Download or read book Individual Variation and Responses of Animals to Changing Environments written by John Cockrem and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2022-11-15 with total page 145 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Primate Responses to Environmental Change written by H.O. Box and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book concerns the various ways that primates respond to environmental change. By studying these patterns of responsiveness we not only gain useful knowledge about the structural, physiological and behavioural propensities of different species, but also acquire important information relating to issues of contemporary concern, such as conservation and the management of animals in the wild as well as in various forms of captivity. For example, there is growing concern among biologists and conser vationists about the influence of habitat destruction, such as logging, on the fitness and survival of wild primates. There is also increased awareness of the need to improve the care of primates in zoos and laboratories, including the enrichment of captive environments. Further, because an increasing number of primate species are becom ing endangered, knowledge of their responsiveness to new environ ments is an essential requirement for effective breeding programmes in captivity, and for the translocation and rehabilitation of species in the wild. In theory, studies of many closely related species are required in order to consider relevant evolutionary processes, as well as to develop functional hypotheses about the adaptive significance of various biological propensities and their interrelationships in the short and longer terms.

Download or read book Effect of Environment on Nutrient Requirements of Domestic Animals written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1981-02-01 with total page 169 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Conservation Physiology written by Christine L. Madliger and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020 with total page 361 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conservation physiology is a rapidly expanding, multidisciplinary field that utilizes physiological knowledge and tools to understand and solve conservation challenges. This novel text provides the first consolidated overview of its scope, purpose, and applications, with a focus on wildlife. It outlines the major avenues and advances by which conservation physiology is contributing to the monitoring, management, and restoration of wild animal populations. This book also defines opportunities for further growth in the field and identifies critical areas for future investigation. By using a series of global case studies, contributors illustrate how approaches from the conservation physiology toolbox can tackle a diverse range of conservation issues including the monitoring of environmental stress, predicting the impact of climate change, understanding disease dynamics, improving captive breeding, and reducing human-wildlife conflict. Moreover, by acting as practical road maps across a diversity of sub-disciplines, these case studies serve to increase the accessibility of this discipline to new researchers. The diversity of taxa, biological scales, and ecosystems highlighted illustrate the far-reaching nature of the discipline and allow readers to gain an appreciation for the purpose, value, applicability, and status of the field of conservation physiology. Conservation Physiology is an accessible supplementary textbook suitable for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners in the fields of conservation science, eco-physiology, evolutionary and comparative physiology, natural resources management, ecosystem health, veterinary medicine, animal physiology, and ecology.

Download or read book Biology and Ecology of Fishes written by James S. Diana and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2023-06-08 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biology and Ecology of Fishes Immerse yourself in the world of fish ecology with the newest edition of this essential introduction The study of fish ecology has traditionally proceeded along two tracks: the first is more basic, concerned with the anatomy, physiology and theoretical ecology of fish, and the second is more practical, concerning itself with fish populations, management, and habitats. Many fish researchers have come to view this distinction as artificial, and to develop a new study of fish that combines both tracks in a single holistic approach. It has never been more critical for introductory textbooks to represent this combined study in order to prepare the next generation of fish biologists and fishery scientists. Biology and Ecology of Fishes meets this need with a textbook that incorporates both biology and population management. Beginning with a general introduction to aquatic life and ecosystems, this book covers anatomical, environmental, and ethological topics to give a thoroughly rounded view of its subject, promising to serve as the fundamental introduction to multidisciplinary fish studies. Readers of the third edition of Biology and Ecology of Fishes will also find: Detailed coverage of subjects including growth and bioenergetics, feeding and predation, mortality and recruitment and more Increased attention to stressors of fish populations and communities New and revised chapters that introduce quantitative methods and present emerging issues facing fish populations and communities Biology and Ecology of Fishes is a useful overview for advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying fish ecology or fishery biology, as well as a reference for researchers and professionals in fish ecology, fish population management, and related fields.

Download or read book Behavioural Responses to a Changing World written by Ulrika Candolin and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2012-06-14 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Human-induced environmental change currently represents the single greatest threat to global biodiversity. Species are typically adapted to the local environmental conditions in which they have evolved. Changes in environmental conditions initially influence behaviour, which in turn affects species interactions, population dynamics, evolutionary processes and, ultimately, biodiversity. How animals respond to changed conditions, and how this influences population viability, is an area of growing research interest. Yet, despite the vital links between environmental change, behaviour, and population dynamics, surprisingly little has been done to bridge these areas of research. Behavioural Responses to a Changing World is the first book of its kind devoted to understanding behavioural responses to environmental change. The volume is comprehensive in scope, discussing impacts on both the mechanisms underlying behavioural processes, as well as the longer-term ecological and evolutionary consequences. Drawing on international experts from across the globe, the book covers topics as diverse as endocrine disruption, learning, reproduction, migration, species interactions, and evolutionary rescue.

Download or read book Evolution in Changing Environments written by Richard Levins and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-03-31 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Professor Levins, one of the leading explorers in the field of integrated population biology, considers the mutual interpenetration and joint evolution of organism and environment, occurring on several levels at once. Physiological and behavioral adaptations to short-term fluctuations of the environment condition the responses of populations to long-term changes and geographic gradients. These in turn affect the way species divide the environments among themselves in communities, and, therefore, the numbers of species which can coexist. Environment is treated here abstractly as pattern: patchiness, variability, range, etc. Populations are studied in their patterns: local heterogeneity, geographic variability, faunistic diversity, etc.

Download or read book Terrestrial Ecosystems in a Changing World written by Josep G. Canadell and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2007-01-10 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the impacts of global change on terrestrial ecosystems. Emphasis is placed on impacts of atmospheric, climate and land use change, and the book discusses the future challenges and the scientific frameworks to address them. Finally, the book explores fundamental new research developments and the need for stronger integration of natural and human dimensions in addressing the challenge of global change.

Download or read book Understanding Climate s Influence on Human Evolution written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-03-17 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The hominin fossil record documents a history of critical evolutionary events that have ultimately shaped and defined what it means to be human, including the origins of bipedalism; the emergence of our genus Homo; the first use of stone tools; increases in brain size; and the emergence of Homo sapiens, tools, and culture. The Earth's geological record suggests that some evolutionary events were coincident with substantial changes in African and Eurasian climate, raising the possibility that critical junctures in human evolution and behavioral development may have been affected by the environmental characteristics of the areas where hominins evolved. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution explores the opportunities of using scientific research to improve our understanding of how climate may have helped shape our species. Improved climate records for specific regions will be required before it is possible to evaluate how critical resources for hominins, especially water and vegetation, would have been distributed on the landscape during key intervals of hominin history. Existing records contain substantial temporal gaps. The book's initiatives are presented in two major research themes: first, determining the impacts of climate change and climate variability on human evolution and dispersal; and second, integrating climate modeling, environmental records, and biotic responses. Understanding Climate's Change on Human Evolution suggests a new scientific program for international climate and human evolution studies that involve an exploration initiative to locate new fossil sites and to broaden the geographic and temporal sampling of the fossil and archeological record; a comprehensive and integrative scientific drilling program in lakes, lake bed outcrops, and ocean basins surrounding the regions where hominins evolved and a major investment in climate modeling experiments for key time intervals and regions that are critical to understanding human evolution.

Download or read book Physiological Performance Curves across Phylogenetic and Functional Boundaries When are they useful written by Frank Seebacher and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2022-06-06 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Development of Animal Personality written by Ann V. Hedrick and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2017-04-17 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although the topic of animal personality has recently generated much interest, the role of development is little understood. This collection of papers deals with the development of animal personality. Topics include the roles of genetic effects, maternal effects, social partners, predation and parasitism risk, and environmental complexity in the development of personality, the effects of personality on survival, and the development of collective personality and movement as a driver of personality development. The organisms covered include insects, spiders, fishes, and birds. This volume illustrates the diversity of approaches that have shed light on the development of animal personality in the past several years.

Download or read book Variation in Behavioral Responses to Environmental Change written by Sean Michael Ehlman and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In most ecosystems on Earth, environmental change is a constant. Animals must adjust to changing environments through adaptation or phenotypic plasticity lest they perish. There is significant variation, however, in how animals fare: while many populations are negatively affected by rapid human-induced changes, others thrive. So what are the sources of variation in responses to environmental change? While many case studies document responses of organisms to human-induced environmental change, less research exists that seeks to understand these sources of variation in responses. To address this gap, my dissertation identified developmental and evolutionary sources of variation in organismal responses to rapid environmental change. Chapters 1-3 document how developmental and evolutionary forces can shape behavioral responses (and variation therein) of the Trinidadian guppy, a tropical freshwater fish that is a model organism in ecology and evolution, to anthropogenic environmental change. Chapter 4 utilizes theory—particular signal detection theory—to inform predictions regarding prey responses to exotic predators. Here, I provide a very brief summary of the four chapters of my dissertation; more detailed abstracts precede individual chapters. Chapters 1-3 detail an empirical case study where differences in animal responses to anthropogenic change—here, turbidity—depend on developmental or evolutionary experience with said change. Turbidity, or the cloudiness of water, is associated with decreased visibility, and for aquatic organisms that rely on sight, anthropogenic increases in turbidity—such as that caused by upstream rock quarries and deforestation—can have dramatic consequences for both intra- and interspecific interactions. On the Caribbean island of Trinidad, rock quarrying in the Northern Range mountains greatly increases turbidity in many streams. For Chapter 1, I asked two questions: (1) does increased turbidity affect the foraging success of predators and (2) do what degree does this affect long-term demographic patterns? I found that nocturnal predators, evolved to feed in relative darkness, were just as effective at prey capture in turbid vs clear water, whereas diurnal predators were less effective. Demographically, this translated into a decline in diurnal, but not nocturnal, predator abundance in turbid streams after the introduction of a rock quarry upstream. There are two ways of coping with environmental change: via evolution or via phenotypic plasticity. For Chapter 2, I sought to examine the role of developmental plasticity in gene expression and behavior of fish exposed or unexposed to turbid conditions during development. I found significant developmental plasticity in guppy activity levels as well as in the visual system, assayed through probe-based qPCR of opsin gene transcripts. I found that those fish that developed in turbid water compensated for altered visual conditions of turbid water by shifting the expression of color-sensitive proteins (opsins) in their eyes. While Chapter 1 focused on the effects of turbidity on interspecific interactions (predator/prey), Chapter 3 sought to uncover differences in mating behavior between populations with different levels of experience with turbidity. While I did not find substantial population differences between populations in mating behavior, I did find that male guppies assayed in turbid water spent less time associating with females; when they did associate with females, however, they increased the rate of mating behaviors, compensating for lost time. Concurrent with progress on Chapters 1-3, I was also deeply involved in developing theory to understand variation in organismal responses to change as part of a modeling team. This led to the development of a theory project that seeks to examine prey responses to exotic predators as a function of prey experience with native predators; this project is featured here as Chapter 4. In this chapter, I formalize verbal arguments presented in previous literature and examine the effects native-exotic cue similarity, previous rates of (native) predation, and the generalizability of a prey’s predator recognition system (among other things) in governing prey responses to exotic predators.

Download or read book Bird Species written by Dieter Thomas Tietze and published by Springer. This book was released on 2018-11-19 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The average person can name more bird species than they think, but do we really know what a bird “species” is? This open access book takes up several fascinating aspects of bird life to elucidate this basic concept in biology. From genetic and physiological basics to the phenomena of bird song and bird migration, it analyzes various interactions of birds – with their environment and other birds. Lastly, it shows imminent threats to birds in the Anthropocene, the era of global human impact. Although it seemed to be easy to define bird species, the advent of modern methods has challenged species definition and led to a multidisciplinary approach to classifying birds. One outstanding new toolbox comes with the more and more reasonably priced acquisition of whole-genome sequences that allow causative analyses of how bird species diversify. Speciation has reached a final stage when daughter species are reproductively isolated, but this stage is not easily detectable from the phenotype we observe. Culturally transmitted traits such as bird song seem to speed up speciation processes, while another behavioral trait, migration, helps birds to find food resources, and also coincides with higher chances of reaching new, inhabitable areas. In general, distribution is a major key to understanding speciation in birds. Examples of ecological speciation can be found in birds, and the constant interaction of birds with their biotic environment also contributes to evolutionary changes. In the Anthropocene, birds are confronted with rapid changes that are highly threatening for some species. Climate change forces birds to move their ranges, but may also disrupt well-established interactions between climate, vegetation, and food sources. This book brings together various disciplines involved in observing bird species come into existence, modify, and vanish. It is a rich resource for bird enthusiasts who want to understand various processes at the cutting edge of current research in more detail. At the same time it offers students the opportunity to see primarily unconnected, but booming big-data approaches such as genomics and biogeography meet in a topic of broad interest. Lastly, the book enables conservationists to better understand the uncertainties surrounding “species” as entities of protection.

Download or read book Wood Ant Ecology and Conservation written by Jenni A. Stockan and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-07-07 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wood ants play an ecologically dominant and conspicuous role in temperate boreal forests, making a keystone contribution to woodland ecosystem functions and processes. Wood ant taxonomy and global distributions set the scene for this text's exploration of wood ants as social insects, examining their flexible social structures, genetics, population ecology, and behaviour, from nest-mate recognition to task allocation. Wood ants' interactions with their environment and with other organisms are essential to their success: competition, predation and mutualism are described and analysed. Bringing together the expertise of ecological researchers and conservation practitioners, this book provides practical and theoretical advice about sampling and monitoring these insects, and outlines the requirements for effective conservation. This is an indispensable resource for wood ant researchers, entomologists, conservationists and ecological consultants, as well as anyone interested in social insects, keystone species and the management and conservation of forest ecosystems.

Download or read book Captive animal behavior Individual differences in learning and cognition and implications on animal welfare written by Jan Langbein and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2023-01-05 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Heterogeneous responses to environmental change written by Talisin Tess Hammond and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biotic responses to environmental change can vary markedly, even among closely related, ecologically similar species. Such responses may be conspicuous (e.g., climate-associated range shifts) or they may be subtler and more challenging to detect. In the latter case, organisms may use individually variable mechanisms, including modifications of behavior and physiology, to cope with environmental change in situ. Further, in addition to providing mechanisms of response to environmental change, behavioral and physiological traits may be indicators of habitat suitability. Thus, to understand and, ideally, to predict how species will respond to environmental change, it is necessary to determine which traits are associated with vulnerability and to identify which factors constrain range limits for vulnerable species. My dissertation focuses on the behavior and physiology of the alpine chipmunk (Tamias alpinus) and the lodgepole chipmunk (T. speciosus), two co-occurring, closely related species that have been characterized by very distinct spatial responses to environmental change in Yosemite National Park, CA. Over the past century, T. alpinus has contracted its range upward in elevation; during the same period, T. speciosus has displayed no significant elevational range shift. To assess the role of behavioral and physiological variability in generating these responses, I explored interspecific differences in baseline stress hormone (glucocorticoid, GC) levels and behavioral activity budgets with the goal of identifying the environmental factors that are most important for determining range limits in the study species. First, I validated a non-invasive method to measure fecal GC metabolites (FGMs) in both study species. By exposing captive individuals to a series of controlled challenges, I also identified interspecific differences in stress reactivity, with T. alpinus being generally more stress-responsive. Next, I validated the use of accelerometers to remotely document the behavioral activity budgets of the study species, demonstrating that these sensors can be employed to collect behavioral data from free-living animals. I then deployed accelerometers across broader spatial and temporal scales. I used the resulting data to construct models that integrate intrinsic biological and environmental parameters to identify key predictors of activity in each species. I found that, compared to T. alpinus, activity in T. speciosus was characterized by generally greater inter-individual variance and greater variability in response to environmental parameters. Finally, I used FGM data collected over three years and at multiple sites in and around Yosemite National Park in conjunction with data regarding multiple extrinsic (environmental) and intrinsic (life history) parameters to identify the factors that best predict FGMs in the study species. These analyses revealed FGM levels are more strongly related to environmental parameters in T. alpinus than in T. speciosus. In summary, my research indicates that T. alpinus is more stress-responsive to external, environmental challenges, and potentially less flexible in responding behaviorally to environmental conditions than T. speciosus. Overall, these results indicate that behavior and physiology are likely to be important determinants of a species’ response to environmental change. These findings also suggest that individual species vary in their general sensitivity to environmental change, with some species being more change-responsive than others.

Download or read book Humans in an Animal s World How Non Human Animals Perceive and Interact with Humans written by Christian Nawroth and published by Frontiers Media SA. This book was released on 2021-10-20 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: