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Articles 121 - 150 of 577

Full-Text Articles in Evolution

Inhibition Of Pain Or Response To Injury In Invertebrates And Vertebrates, Matilda Gibbons, Sajedeh Sarlak Jan 2020

Inhibition Of Pain Or Response To Injury In Invertebrates And Vertebrates, Matilda Gibbons, Sajedeh Sarlak

Animal Sentience

In certain situations, insects appear to lack a response to noxious stimuli that would cause pain in humans. For example, from the fact that male mantids continue to mate while being eaten by their partner it does not follow that insects do not feel pain; it could be the result of modulation of nociceptive inputs or behavioural outputs. When we try to infer the underlying mental state of an insect from its behaviour, it is important to consider the behavioural effects of the associated physiological and neurobiological mechanisms.


Ecological And Evolutionary Dynamics Of Elephant Rewilding, Lysanne Snijders Jan 2020

Ecological And Evolutionary Dynamics Of Elephant Rewilding, Lysanne Snijders

Animal Sentience

Baker & Winkler make a thought-provoking contribution to the discussion of what role captive animals could play in nature conservation and how we could get there through rewilding. There certainly is potential for captive Asian elephants, Elephas maximus, to become targets of conservation efforts, but there are also many questions: (1) How much do (behavioral) traits of captive-origin animals differ from their free conspecifics? (2) What predicts the likelihood and strength of social reintegration of captive animals into free populations? (3) How much of an Asian elephant’s functional role in the environment can captive animals still fulfill and how …


Rewilding And Mixed-Community Collaboration In Conservation, Liv Baker Jan 2020

Rewilding And Mixed-Community Collaboration In Conservation, Liv Baker

Animal Sentience

Rewilding is a psychological and sociocultural event for nonhuman animals that goes beyond the traditional framework of ecology. Elephants need to be seen as political agents in a collaboration. Our commentators shed light on the hierarchical assumptions and politics involved. Mixed-community collaboration can create dynamic and sustainable conservation interventions that are crucial to reconceptualizing the human-elephant relationship beyond the concept of labor. The profound effects of the Covid-19 pandemic have laid bare the fundamental vulnerabilities of the elephant tourism industry. Moreover, how well an elephant has been buffered by the fallout of the pandemic is dependent on the specific relations …


Exploring Eight-Armed Intelligence Through Film, Tierney M. Thys Jan 2020

Exploring Eight-Armed Intelligence Through Film, Tierney M. Thys

Animal Sentience

Mather (2019) provides a rich overview of the elements underlying octopus cognition and behavioral flexibility. Recently, two remarkable natural history films, My Octopus Teacher and The Octopus in My House have explored intimate human-octopus relationships with a wild (Octopus vulgaris) and a captive octopus (Octopus cyanea) respectively. Both films show rare behaviors that offer observations to test new hypotheses as well as a novel perspective on our own human relationships and place within the natural world. An interview with filmmaker Craig Foster from My Octopus Teacher reveals the profound and transformative power of forming a trusting …


Comparative Cognition And Nonhuman Individuality, Catia Correia Caeiro Jan 2020

Comparative Cognition And Nonhuman Individuality, Catia Correia Caeiro

Animal Sentience

Commentators Washington (2019) and Tiffin (2019) point out that the individual vs. collective dichotomy is much more complex than what is considered in the target article. This commentary will focus on why individuals are more important than collectives. Species differences in cognition and emotional processes and individuals’ feelings and experiences need to be taken into account.


Conventional Science Will Not Do Justice To Nonhuman Interests: A Fresh Approach Is Required, Becca Franks, Christine Webb, Monica Gagliano, Barbara Smuts Jan 2020

Conventional Science Will Not Do Justice To Nonhuman Interests: A Fresh Approach Is Required, Becca Franks, Christine Webb, Monica Gagliano, Barbara Smuts

Animal Sentience

Treves et al. (2019) make a convincing case that conservation efforts need to go beyond an anthropocentric worldview. Implementing that vision, however, will require human advocates to represent nonhuman interests. Where will the knowledge of those interests come from? How can humans know what is in the best interest of another animal, a plant, or an ecosystem? We discuss how the values embedded in current scientific practices may be ill-suited to representing nonhuman interests and we offer some ideas for correcting these shortcomings.


Preserving Nature For The Benefit Of All Sentient Individuals, Eze Paez Jan 2020

Preserving Nature For The Benefit Of All Sentient Individuals, Eze Paez

Animal Sentience

I agree with Treves et al.’s proposal for a preservation ethics based on the principle that nonhuman well-being is a matter of justice and compassion. In this commentary, I advance two objections. First, only sentient beings, rather than all life, belong in the moral community. Second, given that nature is probably harmful overall for sentient individuals, preserving it for the benefit of future human and nonhuman generations requires us to modify it as far as practicable.


The Wholeness Of Nature, Marthe Kiley-Worthington Jan 2020

The Wholeness Of Nature, Marthe Kiley-Worthington

Animal Sentience

The target article outlines various positions on conservation and preservation but ignores practical considerations of management since there is no wild habitat left. Population controls, either human or nonhuman mammals, are not discussed. The suggestions for legal changes are vague and will require much more thinking about how to integrate animal welfare with wildlife conservation concerns. “Freedoms” as outlined in the human bill of rights might help with decision making for improving animal welfare. Other commentators have made anthropocentric judgements concerning animal welfare, ignoring the importance of developing other ways of seeing and understanding the “multiplicity within unity,” combining empirical …


Conflicts And Triage, Kate E. Lynch, Daniel T. Blumstein Jan 2020

Conflicts And Triage, Kate E. Lynch, Daniel T. Blumstein

Animal Sentience

To represent diverse interests successfully, a strategy for dealing with conflicts is needed. We discuss an approach to maximizing the interests of the greatest number of individuals, present and future.


Just Preservation, Trusteeship And Multispecies Justice, Francisco J. Santiago-Ávila, Adrian Treves, William Lynn Jan 2020

Just Preservation, Trusteeship And Multispecies Justice, Francisco J. Santiago-Ávila, Adrian Treves, William Lynn

Animal Sentience

We are grateful to all the commentators who engaged with our target article. Some commentators have offered important insights into our proposed design and methods for legally intervening on behalf of futurity. Others have focused on theoretical considerations central to our proposal for multispecies justice and trusteeship. All have inspired modifications and further elaboration of our initial proposal. In this Response, we engage with the commentaries, integrating their suggestions, striving for convergence and complementarity, but also discussing points of divergence with our proposed framework where necessary. There is substantial overlap in the points of view of the three co-authors, but …


No Room For Speciesism In Welfare Considerations, Jennifer Vonk Jan 2020

No Room For Speciesism In Welfare Considerations, Jennifer Vonk

Animal Sentience

Speciesism should play no role in determining welfare outcomes. Cognition may vary within species as well as between species, but broad classifications such as invertebrates are functionally meaningless in this context. Cognition should relate to welfare only to the extent that it relates to the capacity to suffer or to experience pleasure.


Invertebrates Should Be Given Ethical Consideration, Marie-Claire Cammaerts Jan 2020

Invertebrates Should Be Given Ethical Consideration, Marie-Claire Cammaerts

Animal Sentience

Invertebrates are far more numerous than vertebrates. Most of them are essential to the survival of humanity. Their physiology, behavior, know-how, and cognitive abilities are often as complex as those of vertebrates. Invertebrates should be considered and studied as are vertebrates, i.e., ethically, and cautiously.


Lessons From Miniature Brains: Cognition Cheap, Memory Expensive (Sentience Linked To Active Movement?), Giorgio Vallortigara Jan 2020

Lessons From Miniature Brains: Cognition Cheap, Memory Expensive (Sentience Linked To Active Movement?), Giorgio Vallortigara

Animal Sentience

Studies on invertebrate minds suggest that the neural machinery for basic cognition is cheap, and that bigger brains are probably associated with greater memory storage rather than more advanced cognition. Sentience may be linked to feedforward mechanisms (Reafferenzprinzip) that allow organisms with active movement to distinguish active and passive sensing. Invertebrates may offer special opportunities for testing these hypotheses.


Ethical Considerations For Invertebrates, Scarlett R. Howard, Matthew R.E. Symonds Jan 2020

Ethical Considerations For Invertebrates, Scarlett R. Howard, Matthew R.E. Symonds

Animal Sentience

Mikhalevich & Powell (2020) have built on the discussion about which species deserve inclusion in animal ethics and welfare considerations. Here, we raise questions concerning the assessment criteria. We ask how to assess different species for their ability to fulfill the criteria, which criteria are most important, how we quantify them (absolute or on a continuum), and how non-animals such as fungi and plants fit into this paradigm.


The Finch Effect: Evolutionary Metaphors And Illiberal Democracy In Central And Eastern Europe, Abigail Woodfield Aug 2019

The Finch Effect: Evolutionary Metaphors And Illiberal Democracy In Central And Eastern Europe, Abigail Woodfield

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

In recent years, several states in Central and Eastern Europe have seen democratic digression. Such illiberal resurgences came as a surprise to the many political scientists who assumed that the future of these states was democratic. Indeed, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the world largely regarded liberal democracy as the predominant system of government. The future seemed bright, and it was tempting to understand that future in evolutionary terms—just as humans evolved under natural selection to become the dominant species, democracy had survived a similar competition and defeated all other systems of government to become the dominant regime. …


An Early Modern Human Outside Africa, Eric Delson Jul 2019

An Early Modern Human Outside Africa, Eric Delson

Publications and Research

Analysis of two fossils from a Greek cave has shed light on early hominins in Eurasia. One fossil is the earliest known specimen of Homo sapiens found outside Africa; the other is a Neanderthal who lived 40,000 years later.


Solanum Plastisexum, An Enigmatic New Bush Tomato From The Australian Monsoon Tropics Exhibiting Breeding System Fluidity., Angela J. Mcdonnell, Heather B. Wetreich, Jason T. Cantley, Peter Jobson, Christopher T. Martine Jun 2019

Solanum Plastisexum, An Enigmatic New Bush Tomato From The Australian Monsoon Tropics Exhibiting Breeding System Fluidity., Angela J. Mcdonnell, Heather B. Wetreich, Jason T. Cantley, Peter Jobson, Christopher T. Martine

Faculty Journal Articles

A bush tomato that has evaded classification by solanologists for decades has been identified and is described as a new species belonging to the Australian “Solanum dioicum group” of the Ord Victoria Plain biogeographic region in the monsoon tropics of the Northern Territory. Although now recognised to be andromonoecious, S. plastisexum Martine & McDonnell, sp. nov. exhibits multiple reproductive phenotypes, with solitary perfect flowers, a few staminate flowers or with cymes composed of a basal hermaphrodite and an extended rachis of several to many staminate flowers. When in fruit, the distal rachis may abcise and drop. A member of …


Becoming The Good Shepherds, Eze Paez Jun 2019

Becoming The Good Shepherds, Eze Paez

Animal Sentience

It is very important that we clarify what we owe to nonhuman animals. To that end, we need a better understanding of animal cognition and emotion. Marino & Merskin’s target article is a welcome contribution to this project. Sheep, like most other animals, are sentient beings with interests of their own. It is wrong to discriminate against them based on species-membership or cognitive sophistication. We are morally required not to harm them, and to help them have the best possible lives, just as we would be in the case of human beings with similar interests. We must become the good …


The Functional Morphology Of Ingestion In The Platyrrhine Sclerocarpic Harvesters (Platyrrhini, Primates), Zachary Stoffel Klukkert May 2019

The Functional Morphology Of Ingestion In The Platyrrhine Sclerocarpic Harvesters (Platyrrhini, Primates), Zachary Stoffel Klukkert

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The identification of anatomical correlates of diet and feeding behavior in nonhuman primates is an important area of research in biological anthropology. The morphology of the jaws and teeth reflects the phylogeny and adaptations that distinguish taxa and their different ecological niches. Studying the form-function relationships of jaws and teeth in modern species provides a framework for interpreting the diets of extinct species and for inferring the ecological pressures that may have contributed to the evolutionary diversification of primate craniodental morphology. Previous work on modeling primate jaw mechanics has focused largely on the functional context of a closed jaw. Little …


Evolution Of Endurance Running Genes Across Primates, Natalia T. Grube Apr 2019

Evolution Of Endurance Running Genes Across Primates, Natalia T. Grube

Theses and Dissertations

The endurance running hypothesis has emerged as a key idea to explain several unique anatomical, physiological, and genetic features of modern humans—among these features is the evolution of ACTN3 (Bramble & Lieberman 2004, Nature), a gene linked to human athletic performance. An additional gene linked to human endurance performance is ACE. Because endurance running is a uniquely human trait, I predicted that ACE and ACTN3 genes would be evolving adaptively in the human lineage when examined in a wider primatological framework. To test this I compiled ACE and ACTN3 genes from 14 primate species and phylogenetically tested if these genes …


The Morphology And Evolution Of The Primate Brachial Plexus, Brian M. Shearer Feb 2019

The Morphology And Evolution Of The Primate Brachial Plexus, Brian M. Shearer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Primate evolutionary history is inexorably linked to the evolution of a broad array of locomotor adaptations that have facilitated the clade’s invasion of new niches. Researchers studying the evolution of primates and of their individual locomotor adaptations have traditionally relied on bony morphology – a practical choice given the virtual non-existence of any other type of tissue in the fossil record. However, this focus downplays the potential importance of the many other structures involved in locomotion, such as muscle, cartilage, and neural tissue, which may each be influenced by separate selective forces because of their different roles in facilitating movement. …


On Neglected Taxa: Protostomes And The Evolution Of Myelination, Michaella P. Andrade, Charles Morphy D. Santos Jan 2019

On Neglected Taxa: Protostomes And The Evolution Of Myelination, Michaella P. Andrade, Charles Morphy D. Santos

Animal Sentience

Understanding the evolution of nervous and sensory systems in animals is key to understanding the distribution of animal sentience. However, the use of model organisms – mostly vertebrates, and especially mammals – often biases comparative analyses. Sneddon et al. (2018a,b) point out that using nonhuman animals as models helps us better understand the multifaceted aspects of animal pain and sentience. Several concerns need to be considered in dealing with model organisms. Here we discuss how models that are unrepresentative phylogenetically influence hypotheses about the evolution of the myelination in animals. Greater effort is needed to escape “vertebrate-centrism” in evolutionary research.


Intelligence, Complexity, And Individuality In Sheep, Lori Marino, Debra Merskin Jan 2019

Intelligence, Complexity, And Individuality In Sheep, Lori Marino, Debra Merskin

Animal Sentience

Domestic sheep (Ovis aries) are among the earliest animals domesticated for human use. They are consumed worldwide as mutton, hogget, and lamb, kept as wool and milk producers, and used extensively in scientific research. The popular stereotype is that sheep are docile, passive, unintelligent, and timid, but a review of the research on their behavior, affect, cognition, and personality reveals that they are complex, individualistic, and social.


Sacrificial Lambs, Clive Phillips Jan 2019

Sacrificial Lambs, Clive Phillips

Animal Sentience

Sheep evolved from the mouflon as mountain animals, able to escape predation by leaping between rock ledges. Their defense was their agility. Humans brought them to the plains, where the agility was less useful, but their lack of aggression, speed or weaponry against predators made them a prime target to become one of man’s meat providers. A perfect animal in many ways, with extraordinary perceptive powers and some remarkable cognitive skills, they are often treated with complete disregard for their welfare. Yet sheep themselves won’t tell us this, for a sheep that alerted others to its weakness really would be …


Pulling The Wool From Our Eyes, Jennifer Vonk Jan 2019

Pulling The Wool From Our Eyes, Jennifer Vonk

Animal Sentience

Marino & Merskin review evidence of the complexity of sheep cognition, concluding that researchers ought to feel sheepish about misrepresenting ovine cognitive capacities. However, the failure to situate the data in critical context risks pulling the wool over readers’ eyes.


Is Knowing Enough To Change Human Attitudes And Actions?, Liv Baker Jan 2019

Is Knowing Enough To Change Human Attitudes And Actions?, Liv Baker

Animal Sentience

Marino & Merskin present evidence on key aspects of cognition, such as theory of mind, learning, emotional valence, and sociality, to make a convincing argument that sheep are due consideration as individual sentient beings. With this information, what will it take to produce a real, meaningful shift in our attitudes and actions towards other animals, including a species as disadvantaged as sheep? What else do we need to know?


Reflections On Sheep Rearing, Joyce D'Silva Jan 2019

Reflections On Sheep Rearing, Joyce D'Silva

Animal Sentience

Sheep rearing has an incredibly long history. Sometimes this alone can give credibility and status to a human practice. In the twenty-first century, it may be time to reassess our treatment of sheep and their place in nature. “Just because we’ve always done it” no longer has validity by itself. There are many other human practices which used to be accepted widely in certain societies and which we now may find abhorrent. With sheep intelligence now rightly regarded as an acceptable area of research within the academic community, it is a good time to reflect on our treatment of these …


Casting A Sheep’S Eye On Science, David M. Peña-Guzmán Jan 2019

Casting A Sheep’S Eye On Science, David M. Peña-Guzmán

Animal Sentience

Marino & Merskin review evidence that sheep are not just passive and reactive creatures. They have personalities that vary from individual to individual and endure over time. It follows that we must rethink what it means to study them scientifically.


Far More To Sheep Than Meets The Casual Eye, Bernard Rollin Jan 2019

Far More To Sheep Than Meets The Casual Eye, Bernard Rollin

Animal Sentience

Marino & Merskin’s survey of the cognitive and social capacities of sheep is an eye-opener about the individuality and emotionality of this most maligned of all farm animals. My own eyes had already been opened by an adopted orphaned lamb, so much more like a dog as a companion animal than the mindless robot I had been conditioned to expect. I am morally certain that Marino & Merskin’s survey will have a similar effect on readers open to changing their minds.


Sentient Animals Do Not Just Live In The Present, John Webster Jan 2019

Sentient Animals Do Not Just Live In The Present, John Webster

Animal Sentience

Sheep are particularly well-equipped with the cognitive and emotional skills appropriate to their phenotype and natural environment. These include spatial memory, the benefits of safety in numbers, and the ability to recognise special individuals in large flocks by sight and by sound. Marino & Merskin’s target article reviews convincing evidence on whether sheep are more or less clever than other mammalian species. Sheep are very good at being sheep. But sentient animals do not just live in the present. Their emotional state is not simply dictated by events of the moment. If they learn, they can cope; if not, they …