Agricultural and companion animals are integral to our way of life as they provide us with nourishment, financial resources, transportation, and companionship. However, pets, managed animals in the agricultural industry, as well as wild populations of food animals are all subject to health and mortality risks. The gut microbiome is...
The dynamic nature of most environments forces many animals to move to meet their fundamental needs. This is especially true in aquatic environments where shifts in spatial ecology (which are a result of movements) are among the first adaptive responses of animals to changes in ecosystems. Changes in the movement...
Small commercial and non-commercial animal enterprises (SCAEs) raise a few
beef cows, horses, pigs, sheep, poultry, and other animals on a few acres. These
enterprises are often located in suburban areas of watersheds and show potential for
degrading water quality through to increased bacterial, nitrogen, and phosphorus
concentrations. SCAEs implement...
Zoos, aquariums and other free-choice/informal education settings offer the public opportunities to interact with live animals in exhibits through animal encounters and/or touch experiences designed to carry a conservation mission. Many of these institutions are accredited by the American Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and the World Association of...
With 150 million people visiting accredited zoos and aquariums annually, these institutions have the unique opportunity to present conservation-oriented messages to a large and receptive audience. The purpose of this study was to explore the role of interpretation and/or the viewing of live animals in the communication of these messages....
To assess the context dependence of kin discriminating
behavior, I examined kin-biased aggregation behavior in tadpoles
of R. cascadae in different ecological conditions. I manipulated food
distribution, predator presence, thermal heterogeneity, and
relatedness in a multifactorial mesocosm experiment. All four
factors interacted to influence tadpole dispersion. My results
suggest that...
Predator-prey interactions have historically been studied to explain patterns of organization observed in populations and communities. They have also been important in understanding the evolution of antipredator responses in prey and counterstrategies in predators. Despite the breadth of knowledge that exists for heterospecific interactions, relatively few studies have investigated the...
Behavior of grizzly bears (Ursus arctos) toward people was
studied by examining hikers' reports of grizzly bear observations
and by intensively observing grizzlies in an area of Glacier National
Park that was heavily used by day-hikers. Of concern were the apparent
habituation of grizzly bears to people in the study...
Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are a widely distributed baleen whale species, well known for their diverse acoustic behavior. On high-latitude foraging grounds, humpback whales produce a suite of non-song vocalizations (“calls”) in concert with foraging and social behavior. In this dissertation I investigated the role of calls in the acoustic...