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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2015

Mammals

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Climate And Species Richness Predict The Phylogenetic Structure Of African Mammal Communities, Jason Kamilar, Lydia Beaudrot, Kaye Reed Apr 2015

Climate And Species Richness Predict The Phylogenetic Structure Of African Mammal Communities, Jason Kamilar, Lydia Beaudrot, Kaye Reed

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We have little knowledge of how climatic variation (and by proxy, habitat variation) influences
the phylogenetic structure of tropical communities. Here, we quantified the phylogenetic
structure of mammal communities in Africa to investigate how community structure
varies with respect to climate and species richness variation across the continent. In addition,
we investigated how phylogenetic patterns vary across carnivores, primates, and ungulates.
We predicted that climate would differentially affect the structure of communities
from different clades due to between-clade biological variation. We examined 203 communities
using two metrics, the net relatedness (NRI) and nearest taxon (NTI) indices. We
used simultaneous autoregressive …

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Seasonal Change In The Avian Hippocampus., David F Sherry, Scott A Macdougall-Shackleton Apr 2015

Seasonal Change In The Avian Hippocampus., David F Sherry, Scott A Macdougall-Shackleton

Brain and Mind Institute Researchers' Publications

The hippocampus plays an important role in cognitive processes, including memory and spatial orientation, in birds. The hippocampus undergoes seasonal change in food-storing birds and brood parasites, there are changes in the hippocampus during breeding, and further changes occur in some species in association with migration. In food-storing birds, seasonal change in the hippocampus occurs in fall and winter when the cognitively demanding behaviour of caching and retrieving food occurs. The timing of annual change in the hippocampus of food-storing birds is quite variable, however, and appears not to be under photoperiod control. A variety of factors, including cognitive performance, …

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