Behavior and Ethology Commons^™

Distortion Of The Local Magnetic Field Appears To Neither Disrupt Nocturnal Navigation Nor Cue Shelter Recognition In The Amblypygid Paraphrynus Laevifrons, Daniel D. Wiegmann, Patrick Casto, Eileen Hebets, Verner P. Bingman

Eileen Hebets Publications

Many arthropods are known to be sensitive to the geomagnetic field and exploit the field to solve spatial problems. The polarity of the geomagnetic field is used, for instance, as an orientation cue by leafcutter ants as they travel on engineered trails in a rainforest and by Drosophila larvae as they move short distances in search of food. A ubiquitous orientation cue like the geomagnetic field may be especially useful in complex, cluttered environments like rainforests, where the reliability of celestial cues used to navigate in more open environments may be poor. The neotropical amblypygid Paraphrynus laevifrons is a nocturnal …

Physiological And Behavioral Effects Of Climate Change On Wildlife: An Introduction And Overview, Andy Clarke

Senior Honors Theses

Planetary environmental system changes have been recorded and documented for several decades. Fluctuations that were first noticed in atmospheric carbon-dioxide levels have now extended into global pattern changes. Climatic variations that were initially non-threatening variabilities have since been observed creating significant biological influences. The results and evidence of the effects of worldwide environmental climate change on wildlife and biotic environments are worth examining because of the impacts it has on the planet. These climatic effects extend from changes in distribution and diversity patterns of terrestrial mammals to sea-life impacts and recovery trends. Possible wildlife benefits may include increased humidity and …

An Analysis Of Social Dominance In The Feeding Of Ex Situ Humboldt Penguins (Spheniscus Humboldti), Robert Gabel

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

In the field of ecology, complex social structures, including dominance hierarchies, have been demonstrated in a variety of fauna, including bird species. While wild Humboldt Penguins (Spheniscus humboldti) do not exhibit a feeding hierarchy, captive penguins are under very different conditions. Humboldt penguins feed on schooling fish in the wild, but in captivity are hand fed from a zookeeper. I investigated whether there is a nonrandom pattern of dominance in the feeding order of the penguins at the Lincoln Children’s Zoo, in Lincoln, NE, USA. Using a camera and tripod, with assistance from four of the zookeepers, I …

Grackles, Michael J. Bodenchuk, David L. Bergman

Wildlife Damage Management Technical Series

Numbering in the tens of millions of birds, grackle populations in North America can cause a variety of conflicts with people. Grackles eat agricultural crops and livestock feed, damage property, spread pathogens, and collide with aircraft. Their large roosts can be a nuisance in urban and suburban areas. A combination of dispersal techniques, exclusion, and lethal removal may help to reduce grackle damage.

Grackles adapt easily to human-dominated environments, and exploit human food and other features of human landscapes. Thus, an integrated damage management approach to grackle damage focuses on reducing and eliminating the damage, rather than simply controlling grackle …

Prey Selection By Birds Of Prey, Anisha Pokharel

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Prey selection is key to determine predator prey interaction and understanding the complexity of food web structure. In this thesis, we used two different approaches to understanding prey selection by North American birds of prey. Using a conventional method, in Chapter 1 we compared pellet analysis and trapping data to assess patterns of prey selection of barn owls in western Nebraska. Microtus spp. comprised 55.8% of the prey items in the barn owl’s diet. The proportion of several prey types in the diet were significantly different from the expected proportion based on trapping. This pattern may indicate barn owls actively …

Personality In Stomatopod Crustaceans, Jillian Page Blenderman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Stomatopods, or mantis shrimp, are small, predatory crustaceans of tropical and subtropical waters. Mantis shrimp research has focused largely on their agonistic interactions and complex visual systems. Despite their broad behavioral repertoire, stomatopods have not yet been investigated for consistent behavioral differences at the individual level, referred to as animal personality. Fifteen individual Neogonodactylus oerstedii were tested in three scenarios designed to measure potential differences in behaviors: 1) exploration of a novel environment, 2) response to and recovery from a startling event, and 3) response to a novel object. Each individual went through the series of tests twice, with a …

Functions Of Vocal Mimicry In The Complex Song Of The European Starling, Sturnus Vulgaris, Maria Goller

School of Biological Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Vocal learning is an ability that has only evolved in a handful of taxa. Songbirds learn their songs, and some species have flexible learning in which they not only incorporate species-specific sounds, but heterospecific and/or environmental sounds as well. The functions of vocal mimicry are still unknown for many species and studying mimicry can teach us about the variation within the song learning process. In this thesis, I focused on five hypotheses on how mimicry could function in sexual selection. The repertoire size hypothesis suggests that selection for larger repertoire sizes allows mimicry to occur because imitation can increase repertoire …

The North American Swans: Their Biology And Conservation, Paul Johnsgard

Zea E-Books Collection

Among birds, swans are relatively long-lived species and are also among the most strongly monogamous, having prolonged pair and family bonds that strongly influence their reproductive and general social behavior, which, in combination with their beauty and elegance, contribute to the overall high degree of worldwide human interest in them. This volume of more than 59,000 words describes the distributions, ecology, social behavior, and breeding biologies of the four species of swans that breed or have historically bred in North America, including the native trumpeter and tundra swans, the introduced mute swan, and the marginally occurring whooper swan. Also included …

Adaptive Manipulation Of Information Broadcast From A Microbial Community, Stephen T. Trumbo, Paula Kb Philbrick, Sandra Steiger

EEB Articles

No abstract provided.

A New Ectotherm 3d Tracking And Behavior Analytics System Using A Depth-Based Approach With Color Validation, With Preliminary Data On Kihansi Spray Toad (Nectophrynoides Asperginis) Activity, Philip Bal, Damian Lyons, Avishai Shuter

Faculty Publications

The Kihansi spray toad (Nectophrynoides asperginis), classified as Extinct in the Wild by the IUCN, is being bred at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Bronx Zoo as part of an effort to successfully reintroduce the species into the wild. Thousands of toads live at the Bronx Zoo presenting an opportunity to learn more about their behaviors for the first time, at scale. It is impractical to perform manual observations for long periods of time. This paper reports on the development of a RGB-D tracking and analytics approach that allows researchers to accurately and efficiently gather information about the toads’ behavior. …

What's The Buzz?, Christine L. Moskalik

Professional Learning Day

A fun, interdisciplinary, hands-on activity with circuits, engineering, and bees Teachers will learn how to implement an activity with their students to explore circuit basics, energy transfer, and pollination through a hands-on toothbrush-bot activity that is coupled with a fun storyline involving honey bee communication and behavior.

Sequential Analysis Of Livestock Herding Dog And Sheep Interactions, Jonathan Early, Jessica Alders, Elizabeth R. Arnott, Claire M. Wade, Paul Mcgreevy

Interactive Behavior Collection

Livestock herding dogs are crucial contributors to Australian agriculture. However, there is a dearth of empirical studies of the behavioural interactions between dog and livestock during herding. A statistical approach that may reveal cause and effect in such interactions is lag sequential analysis. Using 48 video recordings of livestock herding dogs and sheep in a yard trial competition, event-based (time between behaviours is irrelevant) and time-based (time between behaviours is defined) lag sequential analyses identified several significant behavioural interactions (adjusted residuals greater than 2.58; the maximum likelihood-ratio chi-squared statistic for all eight contingency tables identified all sequences as highly significant …

Analysis Of An Agent-Based Model For Predicting The Behavior Of Bighead Carp (Hypophthalmichthys Nobilis) Under The Influence Of Acoustic Deterrence, Craig Garzella, Joseph Gaudy, Karl R. B. Schmitt, Arezu Mansuri

Spora: A Journal of Biomathematics

Bighead carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) are an invasive, voracious, highly fecund species threatening the ecological integrity of the Great Lakes. This agent-based model and analysis explore bighead carp behavior in response to acoustic deterrence in an effort to discover properties that increase likelihood of deterrence system failure. Results indicate the most significant (p < 0.05) influences on barrier failure are the quantity of detritus and plankton behind the barrier, total number of bighead carp successfully deterred by the barrier, and number of native fishes freely moving throughout the simulation. Quantity of resources behind the barrier influence bighead carp to penetrate when populations are resource deprived. When native fish populations are low, an accumulation of phytoplankton can occur, increasing the likelihood of an algal bloom occurrence. Findings of this simulation suggest successful implementation with proper maintenance of an acoustic deterrence system has potential of abating the threat of bighead carp on ecological integrity of the Great Lakes.

Common Ravens, Luke W. Peebles, Jack O. Spencer Jr.

Wildlife Damage Management Technical Series

Damage Management Methods for Common Ravens

Type of Control -- Available Management Options

Exclusion -- Often ineffective or impractical

Fertility Control -- None available

Frightening Devices -- Effigies • Pyrotechnics and propane cannons • Lasers and flashing lights

Habitat Modification -- Bale and bury garbage • Install dumpsters with secure lids • Remove or bury dead livestock • Remove abandoned houses, sheds, and barns to eliminate nesting structures

Nest Treatment -- Allowed with proper Federal and State permits; Egg oiling or addling and nest destruction

Repellents -- Methiocarb (EPA Reg. No. 56228-33) • Methyl anthranilate (food-grade grape flavoring agent)

Shooting …

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 …

Proceedings Of The Fifteenth North American Crane Workshop, Jane E. Austin, Richard P. Urbanek, Megan E. Brown

Proceedings of the North American Crane Workshop

Proceedings of the Fifteenth North American Crane Workshop (2020) edited by Jane E. Austin, Richard P. Urbanek, and Megan E. Brown.

Foraging Strategy Plasticity In Fiordland Penguins (Eudyptes Pachyrhynchus): A Stable Isotope Approach, Jeffrey Wayne White

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Foraging ecology in the crested penguins (genus: Eudyptes) is an active area of research, with new techniques rapidly increasing our understanding of these charismatic species. The most common techniques to assess foraging ecology include stomach content analysis, fecal DNA analysis, stable isotope analysis, tracking, and video loggers. Here we review dietary research on all 8 taxa within the genus Eudyptes to identify gaps in our current knowledge. However, foraging studies that assess dietary segregation require a method for quickly and accurately sexing penguins in the field. Obvious sexual dimorphism in plumage is largely absent in penguins leaving behavioral cues …

Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake (Crotalus Adamanteus) Ambush Site Selection In Coastal Saltwater Marshes, Emily Rebecca Mausteller

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The eastern diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus adamanteus; EDB) is a species of conservation concern associated with the imperiled longleaf pine-grassland ecosystem. The longleaf pine ecosystem is characterized by an open canopy and rich ground cover. Researchers have speculated that the vegetation structure of salt marshes may serve as a surrogate habitat for longleaf pine savannas. Although these marshes have little topography, they provide a heterogeneous landscape with patches of mud flats, sandy hard marsh along upper tidal areas, and salt marsh hummocks throughout. I used radio telemetry to monitor free-ranging EDBs on a South Carolina sea island. The goal of my …

Southern Fox Squirrel (Sciurus Niger Niger) Foraging Behavior And Population Dynamics, John Huang

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The change in the interaction between southern fox squirrel (Sciurus niger niger) and eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) provided an opportunity to examine sublethal effects of predation as it relates to a species’ risk perception and habitat structure at two scales. The interactions allowed us to examine the evolutionary responses of the southern fox squirrel and eastern gray squirrel to predation risk reflective of their historically associated landscapes and habitat structures. Second, the succession of savanna woodlands into closed-canopy mixed forest provided an opportunity to assess the flexible behaviors of both species in response to changes …

Ungulate Activity: Effects Of Season, Hunting Pressure, And Plant Type, Alex Capone Lopez

2020 Symposium Posters

Quaking Aspen (Populus tremulodies) is considered priority habitat because it supports diverse understory flora and provides critical nesting and foraging habitat for wildlife. Aspen populations in western North America have declined due to fire suppression and browsing. Turnbull National Wildlife Refuge in eastern Washington addressed declining aspen with prescribed burns. However, aspen growth stimulated by burning was offset by browsing, especially by Elk (Cervus elaphus). Increasing elk numbers prompted initiation of a limited hunt to cull and disperse elk off refuge. To address the impact of these management strategies, we used remote video cameras to monitor …

Possible Role Of Breeding Phenology, Brood Size, And Male Parental Care On The Number Of Nesting Attempts By Female Eastern Bluebirds, A Facultatively Multibrooded Species, Michael Daniel Patton

Online Theses and Dissertations

To maximize reproductive output, several species of songbirds attempt to raise two or more broods in a single breeding season. The results of previous studies have revealed much variation among species in the factors that influence the likelihood of female songbirds attempting to raise multiple broods during a breeding season. As such, additional studies are needed to better understand the roles of early breeding, brood sizes, and, especially, male parental care in determining the likelihood of having multiple broods. My objective, therefore, was to examine the possible effects of breeding initiation date, brood size, and male provisioning behavior on the …

Social Learning In Solitary Juvenile Sharks, Catarina Vila Pouca, Dennis Heinrich, Charlie Huveneers, Culum Brown

Social Behavior Collection

Social learning can be a shortcut for acquiring locally adaptive information. Animals that live in social groups have better access to social information, but gregarious and nonsocial species are also frequently exposed to social cues. Thus, social learning might simply reflect an animal's general ability to learn rather than an adaptation to social living. Here, we investigated social learning and the effect of frequency of social exposure in nonsocial, juvenile Port Jackson sharks, Heterodontus portusjacksoni. We compared (1) Individual Learners, (2) Sham-Observers, paired with a naïve shark, and (3) Observers, paired with a trained demonstrator, in a novel foraging task. …

Mapping Floral Resources For Bees Using Drone Imagery, Arya Massarat

HMC Senior Theses

Poor nutrition among modern day honey bee colonies is contributing to their decline. Yet understanding how the diversity and abundance of flowering species around a colony affects its health remains difficult because of the manual labor required to analyze these large foraging landscapes. We describe a procedure for automatically mapping the species of flowering plants around a colony from overlapping drone images. We developed a pipeline for stitching the images together, identifying plants within them, and classifying each plant by its species. The resulting map of the flowering species surrounding a colony could be used in future experiments that aim …

Conspecifics And Familiar Odors Alter Movement Patterns In A Land Snail, Cepaea Hortensis, Madeleine Shelton, Jeeva Rathnaweera, Perri Eason

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

In some animals, unfamiliarity with a place and the presence of a conspecific can change movement patterns, often altering individuals’ routes, exploration, and the directions taken. Patterns such as these can affect individual survival, and thus might be present across a wide range of taxa, although mostly vertebrates have been studied. We used a native Kentucky land snail (white-lipped globe snail, Cepaea hortensis) to investigate how snail size, familiarity and the recent presence of a conspecific affect movement of snails in a novel environment. We also tested whether presence of a familiar smell influenced movement on a 25X25 cm …

Risk Assessment And Flight Decisions In Adult Versus Juvenile Squirrels (Sciurus Carolinensis), Alex Haydon, Jeeva Rathnaweera, Perri Eason

Undergraduate Arts and Research Showcase

One way to quantify a prey’s response to a predator is by flight initiation distance (FID), the distance between a predator and prey at the moment the prey flees. As perceived risk from a predator increases, FID increases. Juvenile animals typically flee from approaching threats sooner than do adults because they have less able risk assessment. However, our observations suggested juvenile squirrels might use a different tactic: foraging near refuges. We first tested whether age affected squirrels’ FID in response to an approaching human on the UofL campus, where squirrels experience high levels of interactions with humans from an early …

A Synergism Between Dimethyl Trisulfide And Methyl Thiolacetate In Attracting Carrion-Frequenting Beetles Demonstrated By Use Of A Chemically-Supplemented Minimal Trap, Stephen T. Trumbo, John Dicapua Iii

EEB Articles

Volatile organic compounds derived from microbes recruit insects to carrion, shaping community assembly and ecological succession. The importance of individual volatiles and interactions between volatiles are difficult to assess in the field because of (1) the myriad compounds from decomposing animals, and (2) the likelihood that complex component blends are important for the final approach to carrion. On the assumption that searching insects may use simpler volatile cues to orient at a distance, we employed a chemically-supplemented minimal trap that uses test chemicals to attract from a distance and a minimal carrion bait to induce trap entry. Traps supplemented with …

Demonstrating Mate Choice Copying In Spiders Requires Further Research, R. Tucker Gilman, Kasey Fowler-Finn, Eileen A. Hebets

Eileen Hebets Publications

Mate choice copying—when individuals learn to prefer mates or mate types that have been chosen by others—can influence trait evo-lution and speciation (Varela et al. 2018; Dion et al. 2019). Most examples of mate choice copying are from fish, birds, and mammals including humans (Varela et al. 2018). However, 2 invertebrate examples—fruit flies and wolf spiders—have been used to argue that the phenomenon may be phylogenetically widespread, and perhaps the rule rather than the exception in nature (Varela et al. 2018). Here, we revisit the evidence for mate choice copying in wolf spiders (Fowler-Finn et al. 2015) in light of …

Sharp‐Tailed Grouse In The Nebraska Sandhills Select Residual Cover Patches For Nest Sites, William L. Vodehnal, Gregory L. Schenbeck, Daniel W, Uresk

Nebraska Game and Parks Commission: Staff Research Publications

We evaluated selection and availability of residual cover (dead standing herbage) by sharptailed grouse (Tympanuchus phasianellus) at time of nest‐site selection in an intact and annually grazed grassland. We used radiotelemetry in 1988–1990 to locate 147 nests in the sandhills of Nebraska, USA, and classified 121 as initial nests and 26 as renests. We used visual obstruction readings (VOR) to measure the height and density of residual cover at nests and 373 landscape‐scale transects around leks (trap sites). We excluded 77 nests from vegetation analysis because green herbage or early livestock grazing compromised residual cover measurements. Most females …

Intraspecific Aggression Towards Common Bottlenose Dolphin Calves, Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Errol Ronje, Sarah Piwetz, Heidi Whitehead, Keith D. Mullin

Gulf and Caribbean Research

Infanticide has been widely documented throughout the animal kingdom, and has generally been viewed as an evolved, or adaptive behavior for the perpetrators. Infanticide motivated by increased sexual access to females with calves, or the elimination of potential genetic competition in the form of calf-directed aggression or infanticide, has been proposed for delphinids including killer whales, Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, Guiana dolphins, and bottlenose dolphins. However, reports of intraspecific aggression towards bottlenose dolphin calves are relatively infrequent, and accounts of confirmed infanticide are rarer still. Reporting instances of intraspecific calf-directed aggression aids researchers to better understand the socio-behavioral context of these …

Effects Of Shelterwood And Patch Cut Harvests On A Post White-Nose Syndrome Bat Community In The Cumberland Plateau In Eastern Kentucky, Phillip Lee Arant

Theses and Dissertations--Forestry and Natural Resources

The impact of shelterwood and patch cuts harvests on bat communities was tested at three sites in Eastern Kentucky. Shelterwood harvests had 50% of the basal area and understory removed to create a uniform spacing of residual trees. Patch cuts had 1-hectare circular openings created to remove 50% of the basal area creating an aggregated spacing of residual trees. Acoustic detectors were deployed to assess activity levels pre-harvest. Sites were then sampled from 1 – 2 years post-harvest to determine differences. Pre-harvest data revealed little acoustic activity for the Myotis spp. at two sites. The remaining site had high activity …