C. Mendelson, Courtney L. Fitzpatrick, Mark E. Hauber, Charles H. Pence, Rafael L. Rodríguez, Rebecca J. Safran, Caitlin A. Stern, Jeffrey R. Stevens
Cognitive Phenotypes And The Evolution Of Animal Decisions, Tamra C. Mendelson, Courtney L. Fitzpatrick, Mark E. Hauber, Charles H. Pence, Rafael L. Rodríguez, Rebecca J. Safran, Caitlin A. Stern, Jeffrey R. Stevens
Faculty Publications
Despite the clear fitness consequences of animal decisions, the science of animal decision making in evolutionary biology is underdeveloped compared with decision science in human psychology. Specifically, the field lacks a conceptual framework that defines and describes the relevant components of a decision, leading to imprecise language and concepts. The ‘judgment and decision-making’ (JDM) framework in human psychology is a powerful tool for framing and understanding human decisions, and we apply it here to components of animal decisions, which we refer to as ‘cognitive phenotypes’. We distinguish multiple cognitive phenotypes in the context of a JDM framework and highlight empirical …
Oyun: A New, Free Program For Iterated Prisoner’S Dilemma Tournaments In The Classroom, Charles H. Pence, Lara Buchak
Oyun: A New, Free Program For Iterated Prisoner’S Dilemma Tournaments In The Classroom, Charles H. Pence, Lara Buchak
Faculty Publications
Evolutionary applications of game theory present one of the most pedagogically accessible varieties of genuine, contemporary theoretical biology. We present here Oyun (oy-oon, http://charlespence.net/oyun), a program designed to run iterated prisoner's dilemma tournaments, competitions between prisoner's dilemma strategies developed by the students themselves. Using this software, students are able to readily design and tweak their own strategies, and to see how they fare both in round-robin tournaments and in “evolutionary” tournaments, where the scores in a given “generation” directly determine contribution to the population in the next generation. Oyun is freely available, runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux computers, …