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Full-Text Articles in Organisms

Microhabitat Use Affects Brain Size And Structure In Intertidal Gobies, Gemma E. White, Culum Brown May 2016

Microhabitat Use Affects Brain Size And Structure In Intertidal Gobies, Gemma E. White, Culum Brown

Culum Brown, PhD

The ecological cognition hypothesis poses that the brains and behaviours of individuals are largely shaped by the environments in which they live and the associated challenges they must overcome during their lives. Here we examine the effect of environmental complexity on relative brain size in 4 species of intertidal gobies from differing habitats. Two species were rock pool specialists that lived on spatially complex rocky shores, while the remainder lived on dynamic, but structurally simple, sandy shores. We found that rock pool-dwelling species had relatively larger brains and telencephalons in particular, while sand-dwelling species had a larger optic tectum and …


Cue Choice And Spatial Learning Ability Are Affected By Habitat Complexity In Intertidal Gobies, Gemma E. White, Culum Brown May 2016

Cue Choice And Spatial Learning Ability Are Affected By Habitat Complexity In Intertidal Gobies, Gemma E. White, Culum Brown

Culum Brown, PhD

Variation in the structural complexity of a habitat is known to have significant affects on the evolution of different populations and can shape behavior, morphology, and life-history traits. Here, we investigated whether habitat complexity influences a species’ capacity for spatial learning and cue choice by comparing the performance of 4 goby species from 2 contrasting habitats in a spatial task. Gobies were collected from dynamic, homogenous sandy shores and stable, spatially complex rock pool habitats. We trained fish to use a T-maze to find a hidden reward and asked whether they used local visual landmarks or body-centered methods for orientation …


About Turkeys, The Humane Society Of The United States Jan 2010

About Turkeys, The Humane Society Of The United States

Agribusiness Collection

John James Audubon, a well-known bird expert and nature enthusiast, described wild turkeys as birds of great beauty. The history and origin of wild turkeys is uncertain, yet many share Audubon’s sentiment that the wild turkey is “one of the most interesting of the birds indigenous to the United States of America.” Today, wild turkeys can be found throughout the nation. Following the selection of the bald eagle as the American symbol, Benjamin Franklin remarked that the turkey was more “respectable”, and a “true original native”.


About Chickens, The Humane Society Of The United States Jan 2010

About Chickens, The Humane Society Of The United States

Agribusiness Collection

The chicken is the world’s most numerous domesticated bird, with over 52 billion farmed worldwide in 2008, rivaling the dog as the most ubiquitous domestic animal globally. These birds have fascinated scholars and researchers since the dawn of Western civilization, and recent studies are beginning to reveal the depths of their complexity and cognitive ability. According to Andrew F. Fraser, professor of veterinary surgery at Memorial University of Newfoundland, and Donald M. Broom, professor of animal welfare at University of Cambridge: “Those who have studied the behaviour of the domestic fowl in detail…, especially those who have looked at feral …