Animal Studies Commons^™

National Program Assessment, Animal Health: 2000-2004, Cyril G. Gay

United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

National Program Assessments are conducted every five-years through the organization of one or more workshop. Workshops allow the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) to periodically update the vision and rationale of each National Program and assess the relevancy, effectiveness, and responsiveness of ARS research. The National Program Staff (NPS) at ARS organizes National Program Workshops to facilitate the review and simultaneously provide an opportunity for customers, stakeholders, and partners to assess the progress made through the National Program and provide input for future modifications to the National Program or the National Program’s research agenda. A workshop for Animal Health has been …

An Interim Report Of A Viking-Age & Medieval Archaeofauna From Undir Junkarinsfløtti, Sandoy, Faroe Islands, Thomas H. Mcgovern, Colin Amundsen, Sophia Perdikaris, Ramona Harrison, Yekaterina Krivogorskaya

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Cooperative international excavations at the site of Undir Junkarinsfløtti (27020) in the village of Sandur on the island of Sandoy, Faroe Islands in May 2003 recovered a stratified bone - rich midden deposit extending from the Viking Age to the early medieval period. The animal bone collection contains domestic mammals (cattle, sheep, dog, goat, and pig) and substantial amounts of fish (mainly cod), birds (mainly puffin and guillemot), and shellfish (mainly limpet). While the current collection has the archaeological limitations inherent in column samples, it suggests persistence of substantial pig keeping into the 13th c, and strongly indicates a sustainable …

A 15th C. Archaeofauna From Akurvík, An Early Fishing Station In Nw Iceland, Colin Amundsen, Sophia Perdikaris, Matthew Brown, Yekaterina Krivogorskaya, Salena Modugno, Konrad Smiarowski, Shaye Storm, Malgorzata Frik, Monica Koczela, Thomas H. Mcgovern

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

This is a report of analysis of 15th c bone materials from the site of Akurvík in NW Iceland excavated in 1990. A small international project in Árneshreppur district recovered a series of stratified midden deposits associated with small turf structures on an eroding beachfront. Radiocarbon dates identify at least two major phases of occupation and use, one extending into the mid 13th century, and the other dating to the mid 15th century. This report documents the animal bone collection from the later 15th c occupation. Dominated by cod fish, these deposits appear to be the product of seasonal fishery …

Animal Bones From Sondum (27012) Sandoy, Faroe Islands 200 Season Collection, Thomas H. Mcgovern, Seth Brewington, Sophia Perdikaris, Colin Amundsen

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Introduction

This paper reports on analysis of animal bones collect in 2000 by the Faroese Museum from a stratified but eroding beach front cliff in on the island of Sandoy. The site designation is Sondum, 27012 and the bone materials have been kindly sent to the CUNY laboratories for analysis by the excavator Simun Arge. While conditions of bone preservation are not as good as at the Undir Junkarinsfløtti locality to the SW across the embayment, and sample size is much smaller, a substantial amount of bone was recovered from datable which adds to our understanding of early economic patterns …

Coping With Hard Times In Nw Iceland: Zooarchaeology, History, And Landscape Archaeology At Finnbogastaðir In The 18th Century, Ragnar Edvarsson, Sophia Perdikaris, Thomas H. Mcgovern, Noah Zagor

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

During a cooperative archaeological project in NW Iceland (Strandasýsla) involving the Icelandic National Museum and Hunter College of the City University of New York.1990 season, a small rescue excavation at the site of Finnbogastaðir generated a quantifiable collection of animal bones dating to the early modern period, mainly to the 18th century. The 18th c was a period of hardship in much of Iceland, with widespread tenantry, adverse climate, and degradation of many terrestrial landscapes posing severe challenges to poor farmers- perhaps most intensely in the Vestfirðir. The animal bone collection from Finnbogastaðir reflects a multi-stranded subsistence economy involving seals, …

The Selfish Nature Of Generosity: Harassment And Food Sharing In Primates, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Animals may share food to gain immediate or delayed fitness benefits. Previous studies of sharing have concentrated on delayed benefits such as reciprocity, trade and punishment. This study tests an alternative model (the harassment or sharing–under–pressure hypothesis) in which a food owner immediately benefits because sharing avoids costly harassment from a beggar. I present an experiment that varies the potential ability of the beggar to harass, and of the owner to defend the food, to examine the effects of harassment on food sharing in two primate species: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and squirrel monkeys (Saimiri boliviensis). For …

A Conceptual Framework For Non-Kin Food Sharing: Timing And Currency Of Benefits, Jeffrey R. Stevens, Ian C. Gilby

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Many animal species, from arthropods to apes, share food. This paper presents a new framework that categorizes nonkin food sharing according to two axes: (1) the interval between sharing and receiving the benefits of sharing, and (2) the currency units in which benefits accrue to the sharer (especially food versus nonfood). Sharers can obtain immediate benefits from increased foraging efficiency, predation avoidance, mate provisioning, or manipulative mutualism. Reciprocity, trade, status enhancement and group augmentation can delay benefits. When benefits are delayed or when food is exchanged for nonfood benefits, maintaining sharing can become more difficult because animals face discounting and …

Report Of Animal Bones From Selhagi, Mývatn District, Northern Iceland, Thomas H. Mcgovern, Sophia Perdikaris

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

In 2001 the FSl / NABO project Landscapes of Settlement in Northern Iceland collected animal bones from a stratified midden deposit associated with the abandoned site Selhagi on the property of the modern farm Haganes. Selhagi is located in the lushly vegetated lakeshore zone and its environmental setting presents a strong contrast with the eroded uplands to the S of the lake where the early sites at Sveigakot and Hrísheimur are under excavation. Close to both major migratory waterfowl nesting areas and some of the best trout fishing in Iceland, the site would appear to be optimally located for exploitation …

Preliminary Report Of Animal Bones From Hrísheimur, Mývatn District, Northern Iceland, Sophia Perdikaris, Thomas H. Mcgovern

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

In 2000 and 2001 the FSl / NABO project Landscapes of Settlement in Northern Iceland collected animal bones from the heavily eroded site of Hrísheimur south of lake Mývatn. The 2001 season produced a substantial archaeofauna from a 2 x 2 meter test excavation of a midden deposit that apparently fills a small sunken-feature structure. While further excavations are planned to collect more material and to better understand the deposit and site as a whole, it may be useful to provide an interim overview of the bone materials recovered from the largest context (003) of the midden deposit tested in …

Report Of Animal Bones From Tjarnargata 3c, Reykjavík, Iceland, Sophia Perdikaris, Colin Amundsen, Thomas H. Mcgovern

School of Global Integrative Studies: Faculty Publications

Executive Summary

During rescue excavations in downtown Reykjavík in 1999 nearly 100 kg of well-preserved animal bone was recovered in investigations at Tjarnargata 3 C by Fornleifastofnun Islands (FSÍ) directed by Mjöll Snaesdóttir. This bone collection (or archaeofauna) was largely sieved (4 mm and 1 mm mesh wet screen) and represents one of the largest archaeofauna recovered from Iceland to date. Analysis was carried out at City University of New York’s Northern Science & Education Center’s two zooarchaeology laboratories at Brooklyn College and Hunter College in 2000-01. The analyzed bone materials were returned for long term curation at the National …

Discounting And Reciprocity In An Iterated Prisoner’S Dilemma, David W. Stephens, Colleen M. Mclinn, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

The Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma (IPD) is a central paradigm in the study of animal cooperation. According to the IPD framework, repeated play (repetition) and reciprocity combine to maintain a cooperative equilibrium. However, experimental studies with animals suggest that cooperative behavior in IPDs is unstable, and some have suggested that strong preferences for immediate benefits (that is, temporal discounting) might explain the fragility of cooperative equilibria. We studied the effects of discounting and strategic reciprocity on cooperation in captive blue jays. Our results demonstrate an interaction between discounting and reciprocity. Blue jays show high stable levels of cooperation in treatments with …

The Effect Of Proximity On Landmark Use In Clark’S Nutcrackers, Kristy L. Gould-Beierle, Alan Kamil

Avian Cognition Papers

Clark’s nutcrackers, Nucifraga columbiana, store thousands of pine seeds during the autumn and retrieve them throughout the winter. It has been shown that these birds are able to use visual cues to relocate hidden food in the laboratory. In this set of experiments, we trained three groups of Clark’s nutcrackers to find a hidden food goal that was placed in the same spatial location relative to the testing room. During training, the location of two local cues in relation to the goal differed between the three groups. Group 1 learned the task with the cues closest to the goal, group …

Patterns Of Movement And Orientation During Caching And Recovery By Clark’S Nutcrackers, Nucifraga Columbiana, Alan Kamil, Russell P. Balda, Sally Good

Avian Cognition Papers

Clark’s nutcrackers regularly store large numbers of pine seeds and remember the locations of the cached seeds. Although they are very accurate, they do make some errors during recovery. In an attempt to determine whether any behaviours during caching predicted the occurrence of errors during recovery, we videotaped Clark’s nutcrackers while they cached and recovered seeds under laboratory conditions. We used the videotapes to develop complete, quantitative descriptions of caching and recovery behaviour, with an emphasis on body orientation and directions of movement. During caching, the birds showed the greatest change in their orientation and direction following cache creation. During …

How Do They, Indeed? A Reply To Biegler Et Al., Alan Kamil, Juli E. Jones

Avian Cognition Papers

We trained Clark’s nutcrackers, Nucifraga columbiana, to search halfway between two landmarks while varying the distance between the landmarks (Kamil & Jones 1997). We found that the birds learned the problem readily and generalized to novel interlandmark distances within the range of distances used during training. Unlike some other studies in which responses to proportional distance were obtained (e.g. O’Keefe & Burgess 1996; Tommasi et al. 1997), the nutcrackers showed very precise search and maintained this precision during the transfer test. The distributions of digging locations around the central position were concentrated within ±1–2 cm of the central location …

The Ecology Of Foraging Behavior: Implications For Animal Learning And Memory, Alan Kamil, Herbert L. Roitblat

Avian Cognition Papers

In his recent Annual Review of Psychology article, Snowdon (1983) discussed the synthesis of ethology and comparative psychology. A similar synthesis of behavioral ecology and animal learning is beginning to take place. This article reviews developments in the behavioral ecology and ethology of foraging behavior relevant to psychological research on animal learning. The psychological literature shows that animals possess a wide range of learning abilities, including “simple” classical and operant conditioning; they acquire spatial, nonspatial, and temporal discriminations; they exhibit various forms of rule learning (e.g. matching-to-sample and learning set), and may even in certain senses learn language. Why does …

Control Of Insect Pests In Recent Mammal Collections, S. L. Williams, Hugh H. Genoways, D. A. Schlitter

University of Nebraska State Museum: Mammalogy Papers

A review is made of numerous insecticides to determine their suitability for use in Recent mammal collections. Factors determining their value were based on human safety, ability to protect specimens without adverse effects, and other considerations. The more favorable insecticides to use in mammal collections include Dowfume 75, sulfuryl fluoride. dimethyldiclorovinyl phosphate, paradichlorobenzene, carbon dioxide, and naphthalene. Insecticides that are considered less favor able because of many limitations included aldrin, dieldrin, arsenic, borax, mitin, ethylene oxide, methoxychlor, methyl bromide, and pyrethrum. There are some insecticides that should never be used because of extreme health and/or fire hazards. These include carbon …

Optimal Foraging Theory And The Psychology Of Learning, Alan Kamil

Avian Cognition Papers

The development of optimization theory has made important contributions to the study of animal behavior. But the optimization approach needs to be integrated with other methods of ethology and psychology. For example, the ability to learn is an important component of efficient foraging behavior in many species, and the psychology of animal learning could contribute substantially to testing and extending the predictions of optimal foraging theory.

Spatial Learning As An Adaptation In Hummingbirds, Susan Cole, F. Reed Hainsworth, Alan Kamil, Terre Mercier, Larry L. Wolf

Avian Cognition Papers

An ecological approach based on food distribution suggests that hummingbirds should more easily learn to visit a flower in a new location than to learn to return to a flower in a position just visited, for a food reward. Experimental results support this hypothesis as well as the general view that differences in learning within and among species represent adaptations.

Visual Detection Of Cryptic Prey By Blue Jays (Cyanocitta Cristata), Alexandra T. Pietrewicz, Alan Kamil

Avian Cognition Papers

Blue jays learned to respond differentially to the presence or absence of Catocala moths in slides. This detection of the moths by the jays was affected by the background upon which the moth was placed and its body orientation, thus providing an objective measure of crypticity. These procedures are useful for the study of visual detection of prey.

Some Parameters Of The Second-Order Conditioning Of Fear In Rats, Alan Kamil

Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences

The effects of CS1 duration, partial reinforcement, and trace conditioning on second-order conditioned suppression were investigated, employing 64 rats as Ss. In Experiment 1, the clearest second-order conditioning was obtained when CS1 duration was the same during both the first- and the second-order conditioning phases of the experiment. In Experiment 2, somewhat better second-order conditioning was obtained when first-order conditioning had been under conditions of partial reinforcement, delay CS-US pairing. In neither experiment were CS1 suppression and CS2 suppression during second-order testing well correlated. This aspect of the results raised the question of the influence of nonclassical conditioning factors on …

The Role Of Adventitious Reinforcement In Operant Discrimination, Alan Kamil, John W. Davenport

Avian Cognition Papers

Rats were trained in 2 S^D-S^Δ discrimination experiments in which the effects of an S^D-postponement contingency during S^Δ and temporal regularity of S^Δ duration were assessed. Experiment I showed that discrimination is markedly facilitated by the presence of an S^D-postponement contingency of either fixed or variable duration. Experiment II showed that variable-duration S^Δ periods in a noncontingent schedule can also greatly enhance formation of an operant discrimination. These effects were attributed to differences in the probability of adventitious reinforcement of S^Δ behavior by S^D events.

Nebraska 4-H Sheep Manual : Extension Circular 2-71-2, W. A. Buchanan, Et Al.

Nebraska 4-H Clubs: Historical Materials and Publications

A beginning manual for the 4-H sheep project. Discusses all aspects of selecting and raising a sheep for this project.

Union Stock Yards Tour For Students Of The Nebraska College Of Agriculture, Union Stock Yards Company

Nebraskiana Publications: Resources and Materials on the 37th State

Greetings to the Students of the University of the State of Nebraska C. of A.: The Itinerary

South Omaha Live Stock Market is THIRD LARGEST CATTLE MARKET / SECOND LARGEST HOG MARKET / SECOND LARGEST SHEEP MARKET / LARGEST FEEDER MARKET / LARGEST RANGE HORSE MARKET

Total Receipts of Live Stock for Year 1916, 7,749,518 head.

Value of Live Stock sold at South Omaha during 1915, more than $194,000,000.00

How the South Omaha Market Ranked in 1916