Dogs Dumbed Down by Domestication

It is commonly accepted that dogs, in general, are just not as smart as some other house pets like cats for example. Is this because dogs are just naturally not as smart as other domestic animals or have humans “dumbed down” dogs through domestication? According to a DiscoveryNews article by Jennifer Viegas, “the blank stare in your dog’s eyes could be the result of thousands of years of human intervention.”

Jennifer Viegas argues that dogs have lost their problem solving skills because they rely so heavily on humans to solve problems for them. Viegas points to an experiment conducted at the Dingo Discovery Center in Victoria, Australia to draw her conclusion. The study put dingoes, native dogs to the Australian Outback, and domesticated dogs through a problem solving test researchers called, “the detour task”. The task is a test of spatial problem solving skills because it requires the dogs to go around a transparent V-shaped fence with detour doors which swing both inward and outward to find a bowl of food at the end. The dingoes aced the test by reaching the food in about 20 seconds and using the detour doors at the correct times. However, the domesticated dogs were perplexed and bewildered. The domestic dogs pawed at the fence, dug at it, and even barked out of frustration calling for help.

The study was accepted for publication in the journal Animal Behaviour, because it provides solid evidence that humans have “dumbed down” dogs through domestication, leaving them without some problem solving skills wolves and wild dogs have. This experiment and its findings help explain why homeless dogs often struggle to survive. Overall, this study helps explain that there may be cognitive differences between wild and domestic dogs in terms of how they approach problem solving. Rob Appleby, a researcher in the Wildlife-Human Ecology and Behavior Research Lab at Griffin University said that the difference in how wild and domestic dogs approach problem solving potentially relates, “to their differing evolutionary histories.”

I thought this article was very interesting and tied in really well with the course’s first week of material. I think this article provides a great example of how species adapt based on their environment and in this case adaption is not necessarily a positive thing. After reading this article and the results of “the detour task” experiment I completely agree with Appleby. The difference in problem solving between wild and domestic dogs originates from their different evolutionary histories, in which, one of the driving variables is human intervention or domestication.

Loba Alam

The Curious Case of Benjamin Mouse

If you have seen the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, then you know that the main character lived his life backwards. Instead of aging he grew younger. In a study by Ronald DePinho, director of the Belfer Institute of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and colleagues at Harvard Medical School, they were able to reverse the signs of aging in frail mice.

In this study, they engineered mice that aged rapidly and did not produce an enzyme called telomerase. This enzyme protects the ends of DNA from being lost during DNA replication. They gave the mice a special form of estrogen that caused the mice to produce the enzyme only when this supplement was given. The mice with no telomerase production in a previous study did not live passed 6 months rather than the normal 3 year lifespan.

The results show that after 4 weeks of giving the mice this time released estrogen there was noticeable rejuvenation in these weak mice. They became fertile, their brains and other organs grew, and their cognitive ability improved. However, they do not know if aging can be delayed in a normal mouse.

These types of studies can help give hope to human aging-diseases, like progeria which causes very rapid aging, because telomerase has a similar function in humans. There is of course risks in doing human trials. Extra amounts of telomerase can cause tumors in normal mice. It could be possible that this effect can occur in humans as well.

-Katie Cyr (A)

Depression-Like Behavior Observed in Zebrafish

We often think of depression as solely affecting humans, and we rarely associate animal behavior to this disorder. However, researchers have recently discovered that disrupting stress responses in zebrafish can trigger depression-like behavior. These findings help to corroborate the long-believed notion that one’s emotional wellbeing depends on an individual’s ability to respond to stress.

Zebrafish are a popular model system used in biological research because their embryos are transparent, easy to manipulate, and they are more closely related to humans than other invertebrate models such as C.Elegans and Drosophila. This study represents the first case in which a zebrafish mutant has been observed to develop a psychological disorder. Baier and his colleagues noticed that zebrafish with genetic mutations in their glucocorticoid (GC) receptor genes, when repeatedly isolated from others, stopped swimming and hid in the corners of the tank. Isolation from the group acts as a stress inducer in this experiment, and increases the level of stress hormones in the zebrafish. In normal zebrafish, this increased level of stress hormone would be balanced by GC receptor genes, however, zebrafish with GC receptor mutations could not control their levels of stress hormone and thus showed signs of depression. When the mutated fish were placed in tanks containing fluoxetine (Prozac), their abnormal behavior was reversed.

It is not known yet if similar symptoms of depression in humans can be attributed to genetic mutations in the glucocorticoid receptor genes, but if it does, then new antidepressant treatments should be aimed at resurrecting glucocorticoid function.

- Amanda Grafstein

The bolder the bug...

Personality is not a trait specific to humans and some mammals. Scientists in Europe have shown that bugs have individual personalities and different behavioral traits.

In this experiment, scientists took firebugs, some with long wings and some with short wings, from wild populations and placed them in different situations. They wanted to test the fear response and response to a stimulus of different bugs. They set up an arena with four colored objects scattered around. In the first test, a firebug was placed in a vial, which was then put into the arena and flicked. The scientists then measured the time it took for the bug to leave the vial. In the second test, the bugs were put in a vial, and then shaken out into the center of the arena. The scientists measured how long it took for the bugs to move after being placed in the arena, the time it took for the bug to reach a wall, and also how many objects the bug explored.

The first test, with the vial as a refuge, was a way to quantify the boldness of the bug. The bolder the bug, the quicker it left the vial after being placed in the arena.

The second test, being shaken into the arena, was seen as a measure of how explorative the bug is. The less time it took for the bug to move to the wall of the arena and the higher the number of objects it investigated indicate a more explorative bug.

After collecting data on each bug four times, the scientists then compared both between sexes and between wing size, as well as between trials and contexts. They found that each bug behaved consistently over time, between trials and contexts, showing that there is a range of personality that is specific to each bug, not dependent on the circumstances. When comparing wing size to personality, they found that in females, long-winged bugs are both bolder and more explorative than short winged bugs. In males, both types of bugs had similar measurements for boldness and exploratativeness.

These results, from wild firebugs, paralleled those of another group who tested similar variables in bugs raised in the lab.

These results are interesting because they open our eyes to the idea of animals having personalities. We may have observed this phenomenon in domesticated animals such as dogs, cats or horses, but it is kind of cool to think about it in bugs.

Posted By Muriel Herd

Females Like Heroes Not Zeros

Stanford University conducted a study on female African cichlid fish that showed females prefer males that win fights verses those that lose. The setup for the study consisted of an aquarium split into three see-through compartments. The female was placed in the center and a male was placed on either side. The female would show mating behavior towards one male suggesting that she selected that particular male. The two males were put in the same compartment where they engage in aggressive fighting behavior with one another. After the fight ended, scientists dissected the female’s brains.

Scientists found a significant difference in brain activity of females when the preferred male won and when the preferred male lost. When a female witnessed her preferred mate lose a fight, her brain showed signs of anxiety. When a female witnessed her preferred mate win a fight, her brain showed increased activity in the area associated with reproduction and pleasure.

Since the females were killed in order to look at their brains, there is no way of knowing if the females would still prefer a male that lost or if they would switch to the male that won. More research on this behavior is needed.

Biologists suggest that this behavior is also found in humans although it may be subconscious. Failure in any competitive situation including losing a game, failing to get a promotion, and physical violence may lead to loss of interest for both males and females.

Posted by: Sara Weaver

Mosquito Nets

We as humans have lived comfortably mosquito and black fly free thanks to the invention of bug spray. But can you imagine what it would be like to have to face hungry blood sucking insects with out a shield? It would be very unpleasant and would most likely increase our risk of contracting diseases and it would make us very itchy and all in all, not a very fun camping experience. Now, would you expect pests like ours to be a problem under water? Probably not one of the biggest problems with living in the sea but it is still a threat to many marine species. And some species have come up with a mechanism to keep the bed bugs out while they are trying to get some shut eye.

A recent study found that Parrotfish and Wrasses are capable of creating their own "mosquito nets" out of mucus produced by large glands behind their gills. While the parrotfish go to sleep, the mucus is secreted and envelopes their entire body, leaving only a small hole at the mouth so they can breath. This, researchers aren't completely sure why this net works but they believe, might help to prevent chemical signals from the fish from reaching parasites as well as provide a physical barrier between the parasites and the fish, and block their odors from escaping and reaching the parasites.

During the day, parrotfish and wrasses allow cleaner fish in their coral reefs to cleanse them of harmful parasites but at night, when they sleep, they have no defense. The protection gained from these nets is why, researchers believe, the mucus nets have evolved. Another interesting observation is that these mucus nets can also envelope a second fish and protect a cozy pair of sleeping Parrotfish.

Source: http://news.discovery.com/animals/fish-pest-control.html

By,

Meghan Nichols

Evolution in Action

The venom injection system in snakes is both complex and sophisticated. As we have wondered with many other traits, such as insect flight, how did this intricate system evolve?

“Modern venomous snakes have tube-like fangs that inject poison directly into their victims, helping them to kill prey without a struggle.” It has been hypothesized that these hollow fangs evolved from a set of grooved fangs. The developmental process of modern venomous fangs, which change shape as they grow in the snake’s mouth, supports this. The fangs begin with an open groove, and then break through the gum as a sealed tube. These syringe-like fangs are seen in the oldest snake fossil records, up to 20 million years ago. So how did this system develop?

Jonathan Mitchell at the University of Chicago in Illinois has been given a lead to the early evolution of venomous fangs. The Uatchitodon, a reptile that existed approximately 200 million years ago and is only known from its teeth, has been the source of this lead. At one research site, 14 specimens were found with grooved teeth. At a second site, 26 were found with fully developed tubes. These findings mimic what is observed with fang development in modern snakes. However, many questions still remain and further finding are need to support this theory. For example, herpetologist Wolfgang Wüster at Bangor University, UK says that “finding Uatchitodon jaws would be important, to check whether specimens with hollow fangs — but not those with grooved teeth — had compressor muscles that could squirt venom into prey.”

You can check out the article here.

Jen Kodela

The Aye Aye's Specialized Use of Their Third and Fourth Fingers

Lhota Stanislay et al. researched the specialised use of the third and fourth finger digits in four Aye Aye of Mananara River from April through October of 2003. The researches were looking to find what foraging roles these fingers have and whether the fourth has a primary role in some of these behaviors. They hypothesized that the third finger is used for narrow space foraging, mobility and for sensitivity while the fourth larger digit would be used for scooping and penetrating into deeper spaces.

Finger functions were classified under four categories including probing, putting one digit in mouth, grooming with one digit and tapping with one finger on substrate. They then defined the foods consumed specifically for probing observations. These included coconut, kernels, jackfruit, soft tissue, and nectar.Using a combination of ad libitum sampling, for momentary behaviors, and instantaneous sampling, for 30 minute periods of observations,they were able to gather data. They used binomial tests on each individual and as a tally of the groups behaviors to come up with the following conclusions.

Both fingers were used for grooming and probing. The third finger primarily does tapping (almost solely). Only this finger is put into the mouth to take food off of it and may be used to pick teeth. It was used during nectar consumption and ant/insect consumption from within twigs, livewood, bamboo, and kernels. The fourth digit scoops coconut pulp into pieces for the third finger to extract, as well as being used to widen holes in softer woody substrates. Lastly, they discovered that the aye aye's fourth finger helps with supporting the animals position. This gives rise to the question that this may have led to the third fingers divergent form.

The Aye Aye's fascinating finger morphology and function is an interesting example of animal behavior and natural selection for specialized traits. I found this information to be very interesting. Please learn more here.

Posted by Shyla Morsbach(8)

Cats Show Perfect Balance Even in Their Lapping

Besides being known for their precise stalking and hunting abilities, quick agile movements, gravity-defying balance, and loveable personalities, domestic cats have also shown exceptional abilities when lapping milk. New studies have shown that domestic cats have an extreme way of lapping milk that perfectly balances the forces of nature. Cats, who were previously thought to lap milk using their tongue as a "J-shaped" ladle, actually have a different, more subtle yet elegant mechanism for lapping milk.

When a cat drinks milk, the only part of their tongue that touches the liquid is the top, smooth surface of its tongue. As they drink, the smooth tip of its tongue barely touches the top of the milk and then the cat rapidly pulls back its tongue creating a milk column between the surface of the milk and its tongue. This milk column persists until the cat closes its mouth, pinching and stopping the milk column. This special milk column is created by the balance of gravity (the force pulling the milk back towards the bowl) and inertia (the tendency of the milk to continue moving in a direction until another force stops it). Even more surprisingly, cats innately know how quickly to lap and when to close off this milk column. Also, different species of cats from domestic cats to lions, lap more quickly or more slowly to balance off these forces depending on the size of their tongue.

Researchers studied this phenomenon over a range of cat species (large wild cats to domesticated cats). To research this, scientists video recorded various species of cats drinking milk and slowed down the recordings to determine the speed of their tongue and the frequency of lapping. Additionally, they also made a robotic version of a tongue that laps milk using the same mechanism to manipulate these studies with different factors. All in all, their research suggests that cats choose a precise lapping speed in order to maximize the amount of milk ingested per lap.

If you want to read more about this interesting study, click here!

Posted by Abbie Lamarre-DeJesus (2)

Martin Wikelski from "Great Migrations"

Martin Wikelski is working through National Geographic and "has created a suite of tiny radio transmitters and biomonitors to track the doings of some 50 different species on the move." Great Migrations is a program on National Geographic that showcases his findings. His lab has created small devices that are places on all different kinds of animals in order to record how they are behaving and communicating with each other along with their migration patterns. Wilkelski gave the example, "You could follow a Mexican freetail bat, which might be just one of a million leaving a cave. I flew in my small plane with one for seven hours the other night, maybe 1,500 feet above it all the time. I was listening to every wingbeat it was making. That's when you start to understand what they're doing."

Another area of his study is the behavior of bats in Ghana. These bats transmit tons of seeds as well as diseases throughout the country. They do both good and bad, but Wikelski felt research on their behavior would be helpful to Ghana. His team was the first to conduct research and they started last year and are now waiting for the bats to return in their annual migration.

Wikelski also cover species amongst insects such as bees and butterflies, and songbirds. National Geographic originally funded his ideas although they were pretty far out. As a result his research has made huge steps in our understanding of animal behavior, migration, and communication. To read the full interview with him, go to the following site: http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/news/chiefeditor/2010/11/great-migrations-tracing-birds.html.

Posted by: Bailey Mannix

Noise Interference in Underwater Communication

Sound is very important for communication. It is especially crucial underwater, where often animals cannot rely on other senses such as vision to communicate. Marine mammals in particular use sound a great deal, whether to communicate within or between groups, detect the presence of predators, locate prey, or even orient themselves in their environment. However, increases in human activity on and in the ocean have also caused the aquatic environment to become much noisier. This article details the concerns researchers have that this increase may interfere with communication and thus have an adverse effect on marine mammal populations.

Several studies have provided examples of groups of marine mammals decreasing activity or even abandoning an area due to a noisy environment. Gray whales in Baja California abandoned a popular breeding lagoon for about a decade due to shipping and dredging in the area. Researchers studying a dolphin population in Shark Bay, Australia, noted that dolphins avoid certain foraging grounds during increased boat traffic.

Sound travels much more quickly through water than through air, which likely compounds the negative effects of noise interference. Marine mammals have developed sophisticated sound systems to communicate with each other and to orient themselves. Toothed whales, such as dolphins, tend to use high frequencies, while baleen whales use lower frequencies. The high frequencies of toothed whales are capable of finding small prey (less than 1 m) tens or hundreds of meters away. The low frequency calls are ideal for long distance communication between the highly migratory baleen whales. One study calculated that shipping noises have caused the "detectable range" of these low frequency signals has decreased from hundreds of kilometers to tens of kilometers. While marine mammals naturally have developed mechanisms to compensate for a noisy environment, the noise caused by human activity is not something they have evolved to deal with, and could have long-lasting effects on both individuals and populations as they struggle to deal with the problems caused by interference in communication. These problems include stress, lost opportunities for feeding or mating, confusion in signals (which may cause strandings in some cases), and extra expended energy as animals attempt to communicate through or over the extraneous noise.

This particular article emphasized the uncertainty factor in examining and addressing this problem. Testing the effects of noise interference on animals than can send signals hundreds of kilometers away presents obvious difficulties. The aquatic environment also makes this research much trickier, and provides fewer opportunities for study of captive or laboratory animals. The increased noise in aquatic environments remains a concern for people interested in conservation and animal welfare.

Grunt it out

Many have tried teaching chimpanzees and other apes sign language in order to break the barrier of human and ape communication. Though the apes are able to learn signs, scientist still don't consider them to learn the language and in some cases not even aware of context.
New discoveries however are showing that Chimpanzees are aware of the social impact of their communication. The study has been in process observing the Sonso chimps of Uganda undisturbed since 1990.
In the case of the pant grunt call (which means that one ape is subordinate to another ape), scientist were lead to believe that the pant grunt call was specifically and only used for declaring rank among the group. But through years of study they found more than just acoustic variation within the pant grunt and other calls of the chimps. The researchers found that female chimps modify their use of the pant grunt signal depending on which other chimps are listening. If the alpha male was in earshot, the female chimps often refused to greet another male. The presence of the alpha female also inhibited lower ranking chimps from communicating.
This is where the interpretation is still being found. Some scientist believe they don't want to start a fight or provoke an aggressive male by talking to another, some believe that certain females will talk to certain males in order to bring their ranking up amongst the group.
Prof Zuberbuhler is the leading scientist for this running experiment and he goes to say this:
"Monitoring the effects of one's own communication signals on the audience is a key component in this process. The current study shows that chimpanzees do the same, thus revealing some of the evolutionary roots of a key capacity required for language in our closest living relative. Our common ancestor which lived some six million years ago must have been able to do the same."

If what these scientist found is true, then what other apes can communicate like us?

-Peter Lucas

I had an animal get into my house and i could not figure out what it was because i did not recognize its markings and coloring. It had a white belly and dark gray coloring on it s back with a black bushy part at the end of its tail. it looked just like a weasel but about half the size. i tried to lure it back outside with some dog food, grapes and cheese but it would not eat any even though it showed interest by sniffing at me when i held the food out. it was skiddish but did not seem to be bothered by people being around. it liked to watch us from hiding places but if i looked away for a second it would disappear.

After doing some research i discovered that it was an ermine or stoat. These animals are part of the mustelid family which means that they communicate chemically with scent glands. I found this articles http://www.esf.edu/aec/adks/mammals/ermine.htm about ermine which helped me identify it and understand why it was behaving the way it was. When they are startles or defending themselves, an ermine will release a strong musky odor from its anal glands after stomping its feet. they usually don't make sounds but i did hear it squeak when i first found it in the house. I have not yet detected a musky scent but i am not sure that the ermine has felt threatened enough to let the scent out.

Ermine are mostly solitary animals except during mating season and when females raise young. An ermines home range can vary from 25 to 100 acres. They can also use more than one den at once living in the burrows of previous prey animals. They are omnivorous, so i don't know why it would not eat the food that i offered unless it will only eat freshly killed animals. The fact that they often occupy previous burrows of prey makes me think that it caught a squirrel or mouse living in the house. The article said that starvation is one of the main causes of death in ermine because of its high metabolism.

One thing that i am wondering is how would i go about trapping an ermine to let it loose outside again?

Posted by Amber Kapchinske

New All-Female Lizard Species Discovered on Vitnamese Menus

Owing to the great diversity of life on our planet, scientists are still discovering new species to study and describe. It’s the ultimate achievement for a scientist, and many spend their careers seeking out new species in the most remote locations of the world. What’s even more exciting however, is when a scientist stumbles upon an unknown species that’s right under their nose. This was the case when a group of researchers discovered a species of lizard unknown to science-- on the menus of Vietnamese restaurants.
The newfound lizard, Leiolepis ngovantrii, is also of special interest because it is an all-female species that reproduces via cloning. Single-gender lizards are not totally uncommon, about one percent are thought to be able to reproduce via parthenogenesis, or spontaneous ovulation and production of offspring with the exact same genetic makeup.
The lizard was discovered by a father-son herpetologist team who were clued into the lizard’s cloning ability when they noticed that the members of the species all looked remarkably alike. They recognized the lizard as belonging to the Leiolepis genus, in which males and females have distinct morphological differences. Wherever the lizards were being sold, there were no males to be found.
The team suspects that the species is a hybrid from maternal and paternal lines of two related lizard species, a phenomenon that sometimes occurs in transition zones between two habitats. Genetic testing of mitochondrial DNA has allowed the team to identify the maternal species, but since this type of DNA is only passed down through females, the paternal species is still a mystery.
Although the species seems to be fairly common in this area, scientists say that single-gendered hybrid species are at a higher risk of extinction because they can’t produce much genetic diversity from generation to generation, which keeps a species viable and healthy in the long term. Genetic variation can only arise by random mutations, which have the same chance of being detrimental as beneficial. Others counter this by arguing the case for mules: hybrids, because their individual cells are more diverse than nonhybrids, can be tougher and more adaptable. Hybrids, like mules, can be really robust, and in some cases have preferable traits, although they are sterile. So in this case, the lizard is like a mule that can clone itself.

-Jane de Verges
Group A

Beyond Vocalizations and the Typical “Ribbit”

What comes to mind when you think about communication between frogs? The typical “ribbit” sound might play in your head. However, researchers at Boston University have discovered a more unique mode of communication. Red-eyed treefrogs use vibrations as signals in aggressive interactions.

During breeding, each male treefrog defends a calling site that is at minimum 0.5 meters away from another male’s territory. Competition over females may cause a male to lift himself off the plant and subsequently contract and extend his hind limbs. His lower body shakes during this tremulation display, and vibrations are sent through the plant. Researchers sought to mimic these calls using a robotic frog and an electrodynamic shaker in playback experiments. Males responded with their own tremulation displays, and the characteristics of the vibrations varied depending on the size of the male and context. Consequently, the signals encode information about the aggression and status of the signaler. The visual playbacks also elicited the strongest response from males, showing that multiple modes of signaling are essential in aggressive interactions. Researchers even discovered that the vocalizations of treefrogs can create vibrations in plants and carry additional information to the receiver.

An author of the research article remarks that this behavior is quite frequent, but humans have tended to neglect vibrations as a possible mode of communication. Furthermore, previous studies had used white light when observing the frogs. Infrared light was instead used in these experiments and the disturbance was therefore reduced. Researchers were able to view a wider range of behaviors, contributing to a more complete ethogram of aggressive interactions between males.

We now know that there is more to frogs than the typical “ribbit” sound they produce. Additionally, discovery of vibrations has opened up new avenues in research regarding other species. Researchers believe that this form of communication could be common among many arboreal vertebrates, including birds, lizards, and primates. Consequently, numerous aspects of animal communication remain unknown to humans.

To read more about this recent discovery, click here.

Posted by Katie Kalutkiewicz

Rabbit food is not just good for rabbits..

With our new contraceptive technologies, we have inadvertently contaminated water supplies with estrogen. This estrogen is great for humans as a synthetic ingredient for the birth control pill, but not good for wildlife living in or around the contaminated waterways. As you all know, the "pill" is used by women to prevent pregnancy, or in other words it greatly decreases their reproductive success. The water that has been contaminated is acting like a "pill" and is having even more damaging effects. The waterways have interferred with the endocrne system of many of the animals that call these places home, like fish, birds, and reptiles. Some symptoms include the presence of both male and female sex organs, feminization of males, malformed reproductive organs, skewed sex ratios, reduced fertility, and more.

Luckly, it has been found by reasearchers from the University of Cincinnati that rabbit food has the ability to absorb estrogen in contaminated water by more than 80 percent! It even absorbed more estrogen in a a 3 day period than clay, starch, casein (protein in cheese and milk), or tryptone (amino acid). These results show that there is now a promising method for removing this extra estrogen that is reeking havoc on the reproductive systems of many animals. Since rabbit food is just shredded plants, the researchers think that other plants will have the same effect. Hopefully all the waterways will eventually be estrogen free and these cute animals can continue to procreate and send their genes onto the next generation.

-Katie Cyr (A)

Experimental Tests of Latrine Use and Communication by River Otters

Experimental Tests of Latrine Use and Communication by River Otters

When I think about communication between two species I either think about visual cues or vocal noises. There are a wide variety of other communication methods that animals as well as humans use. One type of communication method are chemical signals. Nearctic River Otters are an example of an animal that uses chemical signals. The otters deposit feces, scat jellies, urine, and dark colored anal gland secretion at latrine sites. Depositing these odor markings is physically costly, therefore there must be an adaptive reason as to why they do it.

Scientists ran an experiment to test the role of the marks. The scientists found five active latrine sites. They then covered the sites with a new layer of sand. They used the sand to see how many new tracks were made and then intuitively reasoned how many otters visited the site. After covering the sites with sand the scientists removed the old scat from the territory and replaced the sites either with local or non local new scat. They did the study for seventy days.

The scientists found that the sites replaced with scat from non local otters were visited far more. The scat on these sites were also moved around and often replaced with new scat. Urine markings in these areas also increased. This experiment showed that the river otters can tell the difference between local and non local markings. This experiment backs up the notion that the otters use these markings as territorial borders within different social groups. The otters use the scat to determine if the territory they are in belongs to other members of their social group.

Charles Carville

This New Movie is Brought to you by...

… a monkey.

Well, specifically a female capuchin monkey named Capucine, who finally had a film Oedipe accepted into the Clermont-Ferrand film festival in France. After ten years in training to use all the equipments needed to direct a movie, Oedipe is her very own film. Ordering around the people and sitting in her director's chair, she has become the very first non-human animal to direct and film a motion picture.

Capucine actually started training as a service animal for disabled people and was serving a quadriplegic man, until the man and others started to notice her high interest in television and cameras. With such passion, the people at the Japanese primate research center started the filmmaking project for primates, although Capucine remains the top talent. Her film Oedipe had received mixed reviews. Some claimed it as a "cut and paste" job while others comment on its "originality and modern approach."

Nonetheless, Capucine is just like any other monkey. She only has a high interest in a certain "human" category, which makes her one of the many animals that does human-like activities. As of late, we hear about all kinds of animals learning to paint (e.g. elephants and chimpanzees), playing instruments (e.g. cats on the piano), and much more. Clearly these skills are mainly gained through captivity (although I do remember an orangutan in the wild that lives near the village that enjoys doing laundry for no other reason than enjoyment perhaps… I just don't remember when I heard about this), as these animals adopt "human" activities. This is just one of the ways an animal adopts a certain skill that allows people to understand them (or just for the pure pleasure of having fun). It is difficult for people to understand or communicate with animals without turning the interaction into a sort of dog-and-man relationship (i.e. we teach the animal do something, and they do it with an award). Capucine is just one monkey that likes to show her ideas or works through a media she enjoys using and is understandable to people.

Fun fact: Capucine enjoys watching King Kong and ET on her free time. She also likes to play Donkey Kong.

For the Article: Monkey Directs and Creates her Own Film

Posted by Leona Chan (Group A, Due: 11-9-10)

Their Nose Knows

Usually when one thinks of rats, they either picture a dirty disease-spreading rodent in a sewer or clean white lab-rats used for experimentation. However, Bart Weetjens, the founder of APOPA, a Dutch non-governmental organization working to train rats to help detect TNT in landmines, is hoping to change this perception. Weetjens considers the rats he trains to be heroes.

Currently, it takes de-miners an entire day to clear a 200 square-meter plot of land in Mozambique of hidden land-mines in order to re-open the land for use. However, with the use of trained rats, a field of the same size can be cleared within two hours. According to Weetjens, rats are “very effective” and have “very high success rates” when it comes to the detection of explosives. How exactly are the rats trained to perform such a difficult task? The answer is Pavlovian conditioning.

Training of the rats begins at four weeks of age and starts with the mere exposure of these small rodents to human contact. Once they have become habituated to human contact and interaction and are no longer afraid of people and new surroundings, they are trained to associate a clicking sound with food. This is done by simply making the sound each time the rats are fed. Once the rats are trained to associate the click to the reward of food, they are trained to distinguish the scent of TNT from other smells. When they correctly distinguish the smell of TNT, they hear the clicking sound and are rewarded with a food treat, such as a piece of banana, thus reinforcing the link between TNT detection and food. Within 9 months, the rats are ready to move to the field and begin detecting land-mines, which can be deactivated and safely removed by workers.

Because rats have a natural ability to detect scents and are easy to train, they make the perfect animal for the job, much more effective than mine-sniffing dogs. Weetjen is confident that the future for these so called “hero-rats” is bright. He believes that rats can be trained and used in similar situations to sniff out narcotics or to search for survivors of disasters such as Earthquakes or collapsed buildings.

- Posted by Amanda Grafstein

Play in the Animal Kingdom

Play is a big part of human life. It is something we all grow up doing in order to relieve stress and relax ourselves. Whether its playing call of duty or a game of soccer, play is something we all do at some point. Are humans the only ones that play though? Studies have been done on numerous animals and it has been recognized that animals also play.

Biopsychologist Gordon Burghardt while visiting the National Zoo in Washington, DC peaked in on a Nile soft-shelled turtle by the name of Pigface and realized he was doing something Turtles were unknown to do at the time, he was playing basketball. At the time play had been rarely seen by animals and not much was known on the subject. He began to study play and wrote an article he entitled recess. This article outlined Burghardt’s five criteria for play and he became one of the first people to do this.

Jennifer Mather at the University of Lethbridge in Canada recently discovered bizarre behavior in her two octopus research subjects. “If you give an [octopus] something new, it will grab it in its arms and bring it up to its mouth, probably exploring it chemically. This would usually happen a couple of times until it knew what it was, and didn’t bother anymore. But these two, it’s like they suddenly thought, Maybe I can do something with this.” She is referring to her subjects blowing jet streams of water at empty pill bottles. Is this play? Because there has not been much research done on the subject of animals playing, it is hard to say but what is known is that animals do exhibit times of bizarre unexplained behavior like this. If a dog was running after a basketball would this be considered play and how does this differ from a turtle? You decide.

Read more: Recess - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences http://www.the-scientist.com/2010/10/1/44/1/#ixzz14qBUOZOG

Posted by “Alberto Suarez”

Dominance Signals in Humans and Differences in Their Perception

In class, we’ve discussed many examples of signals that are given unintentionally. For example, the size of the black spot on the necks and breasts of house sparrows is correlated with the dominance of the birds. Unintentional signals such as these are also sent and responded to by humans. In the article “Taller men are less sensitive to cues of dominance in other men,” Watkins et. al discusses visual signals that indicate dominance in men and the responses of other men to theses signals.

The authors of this paper altered voice recordings and pictures of men’s faces to be “more masculine” and “more feminine.” Each voice recording was raised and lowered in pitch and the pictures of the faces were changed in ways that have previously been shown to be perceived as more masculine or more feminine. Then, a group of males was asked to choose which of the altered recordings or photographs seemed “more dominant.” Generally, the masculinized faces and voices were perceived as more dominant than the feminized versions. However, it was also found that there was a negative correlation between the height of males and their ability to distinguish between more dominant and less dominant voices and faces. Shorter males were, in general, more accurate than taller males. In other experiments, height has been shown to be an indicator of dominance in human males. The paper proposed that shorter (and therefore less dominant) males are have a higher ability to distinguish between more and less dominant males because this is a more necessary ability in less dominant individuals. It is, therefore, more adaptive for less dominant males to have this ability.

This paper raised a lot of interesting questions, especially because its subject was communication signals in humans. Is it really true that physical characteristics beyond a person’s control such as height or voice pitch can indicate personality traits such as dominance? Another interesting point made by the paper was that self-reported dominance of men did not correlate with their ability to distinguish between more dominant and less dominant males while a more concrete physical indication of dominance such as height did correlate. As people, how often do we send and receive signals that we are not even aware of?

-Lauren Lynch

Frogs and Compases.

It is well known now in the scientific community that many species of animals use the Geographic magnetic field to direct where they are going. Studies have been done on several species of birds and reptiles testing this hypothesis and trying to prove it. Franciso j. Diego-Rasilla and John B. Phillips had an Idea to test this very theory in a new way. They wanted to find out if animals are able to use the geomagnetic field for orientation wanted to find out whether the environment that they developed played a larger role than the simple genetics of the creature. To test this theory, they used Iberian green frog tadpoles. Many amphibians have been tested in labs to have magnetic orientation so using frogs was a great start.

They collected a group of Iberian frog tadpoles from a stream in northern Spain. All of the tadpoles were collected from the same side of the same stream to insure no experimental error. They immediately divided these tadpoles into two testing tanks. One testing tank was aligned along the magnetic north south axis where the shore was facing south and the deeper end facing north. The other was configured so that it was facing the east-west direction with the shore on the east and the deeper end on the west. Both tanks were identical in every way besides their alignment. The deeper ends were dark, the water was constantly filtered (to resemble an actual stream) and the shore was approximately 1 cm in depth. They again made the experiment consistent on both groups to ensure no experimental error.

The Tadpoles were left in the Tanks for five days. These five days acted as a teaching mechanism for to learn the y axis direction (direction of the shore) before testing them. During this time tadpoles in both tanks were fed lettuce placed at shore on a daily basis. No other interactions were made between the tadpoles and the outside forces.

After the five day learning period was done, the actual testing began. The tadpoles were taken out individually and put into a small plastic container with 1 cm of water depth that was aligned relative to the tank the tadpole had just been removed from. For example if the tadpole had been removed from the north/south tanks, the container he would be put into was aligned north to south. The individual tadpoles were left for 5 min in this individual isolation tank. From there the tadpole was placed into the testing tank and given on minute to calm down from human handling. After that 1 minute passed, the tadpoles were released into a symmetrical container that had no shores. The experimenters watch the tadpoles swim to one part of the testing container and marked which direction they hit first. Some tad poles were given a geographical magnetic field and others were tested in lab engineered magnetic fields. The experimenters used a device that can rotate the geographic north to either, south, west, or east. An equal number of tadpoles were tested on each of the magnetic fields. For testing purposes, tadpoles that responded in less than 10s were disqualified from the results and greater than 10m were also disqualified due to the exhibition of randomly oriented escapes these tadpoles showed.

The results were rather remarkable. Tad poles that had been held in the north-south tanks showed a bimodal magnetic compass orientation which means they showed orientation along the shore/deep water axis (x axis). Contrary to the tadpoles that had been held in the east-west tanks that showed orientation towards the shore (y axis). This notable difference is enough to infer that Tadpoles learn their magnetic compass response to orientate themselves.

Baby Monkey Black Market

A recent study published in Animal Behavior has shown that among female vervet and sooty mangabey monkeys, grooming is traded in exchange for getting to play with baby monkeys. Female monkeys are eager to cuddle with baby monkeys, even those that are not their own offspring. However, the mothers of the babies often demand grooming from the interested female before allowing play time.

Incredibly, these exchanges have been shown to be a ‘market’ and follow market forces. The price, or grooming time for the mom, varies depending on how many babies are around, or the supply. When the first babies are born, the mothers can demand longer grooming sessions from interested females than later on in the season when there are more infants around. In other words, when the supply is low at the beginning of the season, the price is higher than at the end of the season, when the supply is higher.

The age of the baby also determines the price the mom can demand in exchange for playtime. The younger the monkey, the longer the mom was groomed. Friendships and associations also impacted the accessibility to the babies. Monkeys that were familiar and liked by the mom would get to hold the babies in exchange for less grooming than would be demanded from a lesser-known female. Finally, another factor is a female’s ranking within the group. High-ranking females who want to handle a baby did not have to invest as much time grooming as would a lower ranked female interacting with the same mom.

I find it incredible that monkeys in these interactions can interpret the ‘market’ in order to get what they want. If a lower ranked female wants to play with an infant, she has to be able to decipher the correct grooming time needed to satisfy the mother. But the correct time would be different depending on if the female knows the mother or if she is higher or lower ranking than the mother. I knew that monkeys had complex social structures and interactions but I find it fascinating that we can apply something so human as market forces to monkeys playing with cute babies.


-Posted by Muriel Herd

The Face in Your Mirror

To look in the mirror and see oneself reflected is a phenomenon we take for grated, but show one to a caveman and- whether they recognized their own image or not- they would not dismiss it arbitrarily. Every animal sends out messages about itself and its surroundings, and if these are played back to it they often respond as if hearing another animal give the same message. If you were saying “there’s a cat nearby” and your neighbor said the same thing, you would not necessarily be concerned. But sometimes, animals do not respond to their own signals as expected.
Bark beetles play a crucial role in forest ecology because they reproduce in the inner bark of living and dead trees. This helps decay debris and keep the forest healthy, but they can become a pest if they kill too many live trees where live trees are needed. Researchers have recently found that bark beetles make short squeaky sounds as they burrow through the bark, and played a recording of their sounds to bark beetles to see how or if it would influence their behavior.
It certainly did.
The beetles veered off their straight lines into tight circles and spun around, they attacked and ate each other (cannibalism is not normal behavior) and even tried to eat through the plexiglass of their container when this experiment was performed in the lab! Research is being done into how these signals can be used to redirect the beetles out of live trees. For those who are curious, the question of if this is ethical treatment of a species has been brought up, but only briefly.
I have never heard of being driven so insane by one’s own signals before. But it does make me wonder, if a creature of limited intelligence heard its own “voice” being directed at it, would we really expect them to react differently? The oddity is that they have any sense of “my own signal” at all. That they recognize themselves, so to speak, in the mirror.

-Alice Trei

How The Number Of Spouses Influences Reproductive Success

I had never stopped to wonder whether the number of spouses a male or female has affects the number of children each has. I found an interesting publication in the journal Behavioral Ecology called “Serial Monogamy Increases Reproductive Success in Men but not in Women” by Markus Jokela. He and his team of researchers predicted that males seek more sexual partners than females because of their higher fitness benefits from having this be their reproductive strategy.

Because of this, they hypothesized that the variance in numbers of partners and offspring is expected to be greater and association between mating and reproductive success to be stronger in males. To do this, they used the data of 3700 men and 4010 women living across the United States and noted the sex differences in the variance of number of spouses and offspring and in the association between spouse number and number of offspring.

As you may have assumed, the results showed that there was a stronger selective advantage of serial monogamy in men than in women. This means that variance in spouse and offspring number was, respectively, 5% and 10% higher in men. In addition, the data recorded displayed that the association between mating and reproductive success was stronger in men than woman. This could be seen because men with 3 or more consecutive spouses had 19% more children than men with only spouse. At the same time, women did not show any relationship between the number of children and number of spouses after the first spouse.

Interestingly, the sex differences were even stronger among Black and Hispanic participants than among White participants. I wonder if there is data showing further differences, possibly neighborhood and income levels, and whether the sex differences are even farther then those already observed in the data, specifically regarding males. Learning about these trends shows us that reproductive success can be measured in humans as well as other species through analysis of different types of data (in this case demographics), and that humans are similar to other species in mate selection after all.


Ahmed Sandakli (3)