Ontogenetic and among-individual variation in foraging strategies of northeast Pacific white sharks based on stable isotope analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Sora L; Tinker, M Tim; Estes, James A; Koch, Paul L

2012-01-01

There is growing evidence for individuality in dietary preferences and foraging behaviors within populations of various species. This is especially important for apex predators, since they can potentially have wide dietary niches and a large impact on trophic dynamics within ecosystems. We evaluate the diet of an apex predator, the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), by measuring the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope composition of vertebral growth bands to create lifetime records for 15 individuals from California. Isotopic variations in white shark diets can reflect within-region differences among prey (most importantly related to trophic level), as well as differences in baseline values among the regions in which sharks forage, and both prey and habitat preferences may shift with age. The magnitude of isotopic variation among sharks in our study (>5‰ for both elements) is too great to be explained solely by geographic differences, and so must reflect differences in prey choice that may vary with sex, size, age and location. Ontogenetic patterns in δ(15)N values vary considerably among individuals, and one third of the population fit each of these descriptions: 1) δ(15)N values increased throughout life, 2) δ(15)N values increased to a plateau at ∼5 years of age, and 3) δ(15)N values remained roughly constant values throughout life. Isotopic data for the population span more than one trophic level, and we offer a qualitative evaluation of diet using shark-specific collagen discrimination factors estimated from a 3+ year captive feeding experiment (Δ(13)C(shark-diet) and Δ(15)N(shark-diet) equal 4.2‰ and 2.5‰, respectively). We assess the degree of individuality with a proportional similarity index that distinguishes specialists and generalists. The isotopic variance is partitioned among differences between-individual (48%), within-individuals (40%), and by calendar year of sub-adulthood (12%). Our data reveal substantial ontogenetic and

Ontogenetic and among-individual variation in foraging strategies of northeast Pacific white sharks based on stable isotope analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, S.L.; Tinker, M. Tim; Estes, J.A.; Koch, P.L.

2012-01-01

There is growing evidence for individuality in dietary preferences and foraging behaviors within populations of various species. This is especially important for apex predators, since they can potentially have wide dietary niches and a large impact on trophic dynamics within ecosystems. We evaluate the diet of an apex predator, the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias), by measuring the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope composition of vertebral growth bands to create lifetime records for 15 individuals from California. Isotopic variations in white shark diets can reflect within-region differences among prey (most importantly related to trophic level), as well as differences in baseline values among the regions in which sharks forage, and both prey and habitat preferences may shift with age. The magnitude of isotopic variation among sharks in our study (>5‰ for both elements) is too great to be explained solely by geographic differences, and so must reflect differences in prey choice that may vary with sex, size, age and location. Ontogenetic patterns in δ15N values vary considerably among individuals, and one third of the population fit each of these descriptions: 1) δ15N values increased throughout life, 2) δ15N values increased to a plateau at ~5 years of age, and 3) δ15N values remained roughly constant values throughout life. Isotopic data for the population span more than one trophic level, and we offer a qualitative evaluation of diet using shark-specific collagen discrimination factors estimated from a 3+ year captive feeding experiment (Δ13Cshark-diet and Δ15Nshark-diet equal 4.2‰ and 2.5‰, respectively). We assess the degree of individuality with a proportional similarity index that distinguishes specialists and generalists. The isotopic variance is partitioned among differences between-individual (48%), within-individuals (40%), and by calendar year of sub-adulthood (12%). Our data reveal substantial ontogenetic and individual dietary

Ontogenetic and among-individual variation in foraging strategies of northeast Pacific white sharks based on stable isotope analysis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sora L Kim

Full Text Available There is growing evidence for individuality in dietary preferences and foraging behaviors within populations of various species. This is especially important for apex predators, since they can potentially have wide dietary niches and a large impact on trophic dynamics within ecosystems. We evaluate the diet of an apex predator, the white shark (Carcharodon carcharias, by measuring the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope composition of vertebral growth bands to create lifetime records for 15 individuals from California. Isotopic variations in white shark diets can reflect within-region differences among prey (most importantly related to trophic level, as well as differences in baseline values among the regions in which sharks forage, and both prey and habitat preferences may shift with age. The magnitude of isotopic variation among sharks in our study (>5‰ for both elements is too great to be explained solely by geographic differences, and so must reflect differences in prey choice that may vary with sex, size, age and location. Ontogenetic patterns in δ(15N values vary considerably among individuals, and one third of the population fit each of these descriptions: 1 δ(15N values increased throughout life, 2 δ(15N values increased to a plateau at ∼5 years of age, and 3 δ(15N values remained roughly constant values throughout life. Isotopic data for the population span more than one trophic level, and we offer a qualitative evaluation of diet using shark-specific collagen discrimination factors estimated from a 3+ year captive feeding experiment (Δ(13C(shark-diet and Δ(15N(shark-diet equal 4.2‰ and 2.5‰, respectively. We assess the degree of individuality with a proportional similarity index that distinguishes specialists and generalists. The isotopic variance is partitioned among differences between-individual (48%, within-individuals (40%, and by calendar year of sub-adulthood (12%. Our data reveal substantial ontogenetic and

Are great tits (Parus major) really optimal foragers?

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Berec, Michal; Křivan, Vlastimil; Berec, Luděk

2003-01-01

Roč. 81, - (2003), s. 780-788 ISSN 0008-4301 R&D Projects: GA AV ČR IAA6007303 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z5007907; CEZ:MSM 123100004 Keywords : Optimal foraging theory * optimal prey selection Subject RIV: EG - Zoology Impact factor: 1.115, year: 2003

Quitting time: When do honey bee foragers decide to stop foraging on natural resources?

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Michael eRivera

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Honey bee foragers may use both personal and social information when making decisions about when to visit resources. In particular, foragers may stop foraging at resources when their own experience indicates declining resource quality, or when social information, namely the delay to being able to unload nectar to receiver bees, indicates that the colony has little need for the particular resource being collected. Here we test the relative importance of these two factors in a natural setting, where colonies are using many dynamically changing resources. We recorded detailed foraging histories of individually marked bees, and identified when they appeared to abandon any resources (such as flower patches that they had previously been collecting from consistently. As in previous studies, we recorded duration of trophallaxis events (unloading nectar to receiver bees as a proxy for resource quality and the delays before returning foragers started trophallaxis as a proxy for social need for the resource. If these proxy measures accurately reflect changes in resource quality and social need, they should predict whether bees continue foraging or not. However, neither factor predicted when individuals stopped foraging on a particular resource, nor did they explain changes in colony-level foraging activity. This may indicate that other, as yet unstudied processes also affect individual decisions to abandon particular resources.

Individual differences in foraging strategies of parasitic sabre-tooth blennies.

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Andrea Bshary

Full Text Available Originally, evolutionary game theory typically predicted that optimal behaviour in a given situation is uniform or bimodal. However, the growing evidence that animals behave more variably while individuals may differ consistently in their behaviour, has led to the development of models that predict a distribution of strategies. Here we support the importance of such models in a study on a coral reef fish host-parasite system. Parasitic blennies (Plagiotremus sp. regularly attack other fishes to bite off scales and mucus. Individuals of some victim species react to being bitten with punishing the parasite through aggressive chasing. Our field observations and laboratory experiments show that individual blennies differ markedly in how they incorporate being punished into their foraging decisions. We discuss how these differences may affect the payoff structure and hence the net effect of punishment on punishers and on the appearance of a public good for look-alikes.

Habitat-specific foraging strategies in Australasian gannets

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Melanie R. Wells

2016-07-01

Full Text Available Knowledge of top predator foraging adaptability is imperative for predicting their biological response to environmental variability. While seabirds have developed highly specialised techniques to locate prey, little is known about intraspecific variation in foraging strategies with many studies deriving information from uniform oceanic environments. Australasian gannets (Morus serrator typically forage in continental shelf regions on small schooling prey. The present study used GPS and video data loggers to compare habitat-specific foraging strategies at two sites of contrasting oceanographic regimes (deep water near the continental shelf edge, n=23; shallow inshore embayment, n=26, in south-eastern Australia. Individuals from the continental shelf site exhibited pelagic foraging behaviours typical of gannet species, using local enhancement to locate and feed on small schooling fish; in contrast only 50% of the individuals from the inshore site foraged offshore, displaying the typical pelagic foraging strategy. The remainder adopted a strategy of searching sand banks in shallow inshore waters in the absence of conspecifics and other predators for large, single prey items. Furthermore, of the individuals foraging inshore, 93% were male, indicating that the inshore strategy may be sex-specific. Large inter-colony differences in Australasian gannets suggest strong plasticity in foraging behaviours, essential for adapting to environmental change.

Consensus and experience trump leadership, suppressing individual personality during social foraging

Science.gov (United States)

McDonald, Nicholas D.; Rands, Sean A.; Hill, Francesca; Elder, Charlotte; Ioannou, Christos C.

2016-01-01

Whether individual behavior in social settings correlates with behavior when individuals are alone is a fundamental question in collective behavior. However, evidence for whether behavior correlates across asocial and social settings is mixed, and no study has linked observed trends with underlying mechanisms. Consistent differences between individuals in boldness, which describes willingness to accept reward over risk, are likely to be under strong selection pressure. By testing three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) in a risky foraging task alone and repeatedly in shoals, we demonstrate that the expression of boldness in groups is context-specific. Whereas personality is repeatable in a low-risk behavior (leaving a refuge), the collectively made consensus decision to then cross the arena outweighs leadership by bolder individuals, explaining the suppression of personality in this context. However, despite this social coordination, bolder individuals were still more likely to feed. Habituation and satiation over repeated trials degrade the effect of personality on leaving the refuge and also whether crossing the arena is a collective decision. The suppression of personality in groups suggests that individual risk-taking tendency may rarely represent actual risk in social settings, with implications for the evolution and ecology of personality variation. PMID:27652342

Consensus and experience trump leadership, suppressing individual personality during social foraging.

Science.gov (United States)

McDonald, Nicholas D; Rands, Sean A; Hill, Francesca; Elder, Charlotte; Ioannou, Christos C

2016-09-01

Whether individual behavior in social settings correlates with behavior when individuals are alone is a fundamental question in collective behavior. However, evidence for whether behavior correlates across asocial and social settings is mixed, and no study has linked observed trends with underlying mechanisms. Consistent differences between individuals in boldness, which describes willingness to accept reward over risk, are likely to be under strong selection pressure. By testing three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus) in a risky foraging task alone and repeatedly in shoals, we demonstrate that the expression of boldness in groups is context-specific. Whereas personality is repeatable in a low-risk behavior (leaving a refuge), the collectively made consensus decision to then cross the arena outweighs leadership by bolder individuals, explaining the suppression of personality in this context. However, despite this social coordination, bolder individuals were still more likely to feed. Habituation and satiation over repeated trials degrade the effect of personality on leaving the refuge and also whether crossing the arena is a collective decision. The suppression of personality in groups suggests that individual risk-taking tendency may rarely represent actual risk in social settings, with implications for the evolution and ecology of personality variation.

Group foraging increases foraging efficiency in a piscivorous diver, the African penguin

Science.gov (United States)

McGeorge, Cuan; Ginsberg, Samuel; Pichegru, Lorien; Pistorius, Pierre A.

2017-01-01

Marine piscivores have evolved a variety of morphological and behavioural adaptations, including group foraging, to optimize foraging efficiency when targeting shoaling fish. For penguins that are known to associate at sea and feed on these prey resources, there is nonetheless a lack of empirical evidence to support improved foraging efficiency when foraging with conspecifics. We examined the hunting strategies and foraging performance of breeding African penguins equipped with animal-borne video recorders. Individuals pursued both solitary as well as schooling pelagic fish, and demonstrated independent as well as group foraging behaviour. The most profitable foraging involved herding of fish schools upwards during the ascent phase of a dive where most catches constituted depolarized fish. Catch-per-unit-effort was significantly improved when targeting fish schools as opposed to single fish, especially when foraging in groups. In contrast to more generalist penguin species, African penguins appear to have evolved specialist hunting strategies closely linked to their primary reliance on schooling pelagic fish. The specialist nature of the observed hunting strategies further limits the survival potential of this species if Allee effects reduce group size-related foraging efficiency. This is likely to be exacerbated by diminishing fish stocks due to resource competition and environmental change. PMID:28989785

Variations of thiaminase I activity pH dependencies among typical Great Lakes forage fish and Paenibacillus thiaminolyticus.

Science.gov (United States)

Zajicek, J.L.; Brown, L.; Brown, S.B.; Honeyfield, D.C.; Fitzsimons, J.D.; Tillitt, D.E.

2009-01-01

The source of thiaminase in the Great Lakes food web remains unknown. Biochemical characterization of the thiaminase I activities observed in forage fish was undertaken to provide insights into potential thiaminase sources and to optimize catalytic assay conditions. We measured the thiaminase I activities of crude extracts from five forage fish species and one strain of Paenibacillus thiaminolyticus over a range of pH values. The clupeids, alewife Alosa pseudoharengus and gizzard shad Dorosoma cepedianum, had very similar thiaminase I pH dependencies, with optimal activity ranges (> or = 90% of maximum activity) between pH 4.6 and 5.5. Rainbow smelt Osmerus mordax and spottail shiner Notropis hudsonius had optimal activity ranges between pH 5.5-6.6. The thiaminase I activity pH dependence profile of P. thiaminolyticus had an optimal activity range between pH 5.4 and 6.3, which was similar to the optimal range for rainbow smelt and spottail shiners. Incubation of P. thiaminolyticus extracts with extracts from bloater Coregonus hoyi (normally, bloaters have little or no detectable thiaminase I activity) did not significantly alter the pH dependence profile of P. thiaminolyticus-derived thiaminase I, such that it continued to resemble that of the rainbow smelt and spottail shiner, with an apparent optimal activity range between pH 5.7 and 6.6. These data are consistent with the hypothesis of a bacterial source for thiaminase I in the nonclupeid species of forage fish; however, the data also suggest different sources of thiaminase I enzymes in the clupeid species.

Individual differences in decision making by foraging hummingbirds.

Science.gov (United States)

Morgan, Kate V; Hurly, T Andrew; Healy, Susan D

2014-11-01

For both humans and animals preference for one option over others can be influenced by the context in which the options occur. In animals, changes in preference could be due to comparative decision-making or to changes in the energy state of the animal when making decisions. We investigated which of these possibilities better explained the response of wild hummingbirds to the addition of a decoy option to a set of two options by presenting Rufous hummingbirds (Selasphorus rufus) with a foraging experiment with two treatments. In each treatment the birds were presented with a binary choice between two options and a trinary choice with three options. In treatment one the binary choice was between a volume option and a concentration option, whereas in treatment two the same volume option was presented alongside an alternative concentration option. In the trinary choice, birds were presented with the same options as in the binary choice plus one of two inferior options. Birds changed their preferences when a poorer option was added to the choice set: birds increased their preference for the same option when in the presence of either decoy. Which option differed across individuals and the changes in preference were not readily explained by either energy maximisation or the decoy effect. The consistency in response within individuals, however, would suggest that the individual itself brings an extra dimension to context-dependent decision-making. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Cognition in the wild. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Depiction of Wild Food Foraging Practices in the Media: Impact of the Great Recession

Science.gov (United States)

Sonya Sachdeva; Marla R. Emery; Patrick T. Hurley

2018-01-01

The practice of gathering and harvesting wild foods has seen renewed interest in recent decades. In addition to contributing to food security and food sovereignty, foraging plays a role in promoting socioecological resilience and creating communities of belonging. However, foraging is generally prohibited by regulations governing public lands in the United States and...

Improving the Yield and Nutritional Quality of Forage Crops

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Nicola M. Capstaff

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Despite being some of the most important crops globally, there has been limited research on forages when compared with cereals, fruits, and vegetables. This review summarizes the literature highlighting the significance of forage crops, the current improvements and some of future directions for improving yield and nutritional quality. We make the point that the knowledge obtained from model plant and grain crops can be applied to forage crops. The timely development of genomics and bioinformatics together with genome editing techniques offer great scope to improve forage crops. Given the social, environmental and economic importance of forage across the globe and especially in poorer countries, this opportunity has enormous potential to improve food security and political stability.

Hybrid value foraging: How the value of targets shapes human foraging behavior.

Science.gov (United States)

Wolfe, Jeremy M; Cain, Matthew S; Alaoui-Soce, Abla

2018-04-01

In hybrid foraging, observers search visual displays for multiple instances of multiple target types. In previous hybrid foraging experiments, although there were multiple types of target, all instances of all targets had the same value. Under such conditions, behavior was well described by the marginal value theorem (MVT). Foragers left the current "patch" for the next patch when the instantaneous rate of collection dropped below their average rate of collection. An observer's specific target selections were shaped by previous target selections. Observers were biased toward picking another instance of the same target. In the present work, observers forage for instances of four target types whose value and prevalence can vary. If value is kept constant and prevalence manipulated, participants consistently show a preference for the most common targets. Patch-leaving behavior follows MVT. When value is manipulated, observers favor more valuable targets, though individual foraging strategies become more diverse, with some observers favoring the most valuable target types very strongly, sometimes moving to the next patch without collecting any of the less valuable targets.

Vision and foraging in cormorants: more like herons than hawks?

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Craig R White

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Great cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo L. show the highest known foraging yield for a marine predator and they are often perceived to be in conflict with human economic interests. They are generally regarded as visually-guided, pursuit-dive foragers, so it would be expected that cormorants have excellent vision much like aerial predators, such as hawks which detect and pursue prey from a distance. Indeed cormorant eyes appear to show some specific adaptations to the amphibious life style. They are reported to have a highly pliable lens and powerful intraocular muscles which are thought to accommodate for the loss of corneal refractive power that accompanies immersion and ensures a well focussed image on the retina. However, nothing is known of the visual performance of these birds and how this might influence their prey capture technique. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We measured the aquatic visual acuity of great cormorants under a range of viewing conditions (illuminance, target contrast, viewing distance and found it to be unexpectedly poor. Cormorant visual acuity under a range of viewing conditions is in fact comparable to unaided humans under water, and very inferior to that of aerial predators. We present a prey detectability model based upon the known acuity of cormorants at different illuminances, target contrasts and viewing distances. This shows that cormorants are able to detect individual prey only at close range (less than 1 m. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: We conclude that cormorants are not the aquatic equivalent of hawks. Their efficient hunting involves the use of specialised foraging techniques which employ brief short-distance pursuit and/or rapid neck extension to capture prey that is visually detected or flushed only at short range. This technique appears to be driven proximately by the cormorant's limited visual capacities, and is analogous to the foraging techniques employed by herons.

Prey Density Threshold and Tidal Influence on Reef Manta Ray Foraging at an Aggregation Site on the Great Barrier Reef.

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Asia O Armstrong

Full Text Available Large tropical and sub-tropical marine animals must meet their energetic requirements in a largely oligotrophic environment. Many planktivorous elasmobranchs, whose thermal ecologies prevent foraging in nutrient-rich polar waters, aggregate seasonally at predictable locations throughout tropical oceans where they are observed feeding. Here we investigate the foraging and oceanographic environment around Lady Elliot Island, a known aggregation site for reef manta rays Manta alfredi in the southern Great Barrier Reef. The foraging behaviour of reef manta rays was analysed in relation to zooplankton populations and local oceanography, and compared to long-term sighting records of reef manta rays from the dive operator on the island. Reef manta rays fed at Lady Elliot Island when zooplankton biomass and abundance were significantly higher than other times. The critical prey density threshold that triggered feeding was 11.2 mg m-3 while zooplankton size had no significant effect on feeding. The community composition and size structure of the zooplankton was similar when reef manta rays were feeding or not, with only the density of zooplankton changing. Higher zooplankton biomass was observed prior to low tide, and long-term (~5 years sighting data confirmed that more reef manta rays are also observed feeding during this tidal phase than other times. This is the first study to examine prey availability at an aggregation site for reef manta rays and it indicates that they feed in locations and at times of higher zooplankton biomass.

The regulation of ant colony foraging activity without spatial information.

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Balaji Prabhakar

Full Text Available Many dynamical networks, such as the ones that produce the collective behavior of social insects, operate without any central control, instead arising from local interactions among individuals. A well-studied example is the formation of recruitment trails in ant colonies, but many ant species do not use pheromone trails. We present a model of the regulation of foraging by harvester ant (Pogonomyrmex barbatus colonies. This species forages for scattered seeds that one ant can retrieve on its own, so there is no need for spatial information such as pheromone trails that lead ants to specific locations. Previous work shows that colony foraging activity, the rate at which ants go out to search individually for seeds, is regulated in response to current food availability throughout the colony's foraging area. Ants use the rate of brief antennal contacts inside the nest between foragers returning with food and outgoing foragers available to leave the nest on the next foraging trip. Here we present a feedback-based algorithm that captures the main features of data from field experiments in which the rate of returning foragers was manipulated. The algorithm draws on our finding that the distribution of intervals between successive ants returning to the nest is a Poisson process. We fitted the parameter that estimates the effect of each returning forager on the rate at which outgoing foragers leave the nest. We found that correlations between observed rates of returning foragers and simulated rates of outgoing foragers, using our model, were similar to those in the data. Our simple stochastic model shows how the regulation of ant colony foraging can operate without spatial information, describing a process at the level of individual ants that predicts the overall foraging activity of the colony.

Foraging on individual leaves by an intracellular feeding insect is not associated with leaf biomechanical properties or leaf orientation.

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Justin Fiene

Full Text Available Nearly all herbivorous arthropods make foraging-decisions on individual leaves, yet systematic investigations of the adaptive significance and ecological factors structuring these decisions are rare with most attention given to chewing herbivores. This study investigated why an intracellular feeding herbivore, Western flower thrips (WFT Frankliniella occidentalis Pergande, generally avoids feeding on the adaxial leaf surface of cotton cotyledons. WFT showed a significant aversion to adaxial-feeding even when excised-cotyledons were turned up-side (abaxial-side 'up', suggesting that negative-phototaxis was not a primary cause of thrips foraging patterns. No-choice bioassays in which individual WFT females were confined to either the abaxial or adaxial leaf surface showed that 35% fewer offspring were produced when only adaxial feeding was allowed, which coincided with 32% less plant feeding on that surface. To test the hypothesis that leaf biomechanical properties inhibited thrips feeding on the adaxial surface, we used a penetrometer to measure two variables related to the 'toughness' of each leaf surface. Neither variable negatively co-varied with feeding. Thus, while avoiding the upper leaf surface was an adaptive foraging strategy, the proximate cause remains to be elucidated, but is likely due, in part, to certain leaf properties that inhibit feeding.

Physiology, phenology and behavioural strategies of forage fish

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Frisk, Christina

Forage fish are small individuals, and are very abundant in numbers and can form dense schools. Forage fish are important within the food webs of the oceans, as they are at the lower trophic levels. Forage fish prey on zooplankton and they are themselves preyed on by piscivore fish. The individual...... forage fish and its growth dynamics are governed by an interplay between physiological rates, e.g. metabolism and consumption and the ambient environment as the rates are temperature dependent. The topic of this thesis is to describe the strong link between the individual and the environment through....... The model includes an additional structure pool; gonads, to which energy is transferred during the spawning season. During periods of poor feeding, energy to cover metabolic costs are firstly taken from the reserve pool and secondly, if the reserves are depleted, from the somatic tissue pool. The model...

Evidence of trapline foraging in honeybees.

Science.gov (United States)

Buatois, Alexis; Lihoreau, Mathieu

2016-08-15

Central-place foragers exploiting floral resources often use multi-destination routes (traplines) to maximise their foraging efficiency. Recent studies on bumblebees have showed how solitary foragers can learn traplines, minimising travel costs between multiple replenishing feeding locations. Here we demonstrate a similar routing strategy in the honeybee (Apis mellifera), a major pollinator known to recruit nestmates to discovered food resources. Individual honeybees trained to collect sucrose solution from four artificial flowers arranged within 10 m of the hive location developed repeatable visitation sequences both in the laboratory and in the field. A 10-fold increase of between-flower distances considerably intensified this routing behaviour, with bees establishing more stable and more efficient routes at larger spatial scales. In these advanced social insects, trapline foraging may complement cooperative foraging for exploiting food resources near the hive (where dance recruitment is not used) or when resources are not large enough to sustain multiple foragers at once. © 2016. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

Dynamics of foraging trails in the Neotropical termite Velocitermes heteropterus (Isoptera: Termitidae).

Science.gov (United States)

Haifig, Ives; Jost, Christian; Fourcassié, Vincent; Zana, Yossi; Costa-Leonardo, Ana Maria

2015-09-01

Foraging behavior in termites varies with the feeding habits of each species but often occurs through the formation of well-defined trails that connect the nest to food sources in species that build structured nests. We studied the formation of foraging trails and the change in caste ratio during foraging in the termite Velocitermes heteropterus. This species is widespread in Cerrado vegetation where it builds epigeal nests and forages in open-air at night. Our aim was to understand the processes involved in the formation of foraging trails, from the exploration of new unmarked areas to the recruitment of individuals to food and the stabilization of traffic on the trails, as well as the participation of the different castes during these processes. Foraging trails were videotaped in the laboratory and the videos were then analyzed both manually and automatically to assess the flow of individuals and the caste ratio on the trails as well as to examine the spatial organization of traffic over time. Foraging trails were composed of minor workers, major workers, and soldiers. The flow of individuals on the trails gradually increased from the beginning of the exploration of new areas up to the discovery of the food. The caste ratio remained constant throughout the foraging excursion: major workers, minor workers and soldiers forage in a ratio of 8:1:1, respectively. The speed of individuals was significantly different among castes, with major workers and soldiers being significantly faster than minor workers. Overall, our results show that foraging excursions in V. heteropterus may be divided in three different phases, characterized by individual speeds, differential flows and lane segregation. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Roosting and foraging social structure of the endangered Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis.

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Alexander Silvis

Full Text Available Social dynamics are an important but poorly understood aspect of bat ecology. Herein we use a combination of graph theoretic and spatial approaches to describe the roost and social network characteristics and foraging associations of an Indiana bat (Myotis sodalis maternity colony in an agricultural landscape in Ohio, USA. We tracked 46 bats to 50 roosts (423 total relocations and collected 2,306 foraging locations for 40 bats during the summers of 2009 and 2010. We found the colony roosting network was highly centralized in both years and that roost and social networks differed significantly from random networks. Roost and social network structure also differed substantially between years. Social network structure appeared to be unrelated to segregation of roosts between age classes. For bats whose individual foraging ranges were calculated, many shared foraging space with at least one other bat. Compared across all possible bat dyads, 47% and 43% of the dyads showed more than expected overlap of foraging areas in 2009 and 2010 respectively. Colony roosting area differed between years, but the roosting area centroid shifted only 332 m. In contrast, whole colony foraging area use was similar between years. Random roost removal simulations suggest that Indiana bat colonies may be robust to loss of a limited number of roosts but may respond differently from year to year. Our study emphasizes the utility of graphic theoretic and spatial approaches for examining the sociality and roosting behavior of bats. Detailed knowledge of the relationships between social and spatial aspects of bat ecology could greatly increase conservation effectiveness by allowing more structured approaches to roost and habitat retention for tree-roosting, socially-aggregating bat species.

Boldness affects foraging decisions in barnacle geese: an experimental approach

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kurvers, R.H.J.M.; Nolet, B.A.; Prins, H.H.T.; Ydenberg, R.C.; Oers, van K.

2012-01-01

Individuals foraging in groups constantly need to make decisions, such as when to leave a group, when to join a group, and when to move collectively to another feeding site. In recent years, it has become evident that personality may affect these foraging decisions, but studies where individuals are

Changes in learning and foraging behaviour within developing bumble bee (Bombus terrestris colonies.

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Lisa J Evans

Full Text Available Organisation in eusocial insect colonies emerges from the decisions and actions of its individual members. In turn, these decisions and actions are influenced by the individual's behaviour (or temperament. Although there is variation in the behaviour of individuals within a colony, we know surprisingly little about how (or indeed if the types of behaviour present in a colony change over time. Here, for the first time, we assessed potential changes in the behavioural type of foragers during colony development. Using an ecologically relevant foraging task, we measured the decision speed and learning ability of bumble bees (Bombus terrestris at different stages of colony development. We determined whether individuals that forage early in the colony life cycle (the queen and early emerging workers behaved differently from workers that emerge and forage at the end of colony development. Whilst we found no overall change in the foraging behaviour of workers with colony development, there were strong differences in foraging behaviour between queens and their workers. Queens appeared to forage more cautiously than their workers and were also quicker to learn. These behaviours could allow queens to maximise their nectar collecting efficiency whilst avoiding predation. Because the foundress queen is crucial to the survival and success of a bumble bee colony, more efficient foraging behaviour in queens may have strong adaptive value.

Foraging behaviour of pink-footed geese (Anser brachyrhynchus) during spring migration

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Chudzińska, Magda Ewa

and their energetic consequences are therefore of great importance to these birds. In this thesis, I have aimed to address some aspects of the foraging decisions and behaviour of pink-footed geese during their spring migration to the Arctic breeding area. I combined field techniques with telemetry technology as well...... as modelling tools to address questions about how geese forage and fuel during their spring migration. The first three presented manuscripts focus on changes in goose foraging behaviour and energetics over the course of the day, a stopover season and the entire migration. They also focus on variety of factors...... the question: which foraging decision do geese make at the Mid-Norway stopover site....

Trait-mediated trophic interactions: is foraging theory keeping up?

Science.gov (United States)

Railsback, Steven F; Harvey, Bret C

2013-02-01

Many ecologists believe that there is a lack of foraging theory that works in community contexts, for populations of unique individuals each making trade-offs between food and risk that are subject to feedbacks from behavior of others. Such theory is necessary to reproduce the trait-mediated trophic interactions now recognized as widespread and strong. Game theory can address feedbacks but does not provide foraging theory for unique individuals in variable environments. 'State- and prediction-based theory' (SPT) is a new approach that combines existing trade-off methods with routine updating: individuals regularly predict future food availability and risk from current conditions to optimize a fitness measure. SPT can reproduce a variety of realistic foraging behaviors and trait-mediated trophic interactions with feedbacks, even when the environment is unpredictable. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Characteristics of foraging sites and protein status in wintering muskoxen: insights from isotopes of nitrogen

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Gustine, David D.; Barboza, Perry S.; Lawler, James P.; Arthur, Stephen M.; Shults, Brad S.; Persons, Kate; Adams, Layne G.

2011-01-01

Identifying links between nutritional condition of individuals and population trajectories greatly enhances our understanding of the ecology, conservation, and management of wildlife. For northern ungulates, the potential impacts of a changing climate to populations are predicted to be nutritionally mediated through an increase in the severity and variance in winter conditions. Foraging conditions and the availability of body protein as a store for reproduction in late winter may constrain productivity in northern ungulates, yet the link between characteristics of wintering habitats and protein status has not been established for a wild ungulate. We used a non‐invasive proxy of protein status derived from isotopes of N in excreta to evaluate the influence of winter habitats on the protein status of muskoxen in three populations in Alaska (2005–2008). Multiple regression and an information‐theoretic approach were used to compare models that evaluated the influence of population, year, and characteristics of foraging sites (components of diet and physiography) on protein status for groups of muskoxen. The observed variance in protein status among groups of muskoxen across populations and years was partially explained (45%) by local foraging conditions that affected forage availability. Protein status improved for groups of muskoxen as the amount of graminoids in the diet increased (−0.430 ± 0.31, β± 95% CI) and elevation of foraging sites decreased (0.824 ± 0.67). Resources available for reproduction in muskoxen are highly dependent upon demographic, environmental, and physiographic constraints that affect forage availability in winter. Due to their very sedentary nature in winter, muskoxen are highly susceptible to localized foraging conditions; therefore, the spatial variance in resource availability may exert a strong effect on productivity. Consequently, there is a clear need to account for climate–topography effects in winter at multiple scales

Breeding short-tailed shearwaters buffer local environmental variability in south-eastern Australia by foraging in Antarctic waters.

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Berlincourt, Maud; Arnould, John P Y

2015-01-01

Establishing patterns of movements of free-ranging animals in marine ecosystems is crucial for a better understanding of their feeding ecology, life history traits and conservation. As central place foragers, the habitat use of nesting seabirds is heavily influenced by the resources available within their foraging range. We tested the prediction that during years with lower resource availability, short-tailed shearwaters (Puffinus tenuirostris) provisioning chicks should increase their foraging effort, by extending their foraging range and/or duration, both when foraging in neritic (short trips) and distant oceanic waters (long trips). Using both GPS and geolocation data-loggers, at-sea movements and habitat use were investigated over three breeding seasons (2012-14) at two colonies in southeastern Australia. Most individuals performed daily short foraging trips over the study period and inter-annual variations observed in foraging parameters where mainly due to few individuals from Griffith Island, performing 2-day trips in 2014. When performing long foraging trips, this study showed that individuals from both colonies exploited similar zones in the Southern Ocean. The results of this study suggest that individuals could increase their foraging range while exploiting distant feeding zones, which could indicate that short-tailed shearwaters forage in Antarctic waters not only to maintain their body condition but may also do so to buffer against local environmental stochasticity. Lower breeding performances were associated with longer foraging trips to distant oceanic waters in 2013 and 2014 indicating they could mediate reductions in food availability around the breeding colonies by extending their foraging range in the Southern Ocean. This study highlights the importance of foraging flexibility as a fundamental aspect of life history in coastal/pelagic marine central place foragers living in highly variable environments and how these foraging strategies are use to

Nitrogen and carbon isotope values of individual amino acids: a tool to study foraging ecology of penguins in the Southern Ocean

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lorrain, A.; Graham, B.; Ménard, F.; Popp, B.; Bouillon, S.; Van Breugel, P.; Cherel, Y.

2009-01-01

We determined the δ15N and δ13C values of individual amino acids (AAs) isolated from chick blood of 4 penguin species that forage in different oceanic regions (from the subtropics of the Indian Ocean to Antarctica) to test if: (1) the δ15N values of phenylalanine (δ15N phe) revealed different

Increasing evidence that bats actively forage at wind turbines.

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Foo, Cecily F; Bennett, Victoria J; Hale, Amanda M; Korstian, Jennifer M; Schildt, Alison J; Williams, Dean A

2017-01-01

Although the ultimate causes of high bat fatalities at wind farms are not well understood, several lines of evidence suggest that bats are attracted to wind turbines. One hypothesis is that bats would be attracted to turbines as a foraging resource if the insects that bats prey upon are commonly present on and around the turbine towers. To investigate the role that foraging activity may play in bat fatalities, we conducted a series of surveys at a wind farm in the southern Great Plains of the US from 2011-2016. From acoustic monitoring we recorded foraging activity, including feeding buzzes indicative of prey capture, in the immediate vicinity of turbine towers from all six bat species known to be present at this site. From insect surveys we found Lepidoptera, Coleoptera, and Orthoptera in consistently high proportions over several years suggesting that food resources for bats were consistently available at wind turbines. We used DNA barcoding techniques to assess bat diet composition of (1) stomach contents from 47 eastern red bat ( Lasiurus borealis ) and 24 hoary bat ( Lasiurus cinereus ) carcasses collected in fatality searches, and (2) fecal pellets from 23 eastern red bats that were found on turbine towers, transformers, and tower doors. We found that the majority of the eastern red bat and hoary bat stomachs, the two bat species most commonly found in fatality searches at this site, were full or partially full, indicating that the bats were likely killed while foraging. Although Lepidoptera and Orthoptera dominated the diets of these two bat species, both consumed a range of prey items with individual bats having from one to six insect species in their stomachs at the time of death. The prey items identified from eastern red bat fecal pellets showed similar results. A comparison of the turbine insect community to the diet analysis results revealed that the most abundant insects at wind turbines, including terrestrial insects such as crickets and several

forage systems mixed with forage legumes grazed by lactating cows

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Clair Jorge Olivo

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Current research evaluates productivity, stocking and nutritional rates of three forage systems with Elephant Grass (EG + Italian Ryegrass (IR + Spontaneous Growth Species (SGS, without forage legumes; EG + IR + SGS + Forage Peanut (FP, mixed with FP; and EG + IR + SGS + Red Clover (RC, mixed with RC, in rotational grazing method by lactating cows. IR developed between rows of EG. FP was maintained, whilst RC was sow to respective forage systems. The experimental design was completely randomized, with three treatments and two replication, subdivided into parcels over time. Mean rate for forage yield and average stocking rate were 10.6, 11.6 and 14.4 t ha-1; 3.0, 2.8 and 3.1 animal unit ha-1 day-1, for the respective systems. Levels of crude protein and total digestible nutrients were 17.8, 18.7 and 17.5%; 66.5, 66.8 and 64.8%, for the respective forage systems. The presence of RC results in better and higher forage yield in the mixture, whilst FP results in greater control of SGS. The inclusion of forage legumes in pasture systems provides better nutritional rates.

Determination of Tropical Forage Preferences Using Two Offering Methods in Rabbits

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A. M. Safwat

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Two methods of feed preference trials were compared to evaluate the acceptability of 5 fresh foliages: Leucaena leucocephala, Moringa oleifera, Portulaca oleracea, Guazuma ulmifolia, and Brosimum alicastrum that was included as control. The evaluation included chemical analyses and forage intake by rabbits. The first method was a cafeteria trial; 12 California growing rabbits aged 8 wk, allocated in individual cages, were offered the five forage plants at the same time inside the cage, while in the second trial 60 California growing rabbits aged 8 wk, allocated individually, were randomly distributed into 5 experimental groups (n = 12/group; for each group just one forage species was offered at a time. The testing period for each method lasted for 7 d, preceded by one week of adaptation. The results showed that B. alicastrum and L. lecocephala were the most preferred forages while on the contrary G. ulmifolia was the least preferred one by rabbits. The results also revealed that the CV% value for the 2nd method (16.32%, which the tested forages were presented separately to rabbits, was lower and methodologically more acceptable than such value for the 1st method (34.28%, which all forages were presented together at the same time. It can be concluded that a range of tropical forages were consumed in acceptable quantities by rabbits, suggesting that diets based on such forages with a concentrate supplement could be used successfully for rabbit production. However, growth performance studies are still needed before recommendations could be made on appropriate ration formulations for commercial use.

Diving of great shearwaters (Puffinus gravis in cold and warm water regions of the South Atlantic Ocean.

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Robert A Ronconi

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Among the most widespread seabirds in the world, shearwaters of the genus Puffinus are also some of the deepest diving members of the Procellariiformes. Maximum diving depths are known for several Puffinus species, but dive depths or diving behaviour have never been recorded for great shearwaters (P. gravis, the largest member of this genus. This study reports the first high sampling rate (2 s of depth and diving behaviour for Puffinus shearwaters. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Time-depth recorders (TDRs were deployed on two female great shearwaters nesting on Inaccessible Island in the South Atlantic Ocean, recording 10 consecutive days of diving activity. Remote sensing imagery and movement patterns of 8 males tracked by satellite telemetry over the same period were used to identify probable foraging areas used by TDR-equipped females. The deepest and longest dive was to 18.9 m and lasted 40 s, but most (>50% dives were <2 m deep. Diving was most frequent near dawn and dusk, with <0.5% of dives occurring at night. The two individuals foraged in contrasting oceanographic conditions, one in cold (8 to 10°C water of the Sub-Antarctic Front, likely 1000 km south of the breeding colony, and the other in warmer (10 to 16°C water of the Sub-tropical Frontal Zone, at the same latitude as the colony, possibly on the Patagonian Shelf, 4000 km away. The cold water bird spent fewer days commuting, conducted four times as many dives as the warm water bird, dived deeper on average, and had a greater proportion of bottom time during dives. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: General patterns of diving activity were consistent with those of other shearwaters foraging in cold and warm water habitats. Great shearwaters are likely adapted to forage in a wide range of oceanographic conditions, foraging mostly with shallow dives but capable of deep diving.

Foraging intention affects whether willow tits call to attract members of mixed-species flocks.

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Suzuki, Toshitaka N; Kutsukake, Nobuyuki

2017-06-01

Understanding how individual behaviour influences the spatial and temporal distribution of other species is necessary to resolve the complex structure of species assemblages. Mixed-species bird flocks provide an ideal opportunity to investigate this issue, because members of the flocks are involved in a variety of behavioural interactions between species. Willow tits ( Poecile montanus ) often produce loud calls when visiting a new foraging patch to recruit other members of mixed-species flocks. The costs and benefits of flocking would differ with individual foraging behaviours (i.e. immediate consumption or caching); thus, willow tits may adjust the production of loud calls according to their foraging intention. In this study, we investigated the link between foraging decisions and calling behaviour in willow tits and tested its influence on the temporal cohesion with members of mixed-species flocks. Observations at experimental foraging patches showed that willow tits produced more calls when they consumed food items compared with when they cached them. Playback experiments revealed that these calls attracted flock members and helped to maintain their presence at foraging patches. Thus, willow tits adjusted calling behaviour according to their foraging intention, thereby coordinating the associations with members of mixed-species flocks. Our findings demonstrate the influence of individual decision-making on temporal cohesion with other species and highlight the importance of interspecific communication in mixed-species flocking dynamics.

Ontogenetic foraging activity and feeding selectivity of the Brazilian endemic parrotfish Scarus zelindae

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Pedro H.C. Pereira

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Parrotfish are fundamental species in controlling algal phase-shifts and ensuring the resilience of coral reefs. Nevertheless, little is known on their ecological role in the south-western Atlantic Ocean. The present study analysed the ontogenetic foraging activity and feeding selectivity of the Brazilian endemic parrotfish Scarus zelindae using behavioural observation and benthic composition analyses. We found a significant negative relationship between fish size and feeding rates for S. zelindae individuals. Thus, terminal phase individuals forage with lower feeding rates compared to juveniles and initial phase individuals. The highest relative foraging frequency of S. zelindae was on epilithic algae matrix (EAM with similar values for juveniles (86.6%, initial phase (88.1% and terminal phase (88.6% individuals. The second preferred benthos for juveniles was sponge (11.6% compared with initial (4.5% and terminal life phases (1.3%. Different life phases of S. zelindae foraged on different benthos according to their availability. Based on Ivlev’s electivity index, juveniles selected EAM and sponge, while initial phase and terminal phase individuals only selected EAM. Our findings demonstrate that the foraging frequency of the endemic parrotfish S. zelindae is reduced according to body size and that there is a slight ontogenetic change in feeding selectivity. Therefore, ecological knowledge of ontogenetic variations on resource use is critical for the remaining parrotfish populations which have been dramatically reduced in the Southwestern Atlantic Ocean.

Low-dose glyphosate does not control annual bromes in the northern Great Plains

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Annual bromes (downy brome and Japanese brome) have been shown to decrease perennial grass forage production and alter ecosystem functions in northern Great Plains rangelands. Large-scale chemical control might be a method for increasing rangeland forage production if low application rates confer co...

Heat Damaged Forages: Effects on Forage Quality

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Traditionally, heat damage in forages has been associated with alterations in forage protein quality as a result of Maillard reactions, and most producers and nutritionists are familiar with this concept. However, this is not necessarily the most important negative consequence of spontaneous heating...

Foraging

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ydenberg, R.C.; Prins, H.H.T.

2012-01-01

This chapter describes the role played by behavioural adjustments to foraging behaviour in accommodating rapid environmental change. It looks into the adjustments of foraging behaviour to predation danger as a result of changes in the type and array of food available. It investigates the effects of

Optimally frugal foraging

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Bénichou, O.; Bhat, U.; Krapivsky, P. L.; Redner, S.

2018-02-01

We introduce the frugal foraging model in which a forager performs a discrete-time random walk on a lattice in which each site initially contains S food units. The forager metabolizes one unit of food at each step and starves to death when it last ate S steps in the past. Whenever the forager eats, it consumes all food at its current site and this site remains empty forever (no food replenishment). The crucial property of the forager is that it is frugal and eats only when encountering food within at most k steps of starvation. We compute the average lifetime analytically as a function of the frugality threshold and show that there exists an optimal strategy, namely, an optimal frugality threshold k* that maximizes the forager lifetime.

A generic individual-based model to simulate morphogenesis, C-N acquisition and population dynamics in contrasting forage legumes.

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Louarn, Gaëtan; Faverjon, Lucas

2018-04-18

Individual-based models (IBMs) are promising tools to disentangle plant interactions in multi-species grasslands and foster innovative species mixtures. This study describes an IBM dealing with the morphogenesis, growth and C-N acquisition of forage legumes that integrates plastic responses from functional-structural plant models. A generic model was developed to account for herbaceous legume species with contrasting above- and below-ground morphogenetic syndromes and to integrate the responses of plants to light, water and N. Through coupling with a radiative transfer model and a three-dimensional virtual soil, the model allows dynamic resolution of competition for multiple resources at individual plant level within a plant community. The behaviour of the model was assessed on a range of monospecific stands grown along gradients of light, water and N availability. The model proved able to capture the diversity of morphologies encountered among the forage legumes. The main density-dependent features known about even-age plant populations were correctly anticipated. The model predicted (1) the 'reciprocal yield' law relating average plant mass to density, (2) a self-thinning pattern close to that measured for herbaceous species and (3) consistent changes in the size structure of plant populations with time and pedo-climatic conditions. In addition, plastic changes in the partitioning of dry matter, the N acquisition mode and in the architecture of shoots and roots emerged from the integration of plant responses to their local environment. This resulted in taller plants and thinner roots when competition was dominated by light, and shorter plants with relatively more developed root systems when competition was dominated by soil resources. A population dynamic model considering growth and morphogenesis responses to multiple resources heterogeneously distributed in the environment was presented. It should allow scaling plant-plant interactions from individual to

Dynamic oceanography determines fine scale foraging behavior of Masked Boobies in the Gulf of Mexico.

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Caroline L Poli

Full Text Available During breeding, foraging marine birds are under biological, geographic, and temporal constraints. These contraints require foraging birds to efficiently process environmental cues derived from physical habitat features that occur at nested spatial scales. Mesoscale oceanography in particular may change rapidly within and between breeding seasons, and findings from well-studied systems that relate oceanography to seabird foraging may transfer poorly to regions with substantially different oceanographic conditions. Our objective was to examine foraging behavior of a pan-tropical seabird, the Masked Booby (Sula dactylatra, in the understudied Caribbean province, a moderately productive region driven by highly dynamic currents and fronts. We tracked 135 individuals with GPS units during May 2013, November 2013, and December 2014 at a regionally important breeding colony in the southern Gulf of Mexico. We measured foraging behavior using characteristics of foraging trips and used area restricted search as a proxy for foraging events. Among individual attributes, nest stage contributed to differences in foraging behavior whereas sex did not. Birds searched for prey at nested hierarchical scales ranging from 200 m-35 km. Large-scale coastal and shelf-slope fronts shifted position between sampling periods and overlapped geographically with overall foraging locations. At small scales (at the prey patch level, the specific relationship between environmental variables and foraging behavior was highly variable among individuals but general patterns emerged. Sea surface height anomaly and velocity of water were the strongest predictors of area restricted search behavior in random forest models, a finding that is consistent with the characterization of the Gulf of Mexico as an energetic system strongly influenced by currents and eddies. Our data may be combined with tracking efforts in the Caribbean province and across tropical regions to advance

Dynamic oceanography determines fine scale foraging behavior of Masked Boobies in the Gulf of Mexico

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Poli, Caroline L.; Harrison, Autumn-Lynn; Vallarino, Adriana; Gerard, Patrick D.; Jodice, Patrick G.R.

2017-01-01

During breeding, foraging marine birds are under biological, geographic, and temporal constraints. These contraints require foraging birds to efficiently process environmental cues derived from physical habitat features that occur at nested spatial scales. Mesoscale oceanography in particular may change rapidly within and between breeding seasons, and findings from well-studied systems that relate oceanography to seabird foraging may transfer poorly to regions with substantially different oceanographic conditions. Our objective was to examine foraging behavior of a pan-tropical seabird, the Masked Booby (Sula dactylatra), in the understudied Caribbean province, a moderately productive region driven by highly dynamic currents and fronts. We tracked 135 individuals with GPS units during May 2013, November 2013, and December 2014 at a regionally important breeding colony in the southern Gulf of Mexico. We measured foraging behavior using characteristics of foraging trips and used area restricted search as a proxy for foraging events. Among individual attributes, nest stage contributed to differences in foraging behavior whereas sex did not. Birds searched for prey at nested hierarchical scales ranging from 200 m—35 km. Large-scale coastal and shelf-slope fronts shifted position between sampling periods and overlapped geographically with overall foraging locations. At small scales (at the prey patch level), the specific relationship between environmental variables and foraging behavior was highly variable among individuals but general patterns emerged. Sea surface height anomaly and velocity of water were the strongest predictors of area restricted search behavior in random forest models, a finding that is consistent with the characterization of the Gulf of Mexico as an energetic system strongly influenced by currents and eddies. Our data may be combined with tracking efforts in the Caribbean province and across tropical regions to advance understanding of seabird

GPS tracking devices reveal foraging strategies of black-legged kittiwakes

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Kotzerka, Jana; Garthe, Stefan; Hatch, Scott A.

2010-01-01

The Black-legged Kittiwake Rissa tridactyla is the most abundant gull species in the world, but some populations have declined in recent years, apparently due to food shortage. Kittiwakes are surface feeders and thus can compensate for low food availability only by increasing their foraging range and/or devoting more time to foraging. The species is widely studied in many respects, but long-distance foraging and the limitations of conventional radio telemetry have kept its foraging behavior largely out of view. The development of Global Positioning System (GPS) loggers is advancing rapidly. With devices as small as 8 g now available, it is possible to use this technology for tracking relatively small species of oceanic birds like kittiwakes. Here we present the first results of GPS telemetry applied to Black-legged Kittiwakes in 2007 in the North Pacific. All but one individual foraged in the neritic zone north of the island. Three birds performed foraging trips only close to the colony (within 13 km), while six birds had foraging ranges averaging about 40 km. The maximum foraging range was 59 km, and the maximum distance traveled was 165 km. Maximum trip duration was 17 h (mean 8 h). An apparently bimodal distribution of foraging ranges affords new insight on the variable foraging behaviour of Black-legged Kittiwakes. Our successful deployment of GPS loggers on kittiwakes holds much promise for telemetry studies on many other bird species of similar size and provides an incentive for applying this new approach in future studies.

Effects of growth stage on quality characteristics of triticale forages

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The use of triticale (X Triticosecale Wittmack) in dairy-cropping systems has expanded greatly in recent years, partly to improve land stewardship by providing winter ground cover. Our objectives were to relate the nutritive value of triticale forages grown in central Wisconsin with plant growth sta...

Seasonal Food Scarcity Prompts Long-Distance Foraging by a Wild Social Bee.

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Pope, Nathaniel S; Jha, Shalene

2018-01-01

Foraging is an essential process for mobile animals, and its optimization serves as a foundational theory in ecology and evolution; however, drivers of foraging are rarely investigated across landscapes and seasons. Using a common bumblebee species from the western United States (Bombus vosnesenskii), we ask whether seasonal decreases in food resources prompt changes in foraging behavior and space use. We employ a unique integration of population genetic tools and spatially explicit foraging models to estimate foraging distances and rates of patch visitation for wild bumblebee colonies across three study regions and two seasons. By mapping the locations of 669 wild-caught individual foragers, we find substantial variation in colony-level foraging distances, often exhibiting a 60-fold difference within a study region. Our analysis of visitation rates indicates that foragers display a preference for destination patches with high floral cover and forage significantly farther for these patches, but only in the summer, when landscape-level resources are low. Overall, these results indicate that an increasing proportion of long-distance foraging bouts take place in the summer. Because wild bees are pollinators, their foraging dynamics are of urgent concern, given the potential impacts of global change on their movement and services. The behavioral shift toward long-distance foraging with seasonal declines in food resources suggests a novel, phenologically directed approach to landscape-level pollinator conservation and greater consideration of late-season floral resources in pollinator habitat management.

Long bone cross-sectional geometric properties of Later Stone Age foragers and herder�foragers

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Michelle E. Cameron

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Diaphyseal cross-sectional geometry can be used to infer activity patterns in archaeological populations. We examined the cross-sectional geometric (CSG properties of adult Later Stone Age (LSA herder-forager long bones from the inland lower Orange River Valley of South Africa (n=5 m, 13 f. We then compared their CSG properties to LSA forager adults from the coastal fynbos (n=23 m, 14 f and forest (n=17 m, 19 f regions, building on a previous report (Stock and Pfeiffer, 2004. The periosteal mould method was used to quantify total subperiosteal area, torsional strength, bilateral asymmetry and diaphyseal circularity (Imax/Imin at the mid-distal (35% location of upper arms (humeri and the mid-shaft (50% location of upper legs (femora. Maximum humerus and femur lengths were similar among the three samples, suggesting that adult stature was similar in all three regions. When compared to the previous study, CSG property values obtained using the periosteal mould method correlated well, and there were no significant differences between data collected using the different methods. No statistically significant differences were found among the humerus or femur CSG properties from the different regions. This finding suggests that all individuals undertook similar volitional habitual activities in regard to their upper limbs, and also had similar degrees of terrestrial mobility. These results indicate relative behavioural homogeneity among LSA foragers and herder foragers from South Africa. The small degree of regional variation apparent among the three samples may reflect local ecology and the subsistence demands affecting populations in these different regions.

Scavengers on the move: behavioural changes in foraging search patterns during the annual cycle.

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Pascual López-López

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Optimal foraging theory predicts that animals will tend to maximize foraging success by optimizing search strategies. However, how organisms detect sparsely distributed food resources remains an open question. When targets are sparse and unpredictably distributed, a Lévy strategy should maximize foraging success. By contrast, when resources are abundant and regularly distributed, simple brownian random movement should be sufficient. Although very different groups of organisms exhibit Lévy motion, the shift from a Lévy to a brownian search strategy has been suggested to depend on internal and external factors such as sex, prey density, or environmental context. However, animal response at the individual level has received little attention. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We used GPS satellite-telemetry data of Egyptian vultures Neophron percnopterus to examine movement patterns at the individual level during consecutive years, with particular interest in the variations in foraging search patterns during the different periods of the annual cycle (i.e. breeding vs. non-breeding. Our results show that vultures followed a brownian search strategy in their wintering sojourn in Africa, whereas they exhibited a more complex foraging search pattern at breeding grounds in Europe, including Lévy motion. Interestingly, our results showed that individuals shifted between search strategies within the same period of the annual cycle in successive years. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Results could be primarily explained by the different environmental conditions in which foraging activities occur. However, the high degree of behavioural flexibility exhibited during the breeding period in contrast to the non-breeding period is challenging, suggesting that not only environmental conditions explain individuals' behaviour but also individuals' cognitive abilities (e.g., memory effects could play an important role. Our results support the growing

Environmental conditions and intraspecific interference: unexpected effects of turbidity on pike (Esox lucius) foraging

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nilsson, P.A.; Jacobsen, Lene; Berg, Søren

2009-01-01

on pike foraging alone or among conspecifics in different levels of water turbidity, we expected high turbidity to decrease the perceived risk of intraspecific interactions among pike, and thereby decrease the strength of interference, as turbidity would decrease the visual contact between individuals...... and act as a refuge from behavioural interactions. The results show that this is not the case, but suggest that interference is induced instead of reduced in high turbidity. Per capita foraging rates do not differ between pike foraging alone or in groups in our clear and moderately turbid treatments......, indicating no effect of interference. As high turbidity enhances prey consumption for pike individuals foraging alone, but does not have this effect for pike in groups, high turbidity induces the relative interference effect. We suggest that future evaluations of the stabilizing effects of interference...

The ecological economics of kleptoparasitism: pay-offs from self-foraging versus kleptoparasitism.

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Flower, Tom P; Child, Matthew F; Ridley, Amanda R

2013-01-01

Animals commonly steal food from other species, termed interspecific kleptoparasitism, but why animals engage in kleptoparasitism compared with alternate foraging tactics, and under what circumstances they do so, is not fully understood. Determining what specific benefits animals gain from kleptoparasitism could provide valuable insight into its evolution. Here, we investigate the benefits of kleptoparasitism for a population of individually recognizable and free-living fork-tailed drongos (Dicrurus adsimilis) in the southern Kalahari Desert. Drongos engaged in two foraging behaviours: self-foraging for small insects or following other species which they kleptoparasitized for larger terrestrial prey that they could not capture themselves. Kleptoparasitism consequently enabled drongos to exploit a new foraging niche. Kleptoparasitism benefitted drongos most in the morning and on colder days because at these times pay-offs from kleptoparasitism remained stable, while those from self-foraging declined. However, drongos engaged in kleptoparasitism less than expected given the overall high (but more variable) pay-offs from this behaviour, suggesting that kleptoparasitism is a risky foraging tactic and may incur additional foraging costs compared with self-foraging. This is the first study to comprehensively investigate the benefits of facultatively engaging in kleptoparasitism, demonstrating that animals may switch to kleptoparasitism to exploit a new foraging niche when pay-offs exceed those from alternate foraging behaviours. © 2012 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology © 2012 British Ecological Society.

Modelling Pasture-based Automatic Milking System Herds: Grazeable Forage Options

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M. R. Islam

2015-05-01

Full Text Available One of the challenges to increase milk production in a large pasture-based herd with an automatic milking system (AMS is to grow forages within a 1-km radius, as increases in walking distance increases milking interval and reduces yield. The main objective of this study was to explore sustainable forage option technologies that can supply high amount of grazeable forages for AMS herds using the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM model. Three different basic simulation scenarios (with irrigation were carried out using forage crops (namely maize, soybean and sorghum for the spring-summer period. Subsequent crops in the three scenarios were forage rape over-sown with ryegrass. Each individual simulation was run using actual climatic records for the period from 1900 to 2010. Simulated highest forage yields in maize, soybean and sorghum- (each followed by forage rape-ryegrass based rotations were 28.2, 22.9, and 19.3 t dry matter/ha, respectively. The simulations suggested that the irrigation requirement could increase by up to 18%, 16%, and 17% respectively in those rotations in El-Niño years compared to neutral years. On the other hand, irrigation requirement could increase by up to 25%, 23%, and 32% in maize, soybean and sorghum based rotations in El-Nino years compared to La-Nina years. However, irrigation requirement could decrease by up to 8%, 7%, and 13% in maize, soybean and sorghum based rotations in La-Nina years compared to neutral years. The major implication of this study is that APSIM models have potentials in devising preferred forage options to maximise grazeable forage yield which may create the opportunity to grow more forage in small areas around the AMS which in turn will minimise walking distance and milking interval and thus increase milk production. Our analyses also suggest that simulation analysis may provide decision support during climatic uncertainty.

Modelling Pasture-based Automatic Milking System Herds: Grazeable Forage Options.

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Islam, M R; Garcia, S C; Clark, C E F; Kerrisk, K L

2015-05-01

One of the challenges to increase milk production in a large pasture-based herd with an automatic milking system (AMS) is to grow forages within a 1-km radius, as increases in walking distance increases milking interval and reduces yield. The main objective of this study was to explore sustainable forage option technologies that can supply high amount of grazeable forages for AMS herds using the Agricultural Production Systems Simulator (APSIM) model. Three different basic simulation scenarios (with irrigation) were carried out using forage crops (namely maize, soybean and sorghum) for the spring-summer period. Subsequent crops in the three scenarios were forage rape over-sown with ryegrass. Each individual simulation was run using actual climatic records for the period from 1900 to 2010. Simulated highest forage yields in maize, soybean and sorghum- (each followed by forage rape-ryegrass) based rotations were 28.2, 22.9, and 19.3 t dry matter/ha, respectively. The simulations suggested that the irrigation requirement could increase by up to 18%, 16%, and 17% respectively in those rotations in El-Niño years compared to neutral years. On the other hand, irrigation requirement could increase by up to 25%, 23%, and 32% in maize, soybean and sorghum based rotations in El-Nino years compared to La-Nina years. However, irrigation requirement could decrease by up to 8%, 7%, and 13% in maize, soybean and sorghum based rotations in La-Nina years compared to neutral years. The major implication of this study is that APSIM models have potentials in devising preferred forage options to maximise grazeable forage yield which may create the opportunity to grow more forage in small areas around the AMS which in turn will minimise walking distance and milking interval and thus increase milk production. Our analyses also suggest that simulation analysis may provide decision support during climatic uncertainty.

Positive Interactions among Foraging Seabirds, Marine Mammals and Fishes and Implications for Their Conservation

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Richard R. Veit

2017-10-01

Full Text Available There is increasing recognition of the importance of “positive interactions” among species in structuring communities. For seabirds, an important kind of positive interaction is the use of birds of the same species, birds of other species, and other marine predators such as cetaceans, seals and fishes as cues to the presence of prey. The process by which a single bird uses, say, a feeding flock of birds as a cue to the presence of prey is called “local enhancement” or “facilitation.” There are subtly different uses of each of these terms, but the issue we address here is the ubiquity of positive interactions between seabirds and other marine predators when foraging at sea, and whether as a result of their associations the feeding success, and therefore presumably the fitness, of individual seabirds is increased. If this contention is true, then it implies that conservation of any one species of seabird must take into consideration the status and possible conservation of those species that the focal species uses as a cue while foraging. For example, conservation of great shearwaters (Ardenna gravis, which often feed over tuna (e.g., Thunnus schools, should take in to consideration conservation of tuna. Ecosystem management depends on understanding the importance of such processes; the loss of biodiversity, and the consequent threat to foraging success, may be a substantial threat to the stability of marine ecosystems.

Meeting reproductive demands in a dynamic upwelling system: foraging strategies of a pursuit-diving seabird, the marbled murrelet

Science.gov (United States)

M. Zachariah Peery; Scott H. Newman; Curt D. Storlazzi; Steven R. Beissinger

2009-01-01

Seabirds maintain plasticity in their foraging behavior to cope with energy demands and foraging constraints that vary over the reproductive cycle, but behavioral studies comparing breeding and nonbreeding individuals are rare. Here we characterize how Marbled Murrelets (Brachyramphus marmoratus) adjust their foraging effort in response to changes...

The amino acid composition of rumen-undegradable protein: a comparison between forages.

Science.gov (United States)

Edmunds, B; Südekum, K-H; Bennett, R; Schröder, A; Spiekers, H; Schwarz, F J

2013-07-01

The objective of this study was to improve knowledge regarding the amino acid profile of the insoluble portion of ingested forage escaping rumen degradation. Six forage categories were analyzed. Categories varied in botanical composition and each contained 2 samples. Samples within categories were derived from the same parent material but differed in harvest, maturity, or conservation type. The rumen-undegradable protein of all forages was measured by incubation for 16h in the rumen of 3 nonlactating cows. All residues were corrected for microbial colonization. The AA profile of the residue was different to the original profile. Degradation trends of individual AA, in terms of increase or decrease relative to the original concentration, were similar between all forages. The AA profiles of forage residues, both within and between categories, were more similar to each other than to their respective original profile. This information may aid in improving the accuracy of estimating postruminal AA supply from forages while decreasing the number of samples required to be analyzed. Copyright © 2013 American Dairy Science Association. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica parents work harder when foraging conditions are good

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schifferli, Luc; Grueebler, Martin U.; Meijer, Harro A. J.; Visser, G. Henk; Naef-Daenzer, Beat

2014-01-01

In altricial birds, the great effort involved in supplying food to nestlings can create trade-offs in the allocation of resources between the current brood and parental self-maintenance. In poor foraging conditions, parents have to adjust their energy expenditure in relation to the increased

Foraging patch selection in winter: a balance between predation risk and thermoregulation benefit.

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Sara Villén-Pérez

Full Text Available In winter, foraging activity is intended to optimize food search while minimizing both thermoregulation costs and predation risk. Here we quantify the relative importance of thermoregulation and predation in foraging patch selection of woodland birds wintering in a Mediterranean montane forest. Specifically, we account for thermoregulation benefits related to temperature, and predation risk associated with both illumination of the feeding patch and distance to the nearest refuge provided by vegetation. We measured the amount of time that 38 marked individual birds belonging to five small passerine species spent foraging at artificial feeders. Feeders were located in forest patches that vary in distance to protective cover and exposure to sun radiation; temperature and illumination were registered locally by data loggers. Our results support the influence of both thermoregulation benefits and predation costs on feeding patch choice. The influence of distance to refuge (negative relationship was nearly three times higher than that of temperature (positive relationship in determining total foraging time spent at a patch. Light intensity had a negligible and no significant effect. This pattern was generalizable among species and individuals within species, and highlights the preponderance of latent predation risk over thermoregulation benefits on foraging decisions of birds wintering in temperate Mediterranean forests.

The importance of distance to resources in the spatial modelling of bat foraging habitat.

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Ana Rainho

Full Text Available Many bats are threatened by habitat loss, but opportunities to manage their habitats are now increasing. Success of management depends greatly on the capacity to determine where and how interventions should take place, so models predicting how animals use landscapes are important to plan them. Bats are quite distinctive in the way they use space for foraging because (i most are colonial central-place foragers and (ii exploit scattered and distant resources, although this increases flying costs. To evaluate how important distances to resources are in modelling foraging bat habitat suitability, we radio-tracked two cave-dwelling species of conservation concern (Rhinolophus mehelyi and Miniopterus schreibersii in a Mediterranean landscape. Habitat and distance variables were evaluated using logistic regression modelling. Distance variables greatly increased the performance of models, and distance to roost and to drinking water could alone explain 86 and 73% of the use of space by M. schreibersii and R. mehelyi, respectively. Land-cover and soil productivity also provided a significant contribution to the final models. Habitat suitability maps generated by models with and without distance variables differed substantially, confirming the shortcomings of maps generated without distance variables. Indeed, areas shown as highly suitable in maps generated without distance variables proved poorly suitable when distance variables were also considered. We concluded that distances to resources are determinant in the way bats forage across the landscape, and that using distance variables substantially improves the accuracy of suitability maps generated with spatially explicit models. Consequently, modelling with these variables is important to guide habitat management in bats and similarly mobile animals, particularly if they are central-place foragers or depend on spatially scarce resources.

Effect of forage quality in faeces from different ruminant species fed high and low quality forage

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jalali, A R; Nørgaard, P; Nielsen, M O

2010-01-01

Effect of forage quality in faeces from different ruminant species fed high and low quality forage......Effect of forage quality in faeces from different ruminant species fed high and low quality forage...

Seasonal weather-related decision making for cattle production in the Northern Great Plains

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High inter-annual variability of seasonal weather patterns can greatly affect forage and therefore livestock production in the Northern Great Plains. This variability can make it difficult for ranchers to set yearly stocking rates, particularly in advance of the grazing season. To better understand ...

Does greed help a forager survive?

Science.gov (United States)

Bhat, U.; Redner, S.; Bénichou, O.

2017-06-01

We investigate the role of greed on the lifetime of a random-walking forager on an initially resource-rich lattice. Whenever the forager lands on a food-containing site, all the food there is eaten and the forager can hop S more steps without food before starving. Upon reaching an empty site, the forager comes one time unit closer to starvation. The forager is also greedy—given a choice to move to an empty or to a food-containing site in its local neighborhood, the forager moves preferentially toward food. Surprisingly, the forager lifetime varies nonmonotonically with greed, with different senses of the nonmonotonicity in one and two dimensions. Also unexpectedly, the forager lifetime in one dimension has a huge peak for very negative greed where the forager is food averse.

Food limitation of sea lion pups and the decline of forage off central and southern California

Science.gov (United States)

McClatchie, Sam; Field, John; Thompson, Andrew R.; Gerrodette, Tim; Lowry, Mark; Fiedler, Paul C.; Watson, William; Nieto, Karen M.; Vetter, Russell D.

2016-01-01

California sea lions increased from approximately 50 000 to 340 000 animals in the last 40 years, and their pups are starving and stranding on beaches in southern California, raising questions about the adequacy of their food supply. We investigated whether the declining sea lion pup weight at San Miguel rookery was associated with changes in abundance and quality of sardine, anchovy, rockfish and market squid forage. In the last decade off central California, where breeding female sea lions from San Miguel rookery feed, sardine and anchovy greatly decreased in biomass, whereas market squid and rockfish abundance increased. Pup weights fell as forage food quality declined associated with changes in the relative abundances of forage species. A model explained 67% of the variance in pup weights using forage from central and southern California and 81% of the variance in pup weights using forage from the female sea lion foraging range. A shift from high to poor quality forage for breeding females results in food limitation of the pups, ultimately flooding animal rescue centres with starving sea lion pups. Our study is unusual in using a long-term, fishery-independent dataset to directly address an important consequence of forage decline on the productivity of a large marine predator. Whether forage declines are environmentally driven, are due to a combination of environmental drivers and fishing removals, or are due to density-dependent interactions between forage and sea lions is uncertain. However, declining forage abundance and quality was coherent over a large area (32.5–38° N) for a decade, suggesting that trends in forage are environmentally driven. PMID:27069651

Gaseous radioiodine transport in the air-forage-cow-milk system

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Black, S.C.; Douglas, R.L.; Barth, D.S.

1976-04-01

To study the transport of 131 I in the air-forage-cow milk system, a gaseous form of 131 I was released over a field of growing alfalfa which also contained some baled hay and dairy cows in pens. Some of the alfalfa was converted to hay and fed to cows, and some was used as green chop for other cows and goats. The results of this experiment suggest that the deposition velocity of gaseous iodine is much less than that for iodine bound to particulates; that cows ingesting hay secrete a higher percentage of 131 I in milk than cows ingesting green chop; that gaseous forms do not penetrate hay bales to any great extent; that the gaseous form is transferred to milk in a manner similar to particulate forms; that ingestion of contaminated forage results in 80 times as much 131 I transfer to milk as does inhalation exposure to the same cloud; and that goats transfer 131 I from forage to milk more efficiently than do dairy cows

Genetic Architecture of Natural Variation Underlying Adult Foraging Behavior That Is Essential for Survival of Drosophila melanogaster.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Yuh Chwen G; Yang, Qian; Chi, Wanhao; Turkson, Susie A; Du, Wei A; Kemkemer, Claus; Zeng, Zhao-Bang; Long, Manyuan; Zhuang, Xiaoxi

2017-05-01

Foraging behavior is critical for the fitness of individuals. However, the genetic basis of variation in foraging behavior and the evolutionary forces underlying such natural variation have rarely been investigated. We developed a systematic approach to assay the variation in survival rate in a foraging environment for adult flies derived from a wild Drosophila melanogaster population. Despite being such an essential trait, there is substantial variation of foraging behavior among D. melanogaster strains. Importantly, we provided the first evaluation of the potential caveats of using inbred Drosophila strains to perform genome-wide association studies on life-history traits, and concluded that inbreeding depression is unlikely a major contributor for the observed large variation in adult foraging behavior. We found that adult foraging behavior has a strong genetic component and, unlike larval foraging behavior, depends on multiple loci. Identified candidate genes are enriched in those with high expression in adult heads and, demonstrated by expression knock down assay, are involved in maintaining normal functions of the nervous system. Our study not only identified candidate genes for foraging behavior that is relevant to individual fitness, but also shed light on the initial stage underlying the evolution of the behavior. © The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Great cormorants (Phalacrocorax carbo) can detect auditory cues while diving

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Hansen, Kirstin Anderson; Maxwell, Alyssa; Siebert, Ursula

2017-01-01

In-air hearing in birds has been thoroughly investigated. Sound provides birds with auditory information for species and individual recognition from their complex vocalizations, as well as cues while foraging and for avoiding predators. Some 10% of existing species of birds obtain their food under...... the water surface. Whether some of these birds make use of acoustic cues while underwater is unknown. An interesting species in this respect is the great cormorant (Phalacrocorax carbo), being one of the most effective marine predators and relying on the aquatic environment for food year round. Here, its...... underwater hearing abilities were investigated using psychophysics, where the bird learned to detect the presence or absence of a tone while submerged. The greatest sensitivity was found at 2 kHz, with an underwater hearing threshold of 71 dB re 1 μPa rms. The great cormorant is better at hearing underwater...

Nitrogen Transfer to Forage Crops from a Caragana Shelterbelt

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Gazali Issah

2015-05-01

Full Text Available Caragana shelterbelts are a common feature of farms in the Northern Great Plains of North America. We investigated if nitrogen (N from this leguminous shrub contributed to the N nutrition of triticale and oat forage crops growing adjacent to the shelterbelt row. Nitrogen transfer was measured using 15N isotope dilution at distances of 2 m, 4 m, 6 m, 15 m and 20 m from the shelterbelt. At 2 m caragana negatively impacted the growth of triticale and oat. At 4 m from the shelterbelt productivity was maximum for both forage crops and corresponded to the highest amount of N originating from caragana. The amount of N transferred from caragana decreased linearly with distance away from the shelterbelt, but even at 20 m from the shelterbelt row measureable amounts of N originating from caragana were detectable in the forage biomass. At 4 m from the shelterbelt approximately 40% of the N in both oat and triticale was from caragana, and at 20 m from the shelterbelt approximately 20% of the N in oat and 8% of the N in triticale was from caragana.

Monitoring Forage Production of California Rangeland Using Remote Sensing Observations

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Liu, H.; Jin, Y.; Dahlgren, R. A.; O'Geen, A. T.; Roche, L. M.; Smith, A. M.; Flavell, D.

2016-12-01

Pastures and rangeland cover more than 10 million hectares in California's coastal and inland foothill regions, providing feeds to livestock and important ecosystem services. Forage production in California has a large year-to-year variation due to large inter-annual and seasonal variabilities in precipitation and temperature. It also varies spatially due to the variability in climate and soils. Our goal is to develop a robust and cost-effective tool to map the near-real-time and historical forage productivity in California using remote sensing observations from Landsat and MODIS satellites. We used a Monteith's eco-physiological plant growth theory: the aboveground net primary production (ANPP) is determined by (i) the absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (APAR) and the (ii) light use efficiency (LUE): ANPP = APAR * LUEmax * f(T) * f(SM), where LUEmax is the maximum LUE, and f(T) and f(SM) are the temperature and soil moisture constrains on LUE. APAR was estimated with Landsat and MODIS vegetation index (VI), and LUE was calibrated with a statewide point dataset of peak forage production measurements at 75 annual rangeland sites. A non-linear optimization was performed to derive maximum LUE and the parameters for temperature and soil moisture regulation on LUE by minimizing the differences between the estimated and measured ANPP. Our results showed the satellite-derived annual forage production estimates correlated well withcontemporaneous in-situ forage measurements and captured both the spatial and temporal productivity patterns of forage productivity well. This remote sensing algorithm can be further improved as new field measurements become available. This tool will have a great importance in maintaining a sustainable range industry by providing key knowledge for ranchers and the stakeholders to make managerial decisions.

Root foraging increases performance of the clonal plant Potentilla reptans in heterogeneous nutrient environments.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Zhengwen; van Kleunen, Mark; During, Heinjo J; Werger, Marinus J A

2013-01-01

Plastic root-foraging responses have been widely recognized as an important strategy for plants to explore heterogeneously distributed resources. However, the benefits and costs of root foraging have received little attention. In a greenhouse experiment, we grew pairs of connected ramets of 22 genotypes of the stoloniferous plant Potentilla reptans in paired pots, between which the contrast in nutrient availability was set as null, medium and high, but with the total nutrient amount kept the same. We calculated root-foraging intensity of each individual ramet pair as the difference in root mass between paired ramets divided by the total root mass. For each genotype, we then calculated root-foraging ability as the slope of the regression of root-foraging intensity against patch contrast. For all genotypes, root-foraging intensity increased with patch contrast and the total biomass and number of offspring ramets were lowest at high patch contrast. Among genotypes, root-foraging intensity was positively related to production of offspring ramets and biomass in the high patch-contrast treatment, which indicates an evolutionary benefit of root foraging in heterogeneous environments. However, we found no significant evidence that the ability of plastic foraging imposes costs under homogeneous conditions (i.e. when foraging is not needed). Our results show that plants of P. reptans adjust their root-foraging intensity according to patch contrast. Moreover, the results show that the root foraging has an evolutionary advantage in heterogeneous environments, while costs of having the ability of plastic root foraging were absent or very small.

Specialization on pollen or nectar in bumblebee foragers is not associated with ovary size, lipid reserves or sensory tuning

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Adam R. Smith

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Foraging specialization allows social insects to more efficiently exploit resources in their environment. Recent research on honeybees suggests that specialization on pollen or nectar among foragers is linked to reproductive physiology and sensory tuning (the Reproductive Ground-Plan Hypothesis; RGPH. However, our understanding of the underlying physiological relationships in non-Apis bees is still limited. Here we show that the bumblebee Bombus terrestris has specialist pollen and nectar foragers, and test whether foraging specialization in B. terrestris is linked to reproductive physiology, measured as ovarian activation. We show that neither ovary size, sensory sensitivity, measured through proboscis extension response (PER, or whole-body lipid stores differed between pollen foragers, nectar foragers, or generalist foragers. Body size also did not differ between any of these three forager groups. Non-foragers had significantly larger ovaries than foragers. This suggests that potentially reproductive individuals avoid foraging.

The dynamics of foraging trails in the tropical arboreal ant Cephalotes goniodontus.

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Deborah M Gordon

Full Text Available The foraging behavior of the arboreal turtle ant, Cephalotes goniodontus, was studied in the tropical dry forest of western Mexico. The ants collected mostly plant-derived food, including nectar and fluids collected from the edges of wounds on leaves, as well as caterpillar frass and lichen. Foraging trails are on small pieces of ephemeral vegetation, and persist in exactly the same place for 4-8 days, indicating that food sources may be used until they are depleted. The species is polydomous, occupying many nests which are abandoned cavities or ends of broken branches in dead wood. Foraging trails extend from trees with nests to trees with food sources. Observations of marked individuals show that each trail is travelled by a distinct group of foragers. This makes the entire foraging circuit more resilient if a path becomes impassable, since foraging in one trail can continue while a different group of ants forms a new trail. The colony's trails move around the forest from month to month; from one year to the next, only one colony out of five was found in the same location. There is continual searching in the vicinity of trails: ants recruited to bait within 3 bifurcations of a main foraging trail within 4 hours. When bait was offered on one trail, to which ants recruited, foraging activity increased on a different trail, with no bait, connected to the same nest. This suggests that the allocation of foragers to different trails is regulated by interactions at the nest.

Parasitized honey bees are less likely to forage and carry less pollen.

Science.gov (United States)

Lach, Lori; Kratz, Madlen; Baer, Boris

2015-09-01

Research into loss of pollination capacity has focused primarily on documenting pollinator declines and their causes with comparatively little attention paid to how stressors may affect pollinating behavior of surviving pollinators. The European honey bee, Apis mellifera is one of the world's most important generalist pollinators, and Nosema apis is a widespread microsporidian gut parasite of adult A. mellifera. We individually fed 960 newly eclosed A. mellifera workers either a sucrose solution or 400 N. apis spores in a sucrose solution and tagged them with a unique radio frequency identification (RFID) tag to monitor their foraging behavior. We found spore-fed bees were less likely to forage than those fed sugar only. Those that did forage started foraging when they were older and stopped foraging when they were younger than bees fed sugar only. However, inoculated and non-inoculated bees did not significantly differ in the number of foraging trips taken per day, the total hours foraged over their lifetime, or homing ability. Inoculated returning foragers were 4.3 times less likely to be carrying available pollen than non-inoculated returning foragers and the number of pollen grains carried was negatively correlated with the number of N. apis spores. In an arena of artificial flowers, inoculated bees had a tendency (p=0.061) to choose sugar flowers over pollen flowers, compared to non-inoculated bees which visited pollen and sugar flowers equally. These results demonstrate that even a relatively low dose of a widespread disease of A. mellifera may adversely affect bees' ability to pollinate. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The dynamics of foraging trails in the tropical arboreal ant Cephalotes goniodontus.

Science.gov (United States)

Gordon, Deborah M

2012-01-01

The foraging behavior of the arboreal turtle ant, Cephalotes goniodontus, was studied in the tropical dry forest of western Mexico. The ants collected mostly plant-derived food, including nectar and fluids collected from the edges of wounds on leaves, as well as caterpillar frass and lichen. Foraging trails are on small pieces of ephemeral vegetation, and persist in exactly the same place for 4-8 days, indicating that food sources may be used until they are depleted. The species is polydomous, occupying many nests which are abandoned cavities or ends of broken branches in dead wood. Foraging trails extend from trees with nests to trees with food sources. Observations of marked individuals show that each trail is travelled by a distinct group of foragers. This makes the entire foraging circuit more resilient if a path becomes impassable, since foraging in one trail can continue while a different group of ants forms a new trail. The colony's trails move around the forest from month to month; from one year to the next, only one colony out of five was found in the same location. There is continual searching in the vicinity of trails: ants recruited to bait within 3 bifurcations of a main foraging trail within 4 hours. When bait was offered on one trail, to which ants recruited, foraging activity increased on a different trail, with no bait, connected to the same nest. This suggests that the allocation of foragers to different trails is regulated by interactions at the nest.

Winter active bumblebees (Bombus terrestris achieve high foraging rates in urban Britain.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ralph J Stelzer

2010-03-01

Full Text Available Foraging bumblebees are normally associated with spring and summer in northern Europe. However, there have been sightings of the bumblebee Bombus terrestris during the warmer winters in recent years in southern England. But what floral resources are they relying upon during winter and how much winter forage can they collect?To test if urban areas in the UK provide a rich foraging niche for bees we set up colonies of B. terrestris in the field during two late winter periods (2005/6 & 2006/7 in London, UK, and measured their foraging performance. Fully automatic radio-frequency identification (RFID technology was used in 2006/7 to enable us to record the complete foraging activity of individually tagged bees. The number of bumblebees present during winter (October 2007 to March 2008 and the main plants they visited were also recorded during transect walks. Queens and workers were observed throughout the winter, suggesting a second generation of bee colonies active during the winter months. Mass flowering shrubs such as Mahonia spp. were identified as important food resources. The foraging experiments showed that bees active during the winter can attain nectar and pollen foraging rates that match, and even surpass, those recorded during summer.B. terrestris in the UK are now able to utilise a rich winter foraging resource in urban parks and gardens that might at present still be under-exploited, opening up the possibility of further changes in pollinator phenology.

Winter active bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) achieve high foraging rates in urban Britain.

Science.gov (United States)

Stelzer, Ralph J; Chittka, Lars; Carlton, Marc; Ings, Thomas C

2010-03-05

Foraging bumblebees are normally associated with spring and summer in northern Europe. However, there have been sightings of the bumblebee Bombus terrestris during the warmer winters in recent years in southern England. But what floral resources are they relying upon during winter and how much winter forage can they collect? To test if urban areas in the UK provide a rich foraging niche for bees we set up colonies of B. terrestris in the field during two late winter periods (2005/6 & 2006/7) in London, UK, and measured their foraging performance. Fully automatic radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology was used in 2006/7 to enable us to record the complete foraging activity of individually tagged bees. The number of bumblebees present during winter (October 2007 to March 2008) and the main plants they visited were also recorded during transect walks. Queens and workers were observed throughout the winter, suggesting a second generation of bee colonies active during the winter months. Mass flowering shrubs such as Mahonia spp. were identified as important food resources. The foraging experiments showed that bees active during the winter can attain nectar and pollen foraging rates that match, and even surpass, those recorded during summer. B. terrestris in the UK are now able to utilise a rich winter foraging resource in urban parks and gardens that might at present still be under-exploited, opening up the possibility of further changes in pollinator phenology.

Rumen microbial protein synthesis and nitrogen efficiency as affected by tanniferous and non-tanniferous forage legumes incubated individually or together in Rumen Simulation Technique.

Science.gov (United States)

Grosse Brinkhaus, Anja; Bee, Giuseppe; Schwarm, Angela; Kreuzer, Michael; Dohme-Meier, Frigga; Zeitz, Johanna O

2018-03-01

A limited availability of microbial protein can impair productivity in ruminants. Ruminal nitrogen efficiency might be optimised by combining high-quality forage legumes such as red clover (RC), which has unfavourably high ruminal protein degradability, with tanniferous legumes like sainfoin (SF) and birdsfoot trefoil (BT). Silages from SF and from BT cultivars [Bull (BB) and Polom (BP)] were incubated singly or in combination with RC using the Rumen Simulation Technique (n = 6). The tanniferous legumes, when compared to RC, changed the total short-chain fatty acid profile by increasing propionate proportions at the expense of butyrate. Silage from SF contained the most condensed tannins (CTs) (136 g CT kg -1 dry matter) and clearly differed in various traits from the BT and RC silages. The apparent nutrient degradability (small with SF), microbial protein synthesis, and calculated content of potentially utilisable crude protein (large with SF) indicated that SF had the greatest efficiency in ruminal protein synthesis. The effects of combining SF with RC were mostly linear. The potential of sainfoin to improve protein supply, demonstrated either individually or in combination with a high-performance forage legume, indicates its potential usefulness in complementing protein-deficient ruminant diets and high-quality forages rich in rumen-degradable protein. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry. © 2017 Society of Chemical Industry.

Migrations of green turtles (Chelonia mydas between nesting and foraging grounds across the Coral Sea.

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Tyffen C Read

Full Text Available Marine megafauna tend to migrate vast distances, often crossing national borders and pose a significant challenge to managers. This challenge is particularly acute in the Pacific, which contains numerous small island nations and thousands of kilometers of continental margins. The green sea turtle, Chelonia mydas, is one such megafauna that is endangered in Pacific waters due to the overexploitation of eggs and adults for human consumption. Data from long-term tagging programs in Queensland (Australia and New Caledonia were analysed to investigate the migrations by C. mydas across the Coral Sea between their nesting site and their feeding grounds. A review of data collected over the last 50 years by different projects identified multiple migrations of C. mydas to and from New Caledonia (n = 97 and indicate that turtles foraging in New Caledonia nest in the Great Barrier Reef (Australia and vice versa. Several explanations exist for turtles exhibiting this energetically costly movement pattern from breeding to distant foraging grounds (1200-2680 km away despite viable foraging habitat being available in the local vicinity. These include hatchling drift, oceanic movements and food abundance predictability. Most of the tag recoveries in New Caledonia belonged to females from the south Great Barrier Reef genetic stock. Some females (n = 2 even showed fidelity to foraging sites located 1200 km away from the nesting site located in New Caledonia. This study also reveals previously unknown migrations pathways of turtles within the Coral Sea.

Starvation dynamics of a greedy forager

Science.gov (United States)

Bhat, U.; Redner, S.; Bénichou, O.

2017-07-01

We investigate the dynamics of a greedy forager that moves by random walking in an environment where each site initially contains one unit of food. Upon encountering a food-containing site, the forager eats all the food there and can subsequently hop an additional S steps without food before starving to death. Upon encountering an empty site, the forager goes hungry and comes one time unit closer to starvation. We investigate the new feature of forager greed; if the forager has a choice between hopping to an empty site or to a food-containing site in its nearest neighborhood, it hops preferentially towards food. If the neighboring sites all contain food or are all empty, the forager hops equiprobably to one of these neighbors. Paradoxically, the lifetime of the forager can depend non-monotonically on greed, and the sense of the non-monotonicity is opposite in one and two dimensions. Even more unexpectedly, the forager lifetime in one dimension is substantially enhanced when the greed is negative; here the forager tends to avoid food in its local neighborhood. We also determine the average amount of food consumed at the instant when the forager starves. We present analytic, heuristic, and numerical results to elucidate these intriguing phenomena.

New Developments in Forage Varieties

Science.gov (United States)

Forage crops harvested for hay or haylage or grazed support dairy, beef, sheep and horse production. Additional livestock production from reduced forage acreage supports the need for forage variety improvement. The Consortium for Alfalfa Improvement is a partnership model of government, private no...

Foraging flight distances of wintering ducks and geese: a review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

William P. Johnson

2014-12-01

Full Text Available The distance covered by foraging animals, especially those that radiate from a central area when foraging, may affect ecosystem, community, and population dynamics, and has conservation and landscape planning implications for multiple taxa, including migratory waterfowl. Migrating and wintering waterfowl make regular foraging flights between roosting and feeding areas that can greatly impact energetic resources within the foraging zone near roost sites. We reviewed published studies and gray literature for one-way foraging flight distances (FFDs of migrating and wintering dabbling ducks and geese. Thirty reviewed studies reported FFDs and several reported values for multiple species or locations. We obtained FFD values for migration (n = 7 and winter (n = 70. We evaluated the effects of body mass, guild, i.e., dabbling duck or goose, and location, i.e., Nearctic or Palearctic, on FFDs. We used the second-order Akaike's Information Criterion for model selection. We found support for effects of location and guild on FFDs. FFDs of waterfowl wintering in the Nearctic (7.4 ± 6.7 km, mean ± SD; n = 39 values were longer than in the Palearctic (4.2 ± 3.2 km; n = 31 values. The FFDs of geese (7.8 ± 7.2 km, mean ± SD; n = 24 values were longer than FFDs of dabbling ducks (5.1 ± 4.4 km, mean ± SD; n = 46 values. We found mixed evidence that distance flown from the roost changed, i.e., increased or decreased, seasonally. Our results can be used to refine estimates of energetic carrying capacity around roosts and in biological and landscape planning efforts.

Multiple model testing using Chernobyl fallout data of I-131 in forage and milk and Cs-137 in forage, milk, beef and grain. Pt. 1

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koehler, H.; Peterson, S.R.; Owen Hoffman, F.

1991-03-01

Comprehensive measurements of I-131 and Cs-137 in the environment after the Chernobyl accident provided a unique opportunity for the collection of environmental transfer data sets. These come from 13 locations in the northern hemisphere which experienced levels of contamination that spanned approximately three orders of magnitude. Data have been compiled for radionuclide concentrations in air, rain, pasture vegetation, milk, beef and grain. In addition background information has been collated for factors such as prevailing meteorological conditions, location description, and local agricultural practices. Participants were asked to predict radionuclide concentrations in forage, milk, beef and grain from radionuclide concentrations in air, the daily amounts of precipitation and other pertinent information. This was a blind test in that the locations to which the input data referred were not revealed to the participants until after they had submitted their predictions. Twenty-three models were involved in the study. This report compares observations and predictions for deposition, time- integrated concentrations in forage, milk, beef and grain, to help assess understanding of individual processes, time-dependent concentrations in forage, milk and beef. In general, predictions of time-integrated concentration of I-131 and Cs-137 in forage, milk (normalized for forage) and beef are within a factor of 10 of the observations. About 50% of the predictions of I-131 and Cs-137 in forage and just over 30% of the predictions of those nuclides in milk (normalized for forage) fall within a factor of 2 of the observations. Documentation of the measurements, models, methods of analysis and model results is presented in the appendices. (au) (75 refs.)

Individual Educational Paths in the Universities of Russia and Great Britain (Theoretical Aspects

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Natalya Yu. Shaposhnikova

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The author highlights the necessity for higher education institutions to form and realize students' individual educational paths in the learning process, which is stated in the Federal Law on Education and FSES HPE of the third generation. The article presents an overview of the different approaches to the definition of the term «individual educational path» (IEP. It also gives a brief overview of the existing terms in the Russian terminological system, which are close in meaning to the term above. The author formulates her own tentative definition of the term «IEP» which is based on the analysis made. The article further addresses the solution to the problem of the individualization of higher education learning process in Great Britain, which is described through the term «Personal Development Planning». The meaning of the term is shown through the set of actions: planning, doing things, recording of the self experience, reviewing and evaluating, using the personal knowledge derived from reflection and self understanding as well as own learning abilities to plan future actions. In conclusion, the meanings of the terms «IEP» and «PDP» are compared. The author emphasires the importance of studying Great Britain's experience - the practice of solving problems connected with the individualization of the university learning process and the possibilities to use it to facilitate the implementation of students' individual educational paths in Russian higher education institutions.

Dental evidence for wild tuber processing among Titicaca Basin foragers 7000 ybp.

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Watson, James T; Haas, Randall

2017-09-01

The objective of this work is to characterize dental wear in a skeletal sample dating to the Middle/Late Archaic period transition (8,000-6,700 cal. B.P.) from the Lake Titicaca Basin, Peru to better define subsistence behaviors of foragers prior to incipient sedentism and food production. The dental sample consists of 251 teeth from 11 individuals recovered from the site of Soro Mik'aya Patjxa (SMP), the earliest securely dated burial assemblage in the Lake Titicaca Basin and the only burial assemblage in the region from an unequivocal forager context. Occlusal surface wear was quantified according to Smith (1984) and Scott (1979a) to characterize diversity within the site and to facilitate comparison with other foraging groups worldwide. General linear modeling was used to assess observation error and principal axis analysis was used to compare molar wear rates and angles. Teeth were also examined for caries and specialized wear. Occlusal surface attrition is generally heavy across the dental arcade and tends to be flat among posterior teeth. Only one carious lesion was observed. Five of the 11 individuals exhibit lingual surface attrition of the maxillary anterior teeth (LSAMAT). Tooth wear rates, molar wear plane, and caries rates are consistent with terrestrial foraging and a diverse diet. The presence of LSAMAT indicates tuber processing. The results therefore contribute critical new data toward our understanding of forager diet in the Altiplano prior to plant and animal domestication in the south-central Andes. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The emergence of leaders and followers in foraging pairs when the qualities of individuals differ

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Cowlishaw Guy

2008-02-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Foraging in groups offers animals a number of advantages, such as increasing their likelihood of finding food or detecting and avoiding predators. In order for a group to remain together, there has to be some degree of coordination of behaviour and movement between its members (which may in some cases be initiated by a decision-making leader, and in other cases may emerge as an underlying property of the group. For example, behavioural synchronisation is a phenomenon where animals within a group initiate and then continue to conduct identical behaviours, and has been characterised for a wide range of species. We examine how a pair of animals should behave using a state-dependent approach, and ask what conditions are likely to lead to behavioural synchronisation occurring, and whether one of the individuals is more likely to act as a leader. Results The model we describe considers how the energetic gain, metabolic requirements and predation risks faced by the individuals affect measures of their energetic state and behaviour (such as the degree of behavioural synchronisation seen within the pair, and the value to an individual of knowing the energetic state of its colleague. We explore how predictable changes in these measures are in response to changes in physiological requirements and predation risk. We also consider how these measures should change when the members of the pair are not identical in their metabolic requirements or their susceptibility to predation. We find that many of the changes seen in these measures are complex, especially when asymmetries exist between the members of the pair. Conclusion Analyses are presented that demonstrate that, although these general patterns are robust, care needs to be taken when considering the effects of individual differences, as the relationship between individual differences and the resulting qualitative changes in behaviour may be complex. We discuss how these results are

The foraging behaviour of herons and egrets on the Magela Creek flood plain, Northern Territory

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Recher, H.F.; Holmes, R.T.

1982-03-01

Five species of diurnal herons are common on the Magela Creek flood plain and forage along the edges of natural and artifical waterbodies both inside and outside the Ranger Uranium Project Area. The species of heron differ in the kinds and sizes of prey they take, their foraging location, degree of sociality and foraging behaviour. Because it takes relatively large fish, the Great Egret, E. alba, is most likely to be affected by any contamination of the aquatic environment by heavy metals or radionuclides. The Nankeen Night Heron, Nycticorax caledonicus is also abundant on the flood plain and probably feeds on large fish and frogs. The other herons take smaller or immature prey or hunt mostly in terrestrial habitats and are therefore less likely to be affected by contamination of the aquatic environment

Relative importance of social status and physiological need in determining leadership in a social forager.

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Öst, Markus; Jaatinen, Kim

2013-01-01

Group decisions on the timing of mutually exclusive activities pose a dilemma: monopolized decision-making by a single leader compromises the optimal timing of activities by the others, while independent decision-making by all group members undermines group coherence. Theory suggests that initiation of foraging should be determined by physiological demand in social foragers, thereby resolving the dilemma of group coordination. However, empirical support is scant, perhaps because intrinsic qualities predisposing individuals to leadership (social status, experience or personality), or their interactions with satiation level, have seldom been simultaneously considered. Here, we examine which females initiated foraging in eider (Somateria mollissima) brood-rearing coalitions, characterized by female dominance hierarchies and potentially large individual differences in energy requirements due to strenuous breeding effort. Several physiological and social factors, except for female breeding experience and boldness towards predators, explained foraging initiation. Initiators spent a larger proportion of time submerged during foraging bouts, had poorer body condition and smaller structural size, but they were also aggressive and occupied central positions. Initiation probability also declined with female group size as expected given random assignment of initiators. However, the relative importance of physiological predictors of leadership propensity (active foraging time, body condition, structural size) exceeded those of social predictors (aggressiveness, spatial position) by an order of magnitude. These results confirm recent theoretical work suggesting that 'leading according to need' is an evolutionary viable strategy regardless of group heterogeneity or underlying dominance structure.

Relative importance of social status and physiological need in determining leadership in a social forager.

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Markus Öst

Full Text Available Group decisions on the timing of mutually exclusive activities pose a dilemma: monopolized decision-making by a single leader compromises the optimal timing of activities by the others, while independent decision-making by all group members undermines group coherence. Theory suggests that initiation of foraging should be determined by physiological demand in social foragers, thereby resolving the dilemma of group coordination. However, empirical support is scant, perhaps because intrinsic qualities predisposing individuals to leadership (social status, experience or personality, or their interactions with satiation level, have seldom been simultaneously considered. Here, we examine which females initiated foraging in eider (Somateria mollissima brood-rearing coalitions, characterized by female dominance hierarchies and potentially large individual differences in energy requirements due to strenuous breeding effort. Several physiological and social factors, except for female breeding experience and boldness towards predators, explained foraging initiation. Initiators spent a larger proportion of time submerged during foraging bouts, had poorer body condition and smaller structural size, but they were also aggressive and occupied central positions. Initiation probability also declined with female group size as expected given random assignment of initiators. However, the relative importance of physiological predictors of leadership propensity (active foraging time, body condition, structural size exceeded those of social predictors (aggressiveness, spatial position by an order of magnitude. These results confirm recent theoretical work suggesting that 'leading according to need' is an evolutionary viable strategy regardless of group heterogeneity or underlying dominance structure.

Corticosterone predicts foraging behavior and parental care in macaroni penguins.

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Crossin, Glenn T; Trathan, Phil N; Phillips, Richard A; Gorman, Kristen B; Dawson, Alistair; Sakamoto, Kentaro Q; Williams, Tony D

2012-07-01

Corticosterone has received considerable attention as the principal hormonal mediator of allostasis or physiological stress in wild animals. More recently, it has also been implicated in the regulation of parental care in breeding birds, particularly with respect to individual variation in foraging behavior and provisioning effort. There is also evidence that prolactin can work either inversely or additively with corticosterone to achieve this. Here we test the hypothesis that endogenous corticosterone plays a key physiological role in the control of foraging behavior and parental care, using a combination of exogenous corticosterone treatment, time-depth telemetry, and physiological sampling of female macaroni penguins (Eudyptes chrysolophus) during the brood-guard period of chick rearing, while simultaneously monitoring patterns of prolactin secretion. Plasma corticosterone levels were significantly higher in females given exogenous implants relative to those receiving sham implants. Increased corticosterone levels were associated with significantly higher levels of foraging and diving activity and greater mass gain in implanted females. Elevated plasma corticosterone was also associated with an apparent fitness benefit in the form of increased chick mass. Plasma prolactin levels did not correlate with corticosterone levels at any time, nor was prolactin correlated with any measure of foraging behavior or parental care. Our results provide support for the corticosterone-adaptation hypothesis, which predicts that higher corticosterone levels support increased foraging activity and parental effort.

Forage quantity and quality

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Jorgenson, Janet C.; Udevitz, Mark S.; Felix, Nancy A.; Douglas, David C.; Reynolds, Patricia E.; Rhode, E.B.

2002-01-01

The Porcupine caribou herd has traditionally used the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Alaska, for calving. Availability of nutritious forage has been hypothesized as one of the reasons the Porcupine caribou herd migrates hundreds of kilometers to reach the coastal plain for calving (Kuropat and Bryant 1980, Russell et al. 1993).Forage quantity and quality and the chronology of snowmelt (which determines availability and phenological stages of forage) have been suggested as important habitat attributes that lead calving caribou to select one area over another (Lent 1980, White and Trudell 1980, Eastland et al. 1989). A major question when considering the impact of petroleum development is whether potential displacement of the caribou from the 1002 Area to alternate calving habitat will limit access to high quantity and quality forage.Our study had the following objectives: 1) quantify snowmelt patterns by area; 2) quantify relationships among phenology, biomass, and nutrient content of principal forage species by vegetation type; and 3) determine if traditional concentrated calving areas differ from adjacent areas with lower calving densities in terms of vegetation characteristics.

Interactions with combined chemical cues inform harvester ant foragers' decisions to leave the nest in search of food.

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Michael J Greene

Full Text Available Social insect colonies operate without central control or any global assessment of what needs to be done by workers. Colony organization arises from the responses of individuals to local cues. Red harvester ants (Pogonomyrmex barbatus regulate foraging using interactions between returning and outgoing foragers. The rate at which foragers return with seeds, a measure of food availability, sets the rate at which outgoing foragers leave the nest on foraging trips. We used mimics to test whether outgoing foragers inside the nest respond to the odor of food, oleic acid, the odor of the forager itself, cuticular hydrocarbons, or a combination of both with increased foraging activity. We compared foraging activity, the rate at which foragers passed a line on a trail, before and after the addition of mimics. The combination of both odors, those of food and of foragers, is required to stimulate foraging. The addition of blank mimics, mimics coated with food odor alone, or mimics coated with forager odor alone did not increase foraging activity. We compared the rates at which foragers inside the nest interacted with other ants, blank mimics, and mimics coated with a combination of food and forager odor. Foragers inside the nest interacted more with mimics coated with combined forager/seed odors than with blank mimics, and these interactions had the same effect as those with other foragers. Outgoing foragers inside the nest entrance are stimulated to leave the nest in search of food by interacting with foragers returning with seeds. By using the combined odors of forager cuticular hydrocarbons and of seeds, the colony captures precise information, on the timescale of seconds, about the current availability of food.

Linking GPS Telemetry Surveys and Scat Analyses Helps Explain Variability in Black Bear Foraging Strategies.

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Lesmerises, Rémi; Rebouillat, Lucie; Dussault, Claude; St-Laurent, Martin-Hugues

2015-01-01

Studying diet is fundamental to animal ecology and scat analysis, a widespread approach, is considered a reliable dietary proxy. Nonetheless, this method has weaknesses such as non-random sampling of habitats and individuals, inaccurate evaluation of excretion date, and lack of assessment of inter-individual dietary variability. We coupled GPS telemetry and scat analyses of black bears Ursus americanus Pallas to relate diet to individual characteristics and habitat use patterns while foraging. We captured 20 black bears (6 males and 14 females) and fitted them with GPS/Argos collars. We then surveyed GPS locations shortly after individual bear visits and collected 139 feces in 71 different locations. Fecal content (relative dry matter biomass of ingested items) was subsequently linked to individual characteristics (sex, age, reproductive status) and to habitats visited during foraging bouts using Brownian bridges based on GPS locations prior to feces excretion. At the population level, diet composition was similar to what was previously described in studies on black bears. However, our individual-based method allowed us to highlight different intra-population patterns, showing that sex and female reproductive status had significant influence on individual diet. For example, in the same habitats, females with cubs did not use the same food sources as lone bears. Linking fecal content (i.e., food sources) to habitat previously visited by different individuals, we demonstrated a potential differential use of similar habitats dependent on individual characteristics. Females with cubs-of-the-year tended to use old forest clearcuts (6-20 years old) to feed on bunchberry, whereas females with yearling foraged for blueberry and lone bears for ants. Coupling GPS telemetry and scat analyses allows for efficient detection of inter-individual or inter-group variations in foraging strategies and of linkages between previous habitat use and food consumption, even for cryptic

Linking GPS Telemetry Surveys and Scat Analyses Helps Explain Variability in Black Bear Foraging Strategies.

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Rémi Lesmerises

Full Text Available Studying diet is fundamental to animal ecology and scat analysis, a widespread approach, is considered a reliable dietary proxy. Nonetheless, this method has weaknesses such as non-random sampling of habitats and individuals, inaccurate evaluation of excretion date, and lack of assessment of inter-individual dietary variability. We coupled GPS telemetry and scat analyses of black bears Ursus americanus Pallas to relate diet to individual characteristics and habitat use patterns while foraging. We captured 20 black bears (6 males and 14 females and fitted them with GPS/Argos collars. We then surveyed GPS locations shortly after individual bear visits and collected 139 feces in 71 different locations. Fecal content (relative dry matter biomass of ingested items was subsequently linked to individual characteristics (sex, age, reproductive status and to habitats visited during foraging bouts using Brownian bridges based on GPS locations prior to feces excretion. At the population level, diet composition was similar to what was previously described in studies on black bears. However, our individual-based method allowed us to highlight different intra-population patterns, showing that sex and female reproductive status had significant influence on individual diet. For example, in the same habitats, females with cubs did not use the same food sources as lone bears. Linking fecal content (i.e., food sources to habitat previously visited by different individuals, we demonstrated a potential differential use of similar habitats dependent on individual characteristics. Females with cubs-of-the-year tended to use old forest clearcuts (6-20 years old to feed on bunchberry, whereas females with yearling foraged for blueberry and lone bears for ants. Coupling GPS telemetry and scat analyses allows for efficient detection of inter-individual or inter-group variations in foraging strategies and of linkages between previous habitat use and food consumption, even

Optimal Foraging in Semantic Memory

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Hills, Thomas T.; Jones, Michael N.; Todd, Peter M.

2012-01-01

Do humans search in memory using dynamic local-to-global search strategies similar to those that animals use to forage between patches in space? If so, do their dynamic memory search policies correspond to optimal foraging strategies seen for spatial foraging? Results from a number of fields suggest these possibilities, including the shared…

Forage production in mixed grazing systems of elephant grass with arrowleaf clover or forage peanut

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Daiane Cristine Seibt

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Most dairy production systems are pasture-based, usually consisting of sole grass species. This system facilitates pasture management, but results in high production costs, mainly because of nitrogen fertilizers. An alternative to making forage systems more sustainable is to introduce legumes into the pasture. Mixed pastures allow better forage distribution over time and reduce fertilization costs. Thus, the objective of this study was to evaluate, throughout the year, three forage systems (FS: FS1 (control - elephant grass (EG, ryegrass (RG, and spontaneous species (SS; FS2 - EG + RG + SS + arrowleaf clover; and FS3 - EG + RG + SS + forage peanut. Elephant grass was planted in rows spaced 4 m apart. Ryegrass was sown between the EG lines, in the winter. Arrowleaf clover was sown according to the respective treatments and forage peanut was preserved. Evaluation was carried out using Holstein cows. The experiment was arranged in a completely randomized design, with three treatments (FS, and three repetitions (paddocks with repeated measurements (grazing cycles. Forage mass achieved 3.46, 3.80, and 3.91 t ha-1 for the treatments FS1, FS2 and FS3, respectively. The forage systems intercropped with legumes produced the best results.

Individual diet variation in a marine fish assemblage: Optimal Foraging Theory, Niche Variation Hypothesis and functional identity

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Cachera, M.; Ernande, B.; Villanueva, M. C.; Lefebvre, S.

2017-02-01

Individual diet variation (i.e. diet variation among individuals) impacts intra- and inter-specific interactions. Investigating its sources and relationship with species trophic niche organization is important for understanding community structure and dynamics. Individual diet variation may increase with intra-specific phenotypic (or "individual state") variation and habitat variability, according to Optimal Foraging Theory (OFT), and with species trophic niche width, according to the Niche Variation Hypothesis (NVH). OFT proposes "proximate sources" of individual diet variation such as variations in habitat or size whereas NVH relies on "ultimate sources" related to the competitive balance between intra- and inter-specific competitions. The latter implies as a corollary that species trophic niche overlap, taken as inter-specific competition measure, decreases as species niche width and individual niche variation increase. We tested the complementary predictions of OFT and NVH in a marine fish assemblage using stomach content data and associated trophic niche metrics. The NVH predictions were tested between species of the assemblage and decomposed into a between- and a within-functional group component to assess the potential influence of species' ecological function. For most species, individual diet variation and niche overlap were consistently larger than expected. Individual diet variation increased with intra-specific variability in individual state and habitat, as expected from OFT. It also increased with species niche width but in compliance with the null expectation, thus not supporting the NVH. In contrast, species niche overlap increased significantly less than null expectation with both species niche width and individual diet variation, supporting NVH corollary. The between- and within-functional group components of the NVH relationships were consistent with those between species at the assemblage level. Changing the number of prey categories used to

Sympatric cattle grazing and desert bighorn sheep foraging

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Garrison, Kyle R.; Cain, James W.; Rominger, Eric M.; Goldstein, Elise J.

2015-01-01

Foraging behavior affects animal fitness and is largely dictated by the resources available to an animal. Understanding factors that affect forage resources is important for conservation and management of wildlife. Cattle sympatry is proposed to limit desert bighorn population performance, but few studies have quantified the effect of cattle foraging on bighorn forage resources or foraging behavior by desert bighorn. We estimated forage biomass for desert bighorn sheep in 2 mountain ranges: the cattle-grazed Caballo Mountains and the ungrazed San Andres Mountains, New Mexico. We recorded foraging bout efficiency of adult females by recording feeding time/step while foraging, and activity budgets of 3 age-sex classes (i.e., adult males, adult females, yearlings). We also estimated forage biomass at sites where bighorn were observed foraging. We expected lower forage biomass in the cattle-grazed Caballo range than in the ungrazed San Andres range and lower biomass at cattle-accessible versus inaccessible areas within the Caballo range. We predicted bighorn would be less efficient foragers in the Caballo range. Groundcover forage biomass was low in both ranges throughout the study (Jun 2012–Nov 2013). Browse biomass, however, was 4.7 times lower in the Caballo range versus the San Andres range. Bighorn in the Caballo range exhibited greater overall daily travel time, presumably to locate areas of higher forage abundance. By selecting areas with greater forage abundance, adult females in the Caballo range exhibited foraging bout efficiency similar to their San Andres counterparts but lower overall daily browsing time. We did not find a significant reduction in forage biomass at cattle-accessible areas in the Caballo range. Only the most rugged areas in the Caballo range had abundant forage, potentially a result of intensive historical livestock use in less rugged areas. Forage conditions in the Caballo range apparently force bighorn to increase foraging effort by

Contrasting Foraging Patterns: Testing Resource-Concentration and Dilution Effects with Pollinators and Seed Predators

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Alexandria Wenninger

2016-06-01

Full Text Available Resource concentration effects occur when high resource density patches attract and support more foragers than low density patches. In contrast, resource dilution effects can occur if high density patches support fewer consumers. In this study, we examined the foraging rates of pollinators and seed predators on two perennial plant species (Rudbeckia triloba and Verbena stricta as functions of resource density. Specifically, we examined whether resource-dense patches (densities of flower and seeds on individual plants resulted in greater visitation and seed removal rates, respectively. We also examined whether foraging rates were context-dependent by conducting the study in two sites that varied in resource densities. For pollinators, we found negative relationships between the density of flowers per plant and visitation rates, suggesting dilution effects. For seed predators, we found positive relationships consistent with concentration effects. Saturation effects and differences in foraging behaviors might explain the opposite relationships; most of the seed predators were ants (recruitment-based foragers, and pollinators were mostly solitary foragers. We also found that foraging rates were site-dependent, possibly due to site-level differences in resource abundance and consumer densities. These results suggest that these two plant species may benefit from producing as many flowers as possible, given high levels of pollination and low seed predation.

Ultra-High Foraging Rates of Harbor Porpoises Make Them Vulnerable to Anthropogenic Disturbance.

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Wisniewska, Danuta Maria; Johnson, Mark; Teilmann, Jonas; Rojano-Doñate, Laia; Shearer, Jeanne; Sveegaard, Signe; Miller, Lee A; Siebert, Ursula; Madsen, Peter Teglberg

2016-06-06

The question of how individuals acquire and allocate resources to maximize fitness is central in evolutionary ecology. Basic information on prey selection, search effort, and capture rates are critical for understanding a predator's role in its ecosystem and for predicting its response to natural and anthropogenic disturbance. Yet, for most marine species, foraging interactions cannot be observed directly. The high costs of thermoregulation in water require that small marine mammals have elevated energy intakes compared to similar-sized terrestrial mammals [1]. The combination of high food requirements and their position at the apex of most marine food webs may make small marine mammals particularly vulnerable to changes within the ecosystem [2-4], but the lack of detailed information about their foraging behavior often precludes an informed conservation effort. Here, we use high-resolution movement and prey echo recording tags on five wild harbor porpoises to examine foraging interactions in one of the most metabolically challenged cetacean species. We report that porpoises forage nearly continuously day and night, attempting to capture up to 550 small (3-10 cm) fish prey per hour with a remarkable prey capture success rate of >90%. Porpoises therefore target fish that are smaller than those of commercial interest, but must forage almost continually to meet their metabolic demands with such small prey, leaving little margin for compensation. Thus, for these "aquatic shrews," even a moderate level of anthropogenic disturbance in the busy shallow waters they share with humans may have severe fitness consequences at individual and population levels. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Information needs at the beginning of foraging: grass-cutting ants trade off load size for a faster return to the nest.

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Martin Bollazzi

2011-03-01

Full Text Available Acquisition of information about food sources is essential for animals that forage collectively like social insects. Foragers deliver two commodities to the nest, food and information, and they may favor the delivery of one at the expenses of the other. We predict that information needs should be particularly high at the beginning of foraging: the decision to return faster to the nest will motivate a grass-cutting ant worker to reduce its loading time, and so to leave the source with a partial load.Field results showed that at the initial foraging phase, most grass-cutting ant foragers (Acromyrmex heyeri returned unladen to the nest, and experienced head-on encounters with outgoing workers. Ant encounters were not simply collisions in a probabilistic sense: outgoing workers contacted in average 70% of the returning foragers at the initial foraging phase, and only 20% at the established phase. At the initial foraging phase, workers cut fragments that were shorter, narrower, lighter and tenderer than those harvested at the established one. Foragers walked at the initial phase significantly faster than expected for the observed temperatures, yet not at the established phase. Moreover, when controlling for differences in the fragment-size carried, workers still walked faster at the initial phase. Despite the higher speed, their individual transport rate of vegetable tissue was lower than that of similarly-sized workers foraging later at the same patch.At the initial foraging phase, workers compromised their individual transport rates of material in order to return faster to the colony. We suggest that the observed flexible cutting rules and the selection of partial loads at the beginning of foraging are driven by the need of information transfer, crucial for the establishment and maintenance of a foraging process to monopolize a discovered resource.

Differential regulation of the foraging gene associated with task behaviors in harvester ants

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Kleeman Lindsay

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The division of labor in social insect colonies involves transitions by workers from one task to another and is critical to the organization and ecological success of colonies. The differential regulation of genetic pathways is likely to be a key mechanism involved in plasticity of social insect task behavior. One of the few pathways implicated in social organization involves the cGMP-activated protein kinase gene, foraging, a gene associated with foraging behavior in social insect species. The association of the foraging gene with behavior is conserved across diverse species, but the observed expression patterns and proposed functions of this gene vary across taxa. We compared the protein sequence of foraging across social insects and explored whether the differential regulation of this gene is associated with task behaviors in the harvester ant, Pogonomyrmex occidentalis. Results Phylogenetic analysis of the coding region of the foraging gene reveals considerable conservation in protein sequence across insects, particularly among hymenopteran species. The absence of amino acid variation in key active and binding sites suggests that differences in behaviors associated with this gene among species may be the result of changes in gene expression rather than gene divergence. Using real time qPCR analyses with a harvester ant ortholog to foraging (Pofor, we found that the brains of harvester ant foragers have a daily fluctuation in expression of foraging with mRNA levels peaking at midday. In contrast, young workers inside the nest have low levels of Pofor mRNA with no evidence of daily fluctuations in expression. As a result, the association of foraging expression with task behavior within a species changes depending on the time of day the individuals are sampled. Conclusions The amino acid protein sequence of foraging is highly conserved across social insects. Differences in foraging behaviors associated with this gene among

Stochastic resonance and the evolution of Daphnia foraging strategy

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dees, Nathan D; Bahar, Sonya; Moss, Frank

2008-01-01

Search strategies are currently of great interest, with reports on foraging ranging from albatrosses and spider monkeys to microzooplankton. Here, we investigate the role of noise in optimizing search strategies. We focus on the zooplankton Daphnia, which move in successive sequences consisting of a hop, a pause and a turn through an angle. Recent experiments have shown that their turning angle distributions (TADs) and underlying noise intensities are similar across species and age groups, suggesting an evolutionary origin of this internal noise. We explore this hypothesis further with a digital simulation (EVO) based solely on the three central Darwinian themes: inheritability, variability and survivability. Separate simulations utilizing stochastic resonance (SR) indicate that foraging success, and hence fitness, is maximized at an optimum TAD noise intensity, which is represented by the distribution's characteristic width, σ. In both the EVO and SR simulations, foraging success is the criterion, and the results are the predicted characteristic widths of the TADs that maximize success. Our results are twofold: (1) the evolving characteristic widths achieve stasis after many generations; (2) as a hop length parameter is changed, variations in the evolved widths generated by EVO parallel those predicted by SR. These findings provide support for the hypotheses that (1) σ is an evolved quantity and that (2) SR plays a role in evolution. (communication)

Beneficial Effects of Temperate Forage Legumes that Contain Condensed Tannins

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Jennifer W. MacAdam

2015-07-01

Full Text Available The two temperate forage legumes containing condensed tannins (CT that promote ruminant production are birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus L.; BFT and sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia Scop.; SF. Both are well-adapted to the cool-temperate climate and alkaline soils of the Mountain West USA. Condensed tannins comprise a diverse family of bioactive chemicals with multiple beneficial functions for ruminants, including suppression of internal parasites and enteric methane. Birdsfoot trefoil contains 10 to 40 g·CT·kg−1 dry matter (DM, while SF contains 30 to 80 g·CT·kg−1 DM. Our studies have focused on these two plant species and have demonstrated consistently elevated rates of gain for beef calves grazing both BFT and SF. Novel results from our BFT research include carcass dressing percentages and consumer sensory evaluations equivalent to feedlot-finished steers and significantly greater than grass-finished steers, but with omega-3 fatty acid concentrations equal to grass-finished beef. We have further demonstrated that ruminants fed BFT or SF will consume more endophyte-infected tall fescue (Schedonorus arundinaceus (Schreb. Dumort. forage or seed than ruminants fed a non-CT forage legume. There is great potential value for sustainable livestock production in the use of highly digestible, nitrogen-fixing legumes containing tannins demonstrated to improve ruminant productivity.

Comparative Foraging Efficiency of Two Sympatric Jackals, Silver-Backed Jackals (Canis mesomelas and Golden Jackals (Canis aureus, in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

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S. E. Temu

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The foraging efficiency of two sympatric species of jackals, silver-backed jackals (Canis mesomelas and golden jackals (Canis aureus, was studied in the Ngorongoro crater from July 2014 through May 2015. The focal animal observation method was used and individuals of both species were followed as they foraged from morning to evening. Observations of individuals of both jackal species were made from a vehicle using binoculars and a spotting scope. Three major parameters were used for determination of foraging efficiency: distance travelled while foraging, time spent foraging, and amount of food secured in foraging period. The Mann–Whitney U test showed no significant difference (P>0.05 in distance travelled per unit time of foraging between the two species in the dry and wet seasons, respectively. Golden jackals secured a significantly higher amount of food than the silver-backed jackals in the wet season (Mann–Whitney U test, P<0.05, U=1035.4. Hunting of prey larger than Thomson’s gazelle (Eudorcas thomsonii fawns was not common. Both species mainly fed on smaller prey such as invertebrates and rodents and scavenged opportunistically. Efficient foraging is crucial for both jackal species especially during their breeding season when they are provisioning dependent pups.

Utilization of 15N in the sequence of mineral fertilizer - forage - animal - slurry - forage

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Peschke, H.

1981-01-01

After systematic application of 15 N-ammonium nitrate, the change of the dinuclidic composition and 15 N quantity was studied by isotope analysis of several open systems in the sequence mineral fertilizer - (soil) - forage - (animal) - slurry - (soil) - forage. The relative 15 N isotope frequency of 50 atom% in the mineral fertilizer declined to 12.2 to 21.4 atom% in the forage (beet, oats, hay) and went down to 3.15 atom% in the slurry of a dairy cow fed on this forage. Silage maize manured with the slurry of the dairy cow only showed 1.98 atom %, green oats grown after the silage maize on the same area was found to have 0.45 atom%. The 15 N quantity of 104.5 g N in the fertilizer gradually decreased to 41.6 g N in the forage, 30.5 g N in the slurry and 22.6 g N in the silage maize. The causes discussed are 15 N isotope dilution as qualitative factor and productive and unproductive N losses as quantitative factors. (author)

Competition and facilitation between a native and a domestic herbivore: trade-offs between forage quantity and quality.

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Augustine, David J; Springer, Tim L

2013-06-01

Potential competition between native and domestic herbivores is a major consideration influencing the management and conservation of native herbivores in rangeland ecosystems. In grasslands of the North American Great Plains, black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) are widely viewed as competitors with cattle but are also important for biodiversity conservation due to their role in creating habitat for other native species. We examined spatiotemporal variation in prairie dog effects on growing-season forage quality and quantity using measurements from three colony complexes in Colorado and South Dakota and from a previous study of a fourth complex in Montana. At two complexes experiencing below-average precipitation, forage availability both on and off colonies was so low (12-54 g/m2) that daily forage intake rates of cattle were likely constrained by instantaneous intake rates and daily foraging time. Under these dry conditions, prairie dogs (1) substantially reduced forage availability, thus further limiting cattle daily intake rates, and (2) had either no or a small positive effect on forage digestibility. Under such conditions, prairie dogs are likely to compete with cattle in direct proportion to their abundance. For two complexes experiencing above-average precipitation, forage quantity on and off colonies (77-208 g/m2) was sufficient for daily forage intake of cattle to be limited by digestion rather than instantaneous forage intake. At one complex where prairie dogs enhanced forage digestibility and [N] while having no effect on forage quantity, prairie dogs are predicted to facilitate cattle mass gains regardless of prairie dog abundance. At the second complex where prairie dogs enhanced digestibility and [N] but reduced forage quantity, effects on cattle can vary from competition to facilitation depending on prairie dog abundance. Our findings show that the high spatiotemporal variation in vegetation dynamics characteristic of semiarid grasslands

Adaptive Bacterial Foraging Optimization

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Hanning Chen

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Bacterial Foraging Optimization (BFO is a recently developed nature-inspired optimization algorithm, which is based on the foraging behavior of E. coli bacteria. Up to now, BFO has been applied successfully to some engineering problems due to its simplicity and ease of implementation. However, BFO possesses a poor convergence behavior over complex optimization problems as compared to other nature-inspired optimization techniques. This paper first analyzes how the run-length unit parameter of BFO controls the exploration of the whole search space and the exploitation of the promising areas. Then it presents a variation on the original BFO, called the adaptive bacterial foraging optimization (ABFO, employing the adaptive foraging strategies to improve the performance of the original BFO. This improvement is achieved by enabling the bacterial foraging algorithm to adjust the run-length unit parameter dynamically during algorithm execution in order to balance the exploration/exploitation tradeoff. The experiments compare the performance of two versions of ABFO with the original BFO, the standard particle swarm optimization (PSO and a real-coded genetic algorithm (GA on four widely-used benchmark functions. The proposed ABFO shows a marked improvement in performance over the original BFO and appears to be comparable with the PSO and GA.

Notes on food and foraging of the Honey Badger Mellivora capensis in the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park

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H Kruuk

1983-12-01

Full Text Available Contents of faeces indicated that honey badgers in the Kalahari eat mostly rodents, followed by lizards and scorpions, all of which are caught by digging. Larger mammals (aardwolf, bat-eared fox, springhare and large snakes are also eaten. Foraging behaviour is described and individual differences in foraging strategies are discussed.

Terrestrial and Marine Foraging Strategies of an Opportunistic Seabird Species Breeding in the Wadden Sea.

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Stefan Garthe

Full Text Available Lesser black-backed gulls Larus fuscus are considered to be mainly pelagic. We assessed the importance of different landscape elements (open sea, tidal flats and inland by comparing marine and terrestrial foraging behaviours in lesser black-backed gulls breeding along the coast of the southern North Sea. We attached GPS data loggers to eight incubating birds and collected information on diet and habitat use. The loggers recorded data for 10-19 days to allow flight-path reconstruction. Lesser black-backed gulls foraged in both offshore and inland areas, but rarely on tidal flats. Targets and directions were similar among all eight individuals. Foraging trips (n = 108 lasted 0.5-26.4 h (mean 8.7 h, and ranges varied from 3.0-79.9 km (mean 30.9 km. The total distance travelled per foraging trip ranged from 7.5-333.6 km (mean 97.9 km. Trips out to sea were significantly more variable in all parameters than inland trips. Presence in inland areas was closely associated with daylight, whereas trips to sea occurred at day and night, but mostly at night. The most common items in pellets were grass (48%, insects (38%, fish (28%, litter (26% and earthworms (20%. There was a significant relationship between the carbon and nitrogen isotope signals in blood and the proportional time each individual spent foraging at sea/land. On land, gulls preferentially foraged on bare ground, with significantly higher use of potato fields and significantly less use of grassland. The flight patterns of lesser black-backed gulls at sea overlapped with fishing-vessel distribution, including small beam trawlers fishing for shrimps in coastal waters close to the colony and large beam-trawlers fishing for flatfish at greater distances. Our data show that individuals made intensive use of the anthropogenic landscape and seascape, indicating that lesser black-backed gulls are not a predominantly marine species during the incubation period.

Group cohesion in foraging meerkats: follow the moving 'vocal hot spot'.

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Gall, Gabriella E C; Manser, Marta B

2017-04-01

Group coordination, when 'on the move' or when visibility is low, is a challenge faced by many social living animals. While some animals manage to maintain cohesion solely through visual contact, the mechanism of group cohesion through other modes of communication, a necessity when visual contact is reduced, is not yet understood. Meerkats ( Suricata suricatta ), a small, social carnivore, forage as a cohesive group while moving continuously. While foraging, they frequently emit 'close calls', soft close-range contact calls. Variations in their call rates based on their local environment, coupled with individual movement, produce a dynamic acoustic landscape with a moving 'vocal hotspot' of the highest calling activity. We investigated whether meerkats follow such a vocal hotspot by playing back close calls of multiple individuals to foraging meerkats from the front and back edge of the group simultaneously. These two artificially induced vocal hotspots caused the group to spatially elongate and split into two subgroups. We conclude that meerkats use the emergent dynamic call pattern of the group to adjust their movement direction and maintain cohesion. Our study describes a highly flexible mechanism for the maintenance of group cohesion through vocal communication, for mobile species in habitats with low visibility and where movement decisions need to be adjusted continuously to changing environmental conditions.

Intra-seasonal variation in foraging behavior among Adélie penguins (Pygocelis adeliae) breeding at Cape Hallett, Ross Sea, Antarctica

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Lyver, P.O.B.; MacLeod, C.J.; Ballard, G.; Karl, B.J.; Barton, K.J.; Adams, J.; Ainley, D.G.; Wilson, P.R.

2011-01-01

We investigated intra-seasonal variation in foraging behavior of chick-rearing Adélie penguins, Pygoscelis adeliae, during two consecutive summers at Cape Hallett, northwestern Ross Sea. Although foraging behavior of this species has been extensively studied throughout the broad continental shelf region of the Ross Sea, this is the first study to report foraging behaviors and habitat affiliations among birds occupying continental slope waters. Continental slope habitat supports the greatest abundances of this species throughout its range, but we lack information about how intra-specific competition for prey might affect foraging and at-sea distribution and how these attributes compare with previous Ross Sea studies. Foraging trips increased in both distance and duration as breeding advanced from guard to crèche stage, but foraging dive depth, dive rates, and vertical dive distances travelled per hour decreased. Consistent with previous studies within slope habitats elsewhere in Antarctic waters, Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) dominated chick meal composition, but fish increased four-fold from guard to crèche stages. Foraging-, focal-, and core areas all doubled during the crèche stage as individuals shifted distribution in a southeasterly direction away from the coast while simultaneously becoming more widely dispersed (i.e., less spatial overlap among individuals). Intra-specific competition for prey among Adélie penguins appears to influence foraging behavior of this species, even in food webs dominated by Antarctic krill.

Identifying pollination service hotspots and coldspots using citizen science data from the Great Sunflower Project

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LeBuhn, G.; Schmucki, R.

2016-12-01

Identifying the spatial patterns of pollinator visitation rates is key to identifying the drivers of differences in pollination service and the areas where pollinator conservation will provide the highest return on investment. However, gathering pollinator abundance data at the appropriate regional and national scales is untenable. As a surrogate, habitat models have been developed to identify areas of pollinator losses but these models have been developed using expert opinion based on foraging and nesting requirements. Thousands of citizen scientists across the United States participating in The Great Sunflower Project (www.GreatSunflower.org) contribute timed counts of pollinator visits to a focal sunflower variety planted in local gardens and green spaces. While these data provide a more direct measure of pollination service to a standardized plant and include a measure of effort, the data are complicated. Each location is sampled at different dates, times and frequencies as well as different points across the local flight season. To overcome this complication, we have used a generalized additive model to generate regional flight curves to calibrate each individual data point and to attain better estimates of pollination service at each site. Using these flight season corrected data, we identify hotspots and cold spots in pollinator service across the United States, evaluate the drivers shaping the spatial patterns and observe how these data align with the results obtained from predictive models that are based on expert knowledge on foraging and nesting habitats.

Costs associated with tail autotomy in an ambush foraging lizard ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

We induced tail autotomy in free ranging male Cordylus m. melanotus and measured potential shifts in behaviour (movements, foraging behaviour, time exposed and average distance to a potential refuge), and responses to an approaching human compared to marked individuals with complete tails. Tailed and tailless ...

Specialist Osmia bees forage indiscriminately among hybridizing Balsamorhiza floral hosts

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James H. Cane

2011-01-01

Pollinators, even floral generalists (=polyleges), typically specialize during individual foraging bouts, infrequently switching between floral hosts. Such transient floral constancy restricts pollen flow, and thereby gene flow, to conspecific flowers in mixed plant communities. Where incipient flowering species meet, however, weak cross-fertility and often similar...

Social learning of an associative foraging task in zebrafish

Science.gov (United States)

Zala, Sarah M.; Määttänen, Ilmari

2013-05-01

The zebrafish ( Danio rerio) is increasingly becoming an important model species for studies on the genetic and neural mechanisms controlling behaviour and cognition. Here, we utilized a conditioned place preference (CPP) paradigm to study social learning in zebrafish. We tested whether social interactions with conditioned demonstrators enhance the ability of focal naïve individuals to learn an associative foraging task. We found that the presence of conditioned demonstrators improved focal fish foraging behaviour through the process of social transmission, whereas the presence of inexperienced demonstrators interfered with the learning of the control focal fish. Our results indicate that zebrafish use social learning for finding food and that this CPP paradigm is an efficient assay to study social learning and memory in zebrafish.

Personality-dependent differences in problem-solving performance in a social context reflect foraging strategies

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zandberg, Lies; Quinn, John L.; Naguib, Marc; van Oers, Kees

2017-01-01

Abstract Individuals develop innovative behaviours to solve foraging challenges in the face of changing environmental conditions. Little is known about how individuals differ in their tendency to solve problems and in their subsequent use of this solving behaviour in social contexts. Here we

Personality-dependent differences in problem-solving performance in a social context reflect foraging strategies

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zandberg, Lies; Quinn, John L.; Naguib, Marc; Oers, Van Kees

2016-01-01

Individuals develop innovative behaviours to solve foraging challenges in the face of changing environmental conditions. Little is known about how individuals differ in their tendency to solve problems and in their subsequent use of this solving behaviour in social contexts. Here we investigated

Boa constrictor (Boa constrictor): foraging behavior

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Sorrell, G.G.; Boback, M.S.; Reed, R.N.; Green, S.; Montgomery, Chad E.; DeSouza, L.S.; Chiaraviglio, M.

2011-01-01

Boa constrictor is often referred to as a sit-and-wait or ambush forager that chooses locations to maximize the likelihood of prey encounters (Greene 1983. In Janzen [ed.], Costa Rica Natural History, pp. 380-382. Univ. Chicago Press, Illinois). However, as more is learned about the natural history of snakes in general, the dichotomy between active versus ambush foraging is becoming blurred. Herein, we describe an instance of diurnal active foraging by a B. constrictor, illustrating that this species exhibits a range of foraging behaviors.

Visual Foraging With Fingers and Eye Gaze

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Ómar I. Jóhannesson

2016-03-01

Full Text Available A popular model of the function of selective visual attention involves search where a single target is to be found among distractors. For many scenarios, a more realistic model involves search for multiple targets of various types, since natural tasks typically do not involve a single target. Here we present results from a novel multiple-target foraging paradigm. We compare finger foraging where observers cancel a set of predesignated targets by tapping them, to gaze foraging where observers cancel items by fixating them for 100 ms. During finger foraging, for most observers, there was a large difference between foraging based on a single feature, where observers switch easily between target types, and foraging based on a conjunction of features where observers tended to stick to one target type. The pattern was notably different during gaze foraging where these condition differences were smaller. Two conclusions follow: (a The fact that a sizeable number of observers (in particular during gaze foraging had little trouble switching between different target types raises challenges for many prominent theoretical accounts of visual attention and working memory. (b While caveats must be noted for the comparison of gaze and finger foraging, the results suggest that selection mechanisms for gaze and pointing have different operational constraints.

Physiological effects of increased foraging effort in a small passerine.

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Yap, Kang Nian; Kim, Oh Run; Harris, Karilyn C; Williams, Tony D

2017-11-15

Foraging to obtain food, either for self-maintenance or at presumably elevated rates to provide for offspring, is thought to be an energetically demanding activity but one that is essential for fitness (higher reproductive success and survival). Nevertheless, the physiological mechanisms that allow some individuals to support higher foraging performance, and the mechanisms underlying costs of high workload, remain poorly understood. We experimentally manipulated foraging behaviour in zebra finches ( Taeniopygia guttata ) using the technique described by Koetsier and Verhulst (2011) Birds in the 'high foraging effort' (HF) group had to obtain food either while flying/hovering or by making repeated hops or jumps from the ground up to the feeder, behaviour typical of the extremely energetically expensive foraging mode observed in many free-living small passerines. HF birds made significantly more trips to the feeder per 10 min, whereas control birds spent more time (perched) at the feeder. Despite this marked change in foraging behaviour, we documented few short- or long-term effects of 'training' (3 days and 90 days of 'training', respectively) and some of these effects were sex specific. There were no effects of treatment on basal metabolic rate, haematocrit, haemoglobin or plasma glycerol, triglyceride and glucose levels, and masses of kidney, crop, large intestine, small intestine, gizzard and liver. HF females had higher masses of flight muscle, leg muscle, heart and lung compared with controls. In contrast, HF males had lower heart mass than controls and there were no differences for other organs. When both sexes were pooled, there were no effects of treatment on body composition. Finally, birds in the HF treatment group had higher levels of reactive oxygen metabolites (dROMs) and, consequently, although treatment did not affect total anti-oxidant capacity, birds in the HF treatment group had higher oxidative stress. © 2017. Published by The Company of

Breeding success of a marine central place forager in the context of climate change: A modeling approach.

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Lauriane Massardier-Galatà

Full Text Available In response to climate warming, a southward shift in productive frontal systems serving as the main foraging sites for many top predator species is likely to occur in Subantarctic areas. Central place foragers, such as seabirds and pinnipeds, are thus likely to cope with an increase in the distance between foraging locations and their land-based breeding colonies. Understanding how central place foragers should modify their foraging behavior in response to changes in prey accessibility appears crucial. A spatially explicit individual-based simulation model (Marine Central Place Forager Simulator (MarCPFS, including bio-energetic components, was built to evaluate effects of possible changes in prey resources accessibility on individual performances and breeding success. The study was calibrated on a particular example: the Antarctic fur seal (Arctocephalus gazella, which alternates between oceanic areas in which females feed and the land-based colony in which they suckle their young over a 120 days rearing period. Our model shows the importance of the distance covered to feed and prey aggregation which appeared to be key factors to which animals are highly sensitive. Memorization and learning abilities also appear to be essential breeding success traits. Females were found to be most successful for intermediate levels of prey aggregation and short distance to the resource, resulting in optimal female body length. Increased distance to resources due to climate warming should hinder pups' growth and survival while female body length should increase.

Social familiarity modulates group living and foraging behaviour of juvenile predatory mites

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Strodl, Markus A.; Schausberger, Peter

2012-04-01

Environmental stressors during early life may have persistent consequences for phenotypic development and fitness. In group-living species, an important stressor during juvenile development is the presence and familiarity status of conspecific individuals. To alleviate intraspecific conflicts during juvenile development, many animals evolved the ability to discriminate familiar and unfamiliar individuals based on prior association and use this ability to preferentially associate with familiar individuals. Assuming that familiar neighbours require less attention than unfamiliar ones, as predicted by limited attention theory, assorting with familiar individuals should increase the efficiency in other tasks. We assessed the influence of social familiarity on within-group association behaviour, development and foraging of juvenile life stages of the group-living, plant-inhabiting predatory mite Phytoseiulus persimilis. The observed groups consisted either of mixed-age familiar and unfamiliar juvenile mites or of age-synchronized familiar or unfamiliar juvenile mites or of pairs of familiar or unfamiliar larvae. Overall, familiar mites preferentially grouped together and foraged more efficiently, i.e. needed less prey at similar developmental speed and body size at maturity, than unfamiliar mites. Preferential association of familiar mites was also apparent in the inter-exuviae distances. Social familiarity was established by imprinting in the larval stage, was not cancelled or overridden by later conspecific contacts and persisted into adulthood. Life stage had an effect on grouping with larvae being closer together than nymphal stages. Ultimately, optimized foraging during the developmental phase may relax within-group competition, enhance current and future food supply needed for optimal development and optimize patch exploitation and leaving under limited food.

Foraging modality and plasticity in foraging traits determine the strength of competitive interactions among carnivorous plants, spiders and toads.

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Jennings, David E; Krupa, James J; Rohr, Jason R

2016-07-01

Foraging modalities (e.g. passive, sit-and-wait, active) and traits are plastic in some species, but the extent to which this plasticity affects interspecific competition remains unclear. Using a long-term laboratory mesocosm experiment, we quantified competition strength and the plasticity of foraging traits in a guild of generalist predators of arthropods with a range of foraging modalities. Each mesocosm contained eight passively foraging pink sundews, and we employed an experimental design where treatments were the presence or absence of a sit-and-wait foraging spider and actively foraging toad crossed with five levels of prey abundance. We hypothesized that actively foraging toads would outcompete the other species at low prey abundance, but that spiders and sundews would exhibit plasticity in foraging traits to compensate for strong competition when prey were limited. Results generally supported our hypotheses. Toads had a greater effect on sundews at low prey abundances, and toad presence caused spiders to locate webs higher above the ground. Additionally, the closer large spider webs were to the ground, the greater the trichome densities produced by sundews. Also, spider webs were larger with than without toads and as sundew numbers increased, and these effects were more prominent as resources became limited. Finally, spiders negatively affected toad growth only at low prey abundance. These findings highlight the long-term importance of foraging modality and plasticity of foraging traits in determining the strength of competition within and across taxonomic kingdoms. Future research should assess whether plasticity in foraging traits helps to maintain coexistence within this guild and whether foraging modality can be used as a trait to reliably predict the strength of competitive interactions. © 2016 The Authors. Journal of Animal Ecology © 2016 British Ecological Society.

Foraging areas, offshore habitat use, and colony overlap by incubating Leach's storm-petrels Oceanodroma leucorhoa in the Northwest Atlantic.

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April Hedd

Full Text Available Despite their importance in marine food webs, much has yet to be learned about the spatial ecology of small seabirds. This includes the Leach's storm-petrel Oceanodroma leucorhoa, a species that is declining throughout its Northwest Atlantic breeding range. In 2013 and 2014, we used global location sensors to track foraging movements of incubating storm-petrels from 7 eastern Canadian breeding colonies. We determined and compared the foraging trip and at-sea habitat characteristics, analysed spatial overlap among colonies, and determined whether colony foraging ranges intersected with offshore oil and gas operations. Individuals tracked during the incubation period made 4.0 ± 1.4 day foraging trips, travelling to highly pelagic waters over and beyond continental slopes which ranged, on average, 400 to 830 km from colonies. Cumulative travel distances ranged from ~900 to 2,100 km among colonies. While colony size did not influence foraging trip characteristics or the size of areas used at sea, foraging distances tended to be shorter for individuals breeding at the southern end of the range. Core areas did not overlap considerably among colonies, and individuals from all sites except Kent Island in the Bay of Fundy foraged over waters with median depths > 1,950 m and average chlorophyll a concentrations ≤ 0.6 mg/m3. Sea surface temperatures within colony core areas varied considerably (11-23°C, coincident with the birds' use of cold waters of the Labrador Current or warmer waters of the Gulf Stream Current. Offshore oil and gas operations intersected with the foraging ranges of 5 of 7 colonies. Three of these, including Baccalieu Island, Newfoundland, which supports the species' largest population, have experienced substantial declines in the last few decades. Future work should prioritize modelling efforts to incorporate information on relative predation risk at colonies, spatially explicit risks at-sea on the breeding and wintering grounds

Using diel movement behavior to infer foraging strategies related to ecological and social factors in elephants.

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Polansky, Leo; Douglas-Hamilton, Iain; Wittemyer, George

2013-01-01

Adaptive movement behaviors allow individuals to respond to fluctuations in resource quality and distribution in order to maintain fitness. Classically, studies of the interaction between ecological conditions and movement behavior have focused on such metrics as travel distance, velocity, home range size or patch occupancy time as the salient metrics of behavior. Driven by the emergence of very regular high frequency data, more recently the importance of interpreting the autocorrelation structure of movement as a behavioral metric has become apparent. Studying movement of a free ranging African savannah elephant population, we evaluated how two movement metrics, diel displacement (DD) and movement predictability (MP - the degree of autocorrelated movement activity at diel time scales), changed in response to variation in resource availability as measured by the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index. We were able to capitalize on long term (multi-year) yet high resolution (hourly) global positioning system tracking datasets, the sample size of which allows robust analysis of complex models. We use optimal foraging theory predictions as a framework to interpret our results, in particular contrasting the behaviors across changes in social rank and resource availability to infer which movement behaviors at diel time scales may be optimal in this highly social species. Both DD and MP increased with increasing forage availability, irrespective of rank, reflecting increased energy expenditure and movement predictability during time periods of overall high resource availability. However, significant interactions between forage availability and social rank indicated a stronger response in DD, and a weaker response in MP, with increasing social status. Relative to high ranking individuals, low ranking individuals expended more energy and exhibited less behavioral movement autocorrelation during lower forage availability conditions, likely reflecting sub-optimal movement

Interactions Increase Forager Availability and Activity in Harvester Ants.

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Evlyn Pless

Full Text Available Social insect colonies use interactions among workers to regulate collective behavior. Harvester ant foragers interact in a chamber just inside the nest entrance, here called the 'entrance chamber'. Previous studies of the activation of foragers in red harvester ants show that an outgoing forager inside the nest experiences an increase in brief antennal contacts before it leaves the nest to forage. Here we compare the interaction rate experienced by foragers that left the nest and ants that did not. We found that ants in the entrance chamber that leave the nest to forage experienced more interactions than ants that descend to the deeper nest without foraging. Additionally, we found that the availability of foragers in the entrance chamber is associated with the rate of forager return. An increase in the rate of forager return leads to an increase in the rate at which ants descend to the deeper nest, which then stimulates more ants to ascend into the entrance chamber. Thus a higher rate of forager return leads to more available foragers in the entrance chamber. The highest density of interactions occurs near the nest entrance and the entrances of the tunnels from the entrance chamber to the deeper nest. Local interactions with returning foragers regulate both the activation of waiting foragers and the number of foragers available to be activated.

An Improved Bacterial-Foraging Optimization-Based Machine Learning Framework for Predicting the Severity of Somatization Disorder

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Xinen Lv

2018-02-01

Full Text Available It is of great clinical significance to establish an accurate intelligent model to diagnose the somatization disorder of community correctional personnel. In this study, a novel machine learning framework is proposed to predict the severity of somatization disorder in community correction personnel. The core of this framework is to adopt the improved bacterial foraging optimization (IBFO to optimize two key parameters (penalty coefficient and the kernel width of a kernel extreme learning machine (KELM and build an IBFO-based KELM (IBFO-KELM for the diagnosis of somatization disorder patients. The main innovation point of the IBFO-KELM model is the introduction of opposition-based learning strategies in traditional bacteria foraging optimization, which increases the diversity of bacterial species, keeps a uniform distribution of individuals of initial population, and improves the convergence rate of the BFO optimization process as well as the probability of escaping from the local optimal solution. In order to verify the effectiveness of the method proposed in this study, a 10-fold cross-validation method based on data from a symptom self-assessment scale (SCL-90 is used to make comparison among IBFO-KELM, BFO-KELM (model based on the original bacterial foraging optimization model, GA-KELM (model based on genetic algorithm, PSO-KELM (model based on particle swarm optimization algorithm and Grid-KELM (model based on grid search method. The experimental results show that the proposed IBFO-KELM prediction model has better performance than other methods in terms of classification accuracy, Matthews correlation coefficient (MCC, sensitivity and specificity. It can distinguish very well between severe somatization disorder and mild somatization and assist the psychological doctor with clinical diagnosis.

Trait-mediated trophic interactions: is foraging theory keeping up?

Science.gov (United States)

Steven F. Railsback; Bret C. Harvey

2013-01-01

Many ecologists believe that there is a lack of foraging theory that works in community contexts, for populations of unique individuals each making trade-offs between food and risk that are subject to feedbacks from behavior of others. Such theory is necessary to reproduce the trait-mediated trophic interactions now recognized as widespread and strong. Game theory can...

Utilization of /sup 15/N in the sequence of mineral fertilizer - forage - animal - slurry - forage

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Peschke, H [Humboldt-Universitaet, Berlin (German Democratic Republic). Sektion Pflanzenproduktion

1981-12-01

After systematic application of /sup 15/N-ammonium nitrate, the change of the dinuclidic composition and /sup 15/N quantity was studied by isotope analysis of several open systems in the sequence mineral fertilizer - (soil) - forage - (animal) - slurry - (soil) - forage. The relative /sup 15/N isotope frequency of 50 atom% in the mineral fertilizer declined to 12.2 to 21.4 atom% in the forage (beet, oats, hay) and went down to 3.15 atom% in the slurry of a dairy cow fed on this forage. Silage maize manured with the slurry of the dairy cow only showed 1.98 atom %, green oats grown after the silage maize on the same area was found to have 0.45 atom%. The /sup 15/N quantity of 104.5 g N in the fertilizer gradually decreased to 41.6 g N in the forage, 30.5 g N in the slurry and 22.6 g N in the silage maize. The causes discussed are /sup 15/N isotope dilution as qualitative factor and productive and unproductive N losses as quantitative factors.

Foraging range movements of the endangered Hawaiian hoary bat, Lasiurus cinereus semotus (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae)

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Bonaccorso, Frank J.; Todd, Christopher M.; Miles, Adam C.; Gorresen, P. Marcos

2015-01-01

We documented nightly movements of Hawaiian hoary bats (Lasiurus cinereus semotus) on the island of Hawai’i. Based on data from 28 radiotagged individuals mean foraging range (FR) was 230.7±72.3 ha, core-use area (CUA) was 25.5±6.9 ha (or 11.1% of mean FR), and the mean long axis (LAX) across the FR was 3,390.8±754.3 m. There was almost no overlap in CUAs among 4 adult males having overlapping foraging areas and tracked simultaneously or within a 90-day window of each other. CUAs of subadults partially overlapped with multiple adult males or with one other subadult. High variance in FRs, cores use areas, and LAX across the FR perhaps reflect localized stochastic variables such as weather, habitat, and food resources. Hawaiian hoary bats use moderately large FRs among insectivorous bats studied with comparable methodologies; however, foraging activity indicated by documentation of acoustic feeding buzzes is concentrated within one or a few disjunct areas cumulatively forming the 50% fixed kernel of CUA. The concentration of feeding activity, low values of individual overlap, and agonistic chasing behavior within CUAs all demonstrate a structured use of individual space by Hawaiian hoary bats.

The role of foraging behaviour in the sexual segregation of the African elephant.

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Shannon, Graeme; Page, Bruce R; Duffy, Kevin J; Slotow, Rob

2006-11-01

Elephants (Loxodonta africana) exhibit pronounced sexual dimorphism, and in this study we test the prediction that the differences in body size and sociality are significant enough to drive divergent foraging strategies and ultimately sexual segregation. Body size influences the foraging behaviour of herbivores through the differential scaling coefficients of metabolism and gut size, with larger bodied individuals being able to tolerate greater quantities of low-quality, fibrous vegetation, whilst having lower mass-specific energy requirements. We test two distinct theories: the scramble competition hypothesis (SCH) and the forage selection hypothesis (FSH). Comprehensive behavioural data were collected from the Pongola Game Reserve and the Phinda Private Game Reserve in South Africa over a 2.5-year period. The data were analysed using sex as the independent variable. Adult females targeted a wider range of species, adopted a more selective foraging approach and exhibited greater bite rates as predicted by the body size hypothesis and the increased demands of reproductive investment (lactation and pregnancy). Males had longer feeding bouts, displayed significantly more destructive behaviour (31% of observations, 11% for females) and ingested greater quantities of forage during each feeding bout. The independent ranging behaviour of adult males enables them to have longer foraging bouts as they experience fewer social constraints than females. The SCH was rejected as a cause of sexual segregation due to the relative abundance of low quality forage, and the fact that feeding heights were similar for both males and females. However, we conclude that the differences in the foraging strategies of the sexes are sufficient to cause spatial segregation as postulated by the FSH. Sexual dimorphism and the associated behavioural differences have important implications for the management and conservation of elephant and other dimorphic species, with the sexes effectively

Bust economics: foragers choose high quality habitats in lean times

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Sonny S. Bleicher

2016-01-01

Full Text Available In environments where food resources are spatially variable and temporarily impoverished, consumers that encounter habitat patches with different food density should focus their foraging initially where food density is highest before they move to patches where food density is lower. Increasing missed opportunity costs should drive individuals progressively to patches with lower food density as resources in the initially high food density patches deplete. To test these expectations, we assessed the foraging decisions of two species of dasyurid marsupials (dunnarts: Sminthopsis hirtipes and S. youngsoni during a deep drought, or bust period, in the Simpson Desert of central Australia. Dunnarts were allowed access to three patches containing different food densities using an interview chamber experiment. Both species exhibited clear preference for the high density over the lower food density patches as measured in total harvested resources. Similarly, when measuring the proportion of resources harvested within the patches, we observed a marginal preference for patches with initially high densities. Models analyzing behavioral choices at the population level found no differences in behavior between the two species, but models analyzing choices at the individual level uncovered some variation. We conclude that dunnarts can distinguish between habitat patches with different densities of food and preferentially exploit the most valuable. As our observations were made during bust conditions, experiments should be repeated during boom times to assess the foraging economics of dunnarts when environmental resources are high.

Floral temperature and optimal foraging: is heat a feasible floral reward for pollinators?

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Sean A Rands

Full Text Available As well as nutritional rewards, some plants also reward ectothermic pollinators with warmth. Bumble bees have some control over their temperature, but have been shown to forage at warmer flowers when given a choice, suggesting that there is some advantage to them of foraging at warm flowers (such as reducing the energy required to raise their body to flight temperature before leaving the flower. We describe a model that considers how a heat reward affects the foraging behaviour in a thermogenic central-place forager (such as a bumble bee. We show that although the pollinator should spend a longer time on individual flowers if they are warm, the increase in total visit time is likely to be small. The pollinator's net rate of energy gain will be increased by landing on warmer flowers. Therefore, if a plant provides a heat reward, it could reduce the amount of nectar it produces, whilst still providing its pollinator with the same net rate of gain. We suggest how heat rewards may link with plant life history strategies.

Retrospective analysis of bottlenose dolphin foraging: a legacy of anthropogenic ecosystem disturbance

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Rossman, Sam; Barros, Nélio B.; Ostrom, Peggy H.; Stricker, Craig A.; Hohn, Aleta A.; Gandhi, Hasand; Wells, Randall S.

2013-01-01

We used stable isotope analysis to investigate the foraging ecology of coastal bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in relation to a series of anthropogenic disturbances. We first demonstrated that stable isotopes are a faithful indicator of habitat use by comparing muscle isotope values to behavioral foraging data from the same individuals. δ13C values increased, while δ34S and δ15N values decreased with the percentage of feeding observations in seagrass habitat. We then utilized stable isotope values of muscle to assess temporal variation in foraging habitat from 1991 to 2010 and collagen from tooth crown tips to assess the time period 1944 to 2007. From 1991 to 2010, δ13C values of muscle decreased while δ34S values increased indicating reduced utilization of seagrass habitat. From 1944 to 1989 δ13C values of the crown tip declined significantly, likely due to a reduction in the coverage of seagrass habitat and δ15N values significantly increased, a trend we attribute to nutrient loading from a rapidly increasing human population. Our results demonstrate the utility of using marine mammal foraging habits to retrospectively assess the extent to which anthropogenic disturbance impacts coastal food webs.

Temporal effects of hunting on foraging behavior of an apex predator: Do bears forego foraging when risk is high?

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Hertel, Anne G; Zedrosser, Andreas; Mysterud, Atle; Støen, Ole-Gunnar; Steyaert, Sam M J G; Swenson, Jon E

2016-12-01

Avoiding predators most often entails a food cost. For the Scandinavian brown bear (Ursus arctos), the hunting season coincides with the period of hyperphagia. Hunting mortality risk is not uniformly distributed throughout the day, but peaks in the early morning hours. As bears must increase mass for winter survival, they should be sensitive to temporal allocation of antipredator responses to periods of highest risk. We expected bears to reduce foraging activity at the expense of food intake in the morning hours when risk was high, but not in the afternoon, when risk was low. We used fine-scale GPS-derived activity patterns during the 2 weeks before and after the onset of the annual bear hunting season. At locations of probable foraging, we assessed abundance and sugar content, of bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus), the most important autumn food resource for bears in this area. Bears decreased their foraging activity in the morning hours of the hunting season. Likewise, they foraged less efficiently and on poorer quality berries in the morning. Neither of our foraging measures were affected by hunting in the afternoon foraging bout, indicating that bears did not allocate antipredator behavior to times of comparably lower risk. Bears effectively responded to variation in risk on the scale of hours. This entailed a measurable foraging cost. The additive effect of reduced foraging activity, reduced forage intake, and lower quality food may result in poorer body condition upon den entry and may ultimately reduce reproductive success.

Artificial root foraging optimizer algorithm with hybrid strategies

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Yang Liu

2017-02-01

Full Text Available In this work, a new plant-inspired optimization algorithm namely the hybrid artificial root foraging optimizion (HARFO is proposed, which mimics the iterative root foraging behaviors for complex optimization. In HARFO model, two innovative strategies were developed: one is the root-to-root communication strategy, which enables the individual exchange information with each other in different efficient topologies that can essentially improve the exploration ability; the other is co-evolution strategy, which can structure the hierarchical spatial population driven by evolutionary pressure of multiple sub-populations that ensure the diversity of root population to be well maintained. The proposed algorithm is benchmarked against four classical evolutionary algorithms on well-designed test function suites including both classical and composition test functions. Through the rigorous performance analysis that of all these tests highlight the significant performance improvement, and the comparative results show the superiority of the proposed algorithm.

Learning to be different: Acquired skills, social learning, frequency dependence, and environmental variation can cause behaviourally mediated foraging specializations

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Tinker, M.T.; Mangel, M.; Estes, J.A.

2009-01-01

Question: How does the ability to improve foraging skills by learning, and to transfer that learned knowledge, affect the development of intra-population foraging specializations? Features of the model: We use both a state-dependent life-history model implemented by stochastic dynamic programming (SDPM) and an individual-based model (IBM) to capture the dynamic nature of behavioural preferences in feeding. Variables in the SDPM include energy reserves, skill levels, energy and handling time per single prey item, metabolic rate, the rates at which skills are learned and forgotten, the effect of skills on handling time, and the relationship between energy reserves and fitness. Additional variables in the IBM include the probability of successful weaning, the logistic dynamics of the prey species with stochastic recruitment, the intensity of top-down control of prey by predators, the mean and variance in skill levels of new recruits, and the extent to which learned Information can be transmitted via matrilineal social learning. Key range of variables: We explore the effects of approaching the time horizon in the SDPM, changing the extent to which skills can improve with experience, increasing the rates of learning or forgetting of skills, changing whether the learning curve is constant, accelerating (T-shaped) or decelerating ('r'-shaped), changing both mean and maximum possible energy reserves, changing metabolic costs of foraging, and changing the rate of encounter with prey. Conclusions: The model results show that the following factors increase the degree of prey specialization observed in a predator population: (1) Experience handling a prey type can substantially improve foraging skills for that prey. (2) There is limited ability to retain complex learned skills for multiple prey types. (3) The learning curve for acquiring new foraging skills is accelerating, or J-shaped. (4) The metabolic costs of foraging are high relative to available energy reserves. (5

Offspring Hg exposure relates to parental feeding strategies in a generalist bird with strong individual foraging specialization.

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Santos, Cátia S A; Blondel, Léa; Sotillo, Alejandro; Müller, Wendt; Stienen, Eric W M; Boeckx, Pascal; Soares, Amadeu M V M; Monteiro, Marta S; Loureiro, Susana; de Neve, Liesbeth; Lens, Luc

2017-12-01

Generalist species can potentially exploit a wide variety of resources, but at the individual level they often show a certain degree of foraging specialization. Specific foraging strategies, however, may increase exposure to environmental contaminants that can alter the cost-benefit balance of consuming particular food items. The Lesser Black-backed Gull (Larus fuscus) is known to opportunistically feed on a wide range of marine and terrestrial prey that differ in contaminant load, such as mercury (Hg) that strongly biomagnifies through the aquatic food web. The hypothesis tested in this study were: i) a predominant use of marine prey by females during egg-formation and by both parents during chick rearing increases the exposure to Hg during embryonic development and chick growth, and ii) this affects parental investment in clutch volume, chick growth and body condition. Total Hg burden and isotopic signatures of carbon (δ 13 C) and nitrogen (δ 15 N) were determined for eggs, down feathers, and primary feathers of L. fuscus chicks collected at a coastal colony in Belgium. As expected, eggs and feathers of chicks from parents with a stable isotope signature that suggested a predominantly marine diet had higher levels of Hg. The use of marine resources by females during the egg-formation period positively correlated to maternal investment in egg size, though entailing the cost of increased Hg-concentrations which in turn negatively affected clutch volume. Furthermore, it is shown that the use of chick down feathers is a suitable matrix to non-lethally estimate Hg concentrations in eggs. Contrary to our expectations, no relationship between Hg exposure and chick growth or chick body condition was found, which may be due the low concentrations found. We conclude that currently Hg contamination does not constitute a risk for development and condition of L. fuscus offspring at the levels currently observed at the Belgian coast. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All

Benefits of Group Foraging Depend on Prey Type in a Small Marine Predator, the Little Penguin.

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Sutton, Grace J; Hoskins, Andrew J; Arnould, John P Y

2015-01-01

Group foraging provides predators with advantages in over-powering prey larger than themselves or in aggregating small prey for efficient exploitation. For group-living predatory species, cooperative hunting strategies provide inclusive fitness benefits. However, for colonial-breeding predators, the benefit pay-offs of group foraging are less clear due to the potential for intra-specific competition. We used animal-borne cameras to determine the prey types, hunting strategies, and success of little penguins (Eudyptula minor), a small, colonial breeding air-breathing marine predator that has recently been shown to display extensive at-sea foraging associations with conspecifics. Regardless of prey type, little penguins had a higher probability of associating with conspecifics when hunting prey that were aggregated than when prey were solitary. In addition, success was greater when individuals hunted schooling rather than solitary prey. Surprisingly, however, success on schooling prey was similar or greater when individuals hunted on their own than when with conspecifics. These findings suggest individuals may be trading-off the energetic gains of solitary hunting for an increased probability of detecting prey within a spatially and temporally variable prey field by associating with conspecifics.

Agronomic and forage characteristics of Guazuma ulmifolia Lam.

OpenAIRE

Manríquez-Mendoza, Leonor Yalid; López-Ortíz, Silvia; Pérez-Hernández, Ponciano; Ortega- Jiménez, Eusebio; López-Tecpoyotl, Zenón Gerardo; Villarruel-Fuentes, Manuel

2011-01-01

Native trees are an important source of forage for livestock, particularly in regions having prolonged dry periods. Some tree species have fast growth rates, good nutritional quality, and the ability to produce forage during dry periods when the need for forage is greater. Guazuma ulmifolia Lam. is a tree native to tropical America that has a high forage potential. This species is mentioned in a number of studies assessing the forage potential of trees in a diverse array of environments and v...

Central-place foraging and ecological effects of an invasive predator across multiple habitats.

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Benkwitt, Cassandra E

2016-10-01

Cross-habitat foraging movements of predators can have widespread implications for predator and prey populations, community structure, nutrient transfer, and ecosystem function. Although central-place foraging models and other aspects of optimal foraging theory focus on individual predator behavior, they also provide useful frameworks for understanding the effects of predators on prey populations across multiple habitats. However, few studies have examined both the foraging behavior and ecological effects of nonnative predators across multiple habitats, and none has tested whether nonnative predators deplete prey in a manner predicted by these foraging models. I conducted behavioral observations of invasive lionfish (Pterois volitans) to determine whether they exhibit foraging movements similar to other central-place consumers. Then, I used a manipulative field experiment to test whether their effects on prey populations are consistent with three qualitative predictions from optimal foraging models. Specifically, I predicted that the effects of invasive lionfish on native prey will (1) occur at central sites first and then in surrounding habitats, (2) decrease with increasing distance away from their shelter site, and (3) extend to greater distances when prey patches are spaced closer together. Approximately 40% of lionfish exhibited short-term crepuscular foraging movements into surrounding habitats from the coral patch reefs where they shelter during daylight hours. Over the course of 7 weeks, lionfish depleted native fish populations on the coral patch reefs where they reside, and subsequently on small structures in the surrounding habitat. However, their effects did not decrease with increasing distance from the central shelter site and the influence of patch spacing was opposite the prediction. Instead, lionfish always had the greatest effects in areas with the highest prey densities. The differences between the predicted and observed effects of lionfish

The role of landscape characteristics for forage maturation and nutritional benefits of migration in red deer.

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Mysterud, Atle; Vike, Brit Karen; Meisingset, Erling L; Rivrud, Inger Maren

2017-06-01

Large herbivores gain nutritional benefits from following the sequential flush of newly emergent, high-quality forage along environmental gradients in the landscape, termed green wave surfing. Which landscape characteristics underlie the environmental gradient causing the green wave and to what extent landscape characteristics alone explain individual variation in nutritional benefits remain unresolved questions. Here, we combine GPS data from 346 red deer ( Cervus elaphus ) from four partially migratory populations in Norway with the satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), an index of plant phenology. We quantify whether migratory deer had access to higher quality forage than resident deer, how landscape characteristics within summer home ranges affected nutritional benefits, and whether differences in landscape characteristics could explain differences in nutritional gain between migratory and resident deer. We found that migratory red deer gained access to higher quality forage than resident deer but that this difference persisted even after controlling for landscape characteristics within the summer home ranges. There was a positive effect of elevation on access to high-quality forage, but only for migratory deer. We discuss how the landscape an ungulate inhabits may determine its responses to plant phenology and also highlight how individual behavior may influence nutritional gain beyond the effect of landscape.

Isotopic Differences between Forage Consumed by a Large Herbivore in Open, Closed, and Coastal Habitats: New Evidence from a Boreal Study System.

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Marie-Andrée Giroux

Full Text Available Documenting habitat-related patterns in foraging behaviour at the individual level and over large temporal scales remains challenging for large herbivores. Stable isotope analysis could represent a valuable tool to quantify habitat-related foraging behaviour at the scale of individuals and over large temporal scales in forest dwelling large herbivores living in coastal environments, because the carbon (δ13C or nitrogen (δ15N isotopic signatures of forage can differ between open and closed habitats or between terrestrial and littoral forage, respectively. Here, we examined if we could detect isotopic differences between the different assemblages of forage taxa consumed by white-tailed deer that can be found in open, closed, supralittoral, and littoral habitats. We showed that δ13C of assemblages of forage taxa were 3.0 ‰ lower in closed than in open habitats, while δ15N were 2.0 ‰ and 7.4 ‰ higher in supralittoral and littoral habitats, respectively, than in terrestrial habitats. Stable isotope analysis may represent an additional technique for ecologists interested in quantifiying the consumption of terrestrial vs. marine autotrophs. Yet, given the relative isotopic proximity and the overlap between forage from open, closed, and supralittoral habitats, the next step would be to determine the potential to estimate their contribution to herbivore diet.

BEE FORAGE MAPPING BASED ON MULTISPECTRAL IMAGES LANDSAT

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A. Moskalenko

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Possibilities of bee forage identification and mapping based on multispectral images have been shown in the research. Spectral brightness of bee forage has been determined with the use of satellite images. The effectiveness of some methods of image classification for mapping of bee forage is shown. Keywords: bee forage, mapping, multispectral images, image classification.

Combined bio-logging and stable isotopes reveal individual specialisations in a benthic coastal seabird, the Kerguelen shag.

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Elodie C M Camprasse

Full Text Available Individual specialisations, which involve the repetition of specific behaviours or dietary choices over time, have been suggested to benefit animals by avoiding competition with conspecifics and increasing individual foraging efficiency. Among seabirds, resident and benthic species are thought to be good models to study inter-individual variation as they repetitively exploit the same environment. We investigated foraging behaviour, isotopic niche and diet in the Kerguelen shag Phalacrocorax verrucosus during both the incubation and chick-rearing periods for the same individuals to determine the effect of sex, breeding stage, body mass and morphometrics on mean foraging metrics and their consistency. There were large differences between individuals in foraging behaviour and consistency, with strong individual specialisations in dive depths and heading from the colony. Stable isotopes revealed specialisations in feeding strategies, across multiple temporal scales. Specifically, individuals showed medium term specialisations in feeding strategies during the breeding season, as well as long-term consistency. A clustering analysis revealed 4 different foraging strategies displaying significantly different δ15N values and body masses. There were no sex or stage biases to clusters and individuals in different clusters did not differ in their morphology. Importantly, the results suggest that the different strategies emphasized were related to individual prey preferences rather than intrinsic characteristics.

Behavioral and hormonal responses to the availability of forage material in Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla).

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Fuller, Grace; Murray, Anna; Thueme, Melissa; McGuire, Molly; Vonk, Jennifer; Allard, Stephanie

2018-01-01

We investigated how forage material affects indicators of welfare in three male Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) at the Detroit Zoo. In addition to their maintenance diet and enrichment foods, the gorillas generally received forage material four times a week. From this baseline, we systematically manipulated how much forage material the group received on a weekly basis, with either daily or bi (twice)-weekly presentation of browse (mulberry, Morus sp.) or alfalfa hay. We collected behavioral data (60 hr per gorilla) and measured fecal glucocorticoid metabolites (FGM). Mixed models indicated that the presence of forage material significantly increased time feeding (F 2,351  = 9.58, p gorillas, compared to a disproportionately greater amount of time spent feeding by the dominant individual when forage material was absent. Providing forage material in addition to the regular diet likely created more opportunities for equitable feeding for the subordinate gorillas. FGM concentrations did not vary based on the presence or type of forage material available and, instead, likely reflected group social dynamics. In general, alfalfa and mulberry had similar impacts on behavior, indicating that alfalfa can be an adequate behavioral substitute during times when browse is less readily available for gorillas housed in seasonally variable climates. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Effects of habitat composition and landscape structure on worker foraging distances of five bumble bee species.

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Redhead, John W; Dreier, Stephanie; Bourke, Andrew F G; Heard, Matthew S; Jordan, William C; Sumner, Seirian; Wang, Jinliang; Carvell, Claire

2016-04-01

Bumble bees (Bombus spp.) are important pollinators of both crops and wildflowers. Their contribution to this essential ecosystem service has been threatened over recent decades by changes in land use, which have led to declines in their populations. In order to design effective conservation measures, it is important to understand the effects of variation in landscape composition and structure on the foraging activities of worker bumble bees. This is because the viability of individual colonies is likely to be affected by the trade-off between the energetic costs of foraging over greater distances and the potential gains from access to additional resources. We used field surveys, molecular genetics, and fine resolution remote sensing to estimate the locations of wild bumble bee nests and to infer foraging distances across a 20-km² agricultural landscape in southern England, UK. We investigated five species, including the rare B. ruderatus and ecologically similar but widespread B. hortorum. We compared worker foraging distances between species and examined how variation in landscape composition and structure affected foraging distances at the colony level. Mean worker foraging distances differed significantly between species. Bombus terrestris, B. lapidarius, and B. ruderatus exhibited significantly greater mean foraging distances (551, 536, and 501 m, respectively) than B. hortorum and B. pascuorum (336 and 272 m, respectively). There was wide variation in worker foraging distances between colonies of the same species, which was in turn strongly influenced by the amount and spatial configuration of available foraging habitats. Shorter foraging distances were found for colonies where the local landscape had high coverage and low fragmentation of semi-natural vegetation, including managed agri-environmental field margins. The strength of relationships between different landscape variables and foraging distance varied between species, for example the strongest

A global comparison of the nutritive values of forage plants grown in contrasting environments.

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Lee, Mark A

2018-03-17

Forage plants are valuable because they maintain wild and domesticated herbivores, and sustain the delivery of meat, milk and other commodities. Forage plants contain different quantities of fibre, lignin, minerals and protein, and vary in the proportion of their tissue that can be digested by herbivores. These nutritive components are important determinants of consumer growth rates, reproductive success and behaviour. A dataset was compiled to quantify variation in forage plant nutritive values within- and between-plant species, and to assess variation between plant functional groups and bioclimatic zones. 1255 geo-located records containing 3774 measurements of nutritive values for 136 forage plant species grown in 30 countries were obtained from published articles. Spatial variability in forage nutritive values indicated that climate modified plant nutritive values. Forage plants grown in arid and equatorial regions generally contained less digestible material than those grown in temperate and tundra regions; containing more fibre and lignin, and less protein. These patterns may reveal why herbivore body sizes, digestion and migration strategies are different in warmer and drier regions. This dataset also revealed the capacity for variation in the nutrition provided by forage plants, which may drive consumer species coexistence. The proportion of the plant tissue that was digestible ranged between species from 2 to 91%. The amount of fibre contained within plant material ranged by 23-90%, protein by 2-36%, lignin by 1-21% and minerals by 2-22%. On average, grasses and tree foliage contained the most fibre, whilst herbaceous legumes contained the most protein and tree foliage contained the most lignin. However, there were individual species within each functional group that were highly nutritious. This dataset may be used to identify forage plant species or mixtures of species from different functional groups with useful nutritional traits which can be cultivated

Temporal fractals in seabird foraging behaviour: diving through the scales of time

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Macintosh, Andrew J. J.; Pelletier, Laure; Chiaradia, Andre; Kato, Akiko; Ropert-Coudert, Yan

2013-05-01

Animal behaviour exhibits fractal structure in space and time. Fractal properties in animal space-use have been explored extensively under the Lévy flight foraging hypothesis, but studies of behaviour change itself through time are rarer, have typically used shorter sequences generated in the laboratory, and generally lack critical assessment of their results. We thus performed an in-depth analysis of fractal time in binary dive sequences collected via bio-logging from free-ranging little penguins (Eudyptula minor) across full-day foraging trips (216 data points; 4 orders of temporal magnitude). Results from 4 fractal methods show that dive sequences are long-range dependent and persistent across ca. 2 orders of magnitude. This fractal structure correlated with trip length and time spent underwater, but individual traits had little effect. Fractal time is a fundamental characteristic of penguin foraging behaviour, and its investigation is thus a promising avenue for research on interactions between animals and their environments.

A stochastic differential equation model for the foraging behavior of fish schools.

Science.gov (United States)

Tạ, Tôn Việt; Nguyen, Linh Thi Hoai

2018-03-15

Constructing models of living organisms locating food sources has important implications for understanding animal behavior and for the development of distribution technologies. This paper presents a novel simple model of stochastic differential equations for the foraging behavior of fish schools in a space including obstacles. The model is studied numerically. Three configurations of space with various food locations are considered. In the first configuration, fish swim in free but limited space. All individuals can find food with large probability while keeping their school structure. In the second and third configurations, they move in limited space with one and two obstacles, respectively. Our results reveal that the probability of foraging success is highest in the first configuration, and smallest in the third one. Furthermore, when school size increases up to an optimal value, the probability of foraging success tends to increase. When it exceeds an optimal value, the probability tends to decrease. The results agree with experimental observations.

A stochastic differential equation model for the foraging behavior of fish schools

Science.gov (United States)

Tạ, Tôn ệt, Vi; Hoai Nguyen, Linh Thi

2018-05-01

Constructing models of living organisms locating food sources has important implications for understanding animal behavior and for the development of distribution technologies. This paper presents a novel simple model of stochastic differential equations for the foraging behavior of fish schools in a space including obstacles. The model is studied numerically. Three configurations of space with various food locations are considered. In the first configuration, fish swim in free but limited space. All individuals can find food with large probability while keeping their school structure. In the second and third configurations, they move in limited space with one and two obstacles, respectively. Our results reveal that the probability of foraging success is highest in the first configuration, and smallest in the third one. Furthermore, when school size increases up to an optimal value, the probability of foraging success tends to increase. When it exceeds an optimal value, the probability tends to decrease. The results agree with experimental observations.

RFID Tracking of Sublethal Effects of Two Neonicotinoid Insecticides on the Foraging Behavior of Apis mellifera

Science.gov (United States)

Schneider, Christof W.; Tautz, Jürgen; Grünewald, Bernd; Fuchs, Stefan

2012-01-01

The development of insecticides requires valid risk assessment procedures to avoid causing harm to beneficial insects and especially to pollinators such as the honeybee Apis mellifera. In addition to testing according to current guidelines designed to detect bee mortality, tests are needed to determine possible sublethal effects interfering with the animal's vitality and behavioral performance. Several methods have been used to detect sublethal effects of different insecticides under laboratory conditions using olfactory conditioning. Furthermore, studies have been conducted on the influence insecticides have on foraging activity and homing ability which require time-consuming visual observation. We tested an experimental design using the radiofrequency identification (RFID) method to monitor the influence of sublethal doses of insecticides on individual honeybee foragers on an automated basis. With electronic readers positioned at the hive entrance and at an artificial food source, we obtained quantifiable data on honeybee foraging behavior. This enabled us to efficiently retrieve detailed information on flight parameters. We compared several groups of bees, fed simultaneously with different dosages of a tested substance. With this experimental approach we monitored the acute effects of sublethal doses of the neonicotinoids imidacloprid (0.15–6 ng/bee) and clothianidin (0.05–2 ng/bee) under field-like circumstances. At field-relevant doses for nectar and pollen no adverse effects were observed for either substance. Both substances led to a significant reduction of foraging activity and to longer foraging flights at doses of ≥0.5 ng/bee (clothianidin) and ≥1.5 ng/bee (imidacloprid) during the first three hours after treatment. This study demonstrates that the RFID-method is an effective way to record short-term alterations in foraging activity after insecticides have been administered once, orally, to individual bees. We contribute further information on

RFID tracking of sublethal effects of two neonicotinoid insecticides on the foraging behavior of Apis mellifera.

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Christof W Schneider

Full Text Available The development of insecticides requires valid risk assessment procedures to avoid causing harm to beneficial insects and especially to pollinators such as the honeybee Apis mellifera. In addition to testing according to current guidelines designed to detect bee mortality, tests are needed to determine possible sublethal effects interfering with the animal's vitality and behavioral performance. Several methods have been used to detect sublethal effects of different insecticides under laboratory conditions using olfactory conditioning. Furthermore, studies have been conducted on the influence insecticides have on foraging activity and homing ability which require time-consuming visual observation. We tested an experimental design using the radiofrequency identification (RFID method to monitor the influence of sublethal doses of insecticides on individual honeybee foragers on an automated basis. With electronic readers positioned at the hive entrance and at an artificial food source, we obtained quantifiable data on honeybee foraging behavior. This enabled us to efficiently retrieve detailed information on flight parameters. We compared several groups of bees, fed simultaneously with different dosages of a tested substance. With this experimental approach we monitored the acute effects of sublethal doses of the neonicotinoids imidacloprid (0.15-6 ng/bee and clothianidin (0.05-2 ng/bee under field-like circumstances. At field-relevant doses for nectar and pollen no adverse effects were observed for either substance. Both substances led to a significant reduction of foraging activity and to longer foraging flights at doses of ≥0.5 ng/bee (clothianidin and ≥1.5 ng/bee (imidacloprid during the first three hours after treatment. This study demonstrates that the RFID-method is an effective way to record short-term alterations in foraging activity after insecticides have been administered once, orally, to individual bees. We contribute further

Forage Production Technology Transfer in Kwale and Kilifi Districts of Coast Province

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mwatate, C.D; Ramadhan, C.D.A; Njunie, M.N

1999-01-01

A forage production and utilisation programme was introduced in Kwale (AEZ CL2/CL3) and Kilifi (AEZ CL3/CL4) districts to combat major constraint in low quality and quantity feed at the coast. Dairy production had a great market potential stimulated by the high urban and rural population. Willing farmers were invited to PRC-Mtwapa to see how grasses, legumes and multipurpose trees would fit in their mixed maize cassava farming system. After explaining the forage characteristics to the farmers, they were allowed to select a maximum of three out of eight legumes (Vigna Unguiculata; Dolichos lablab; Clitoria tanatea; Stylosanthes guianennsis; Mucuna pruriens; Pueraria phaseloids; Macroptlium atropurpureum and Centrosema pubescens), tree out of five Napier grasses (Cultivar Mott, Clone 13, French Cameroon, Gold Coast and Bana). Giant panicum and and one of the two multipurpose trees (Gliricidia sepium and Leucaena leucocephala) to test in their farms. After planting in mid 1996 on-farm the research-extension team monitored ground cover and labor aplied monthly by gender, green leaf production, and survival over the drought in 1997. Along-side the planted forages, actual forage fed by dairy farmers was sampled, analysed for chemical composition and degradability to advise farmers on ration formulation. Ranking by farmers showed a preference for clitiria, Macuna and Dolichos in Kwale as the three best legumes. More than 70% of Napier grass variety had established while establishment rate of gliricidia was 33%. An extension leaflet developed during the study will be used to disseminate the information in the region

Effects of natural and synthetic alarm pheromone and individual pheromone components on foraging behavior of the giant Asian honey bee, Apis dorsata.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Jianjun; Wang, Zhengwei; Tan, Ken; Qu, Yufeng; Nieh, James C

2014-10-01

Social pollinators such as honey bees face attacks from predators not only at the nest, but also during foraging. Pollinating honey bees can therefore release alarm pheromones that deter conspecifics from visiting dangerous inflorescences. However, the effect of alarm pheromone and its chemical components upon bee avoidance of dangerous food sources remains unclear. We tested the responses of giant honey bee foragers, Apis dorsata, presented with alarm pheromone at a floral array. Foragers investigated the inflorescence with natural alarm pheromone, but 3.3-fold more foragers preferred to land on the 'safe' inflorescence without alarm pheromone. Using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis, we identified eight chemical components in the alarm pheromone, of which three components (1-octanol, decanal and gamma-octanoic lactone) have not previously been reported in this species. We bioassayed six major compounds and found that a synthetic mixture of these compounds elicited behaviors statistically indistinguishable from responses to natural alarm pheromone. By testing each compound separately, we show that gamma-octanoic lactone, isopentyl acetate and (E)-2-decen-1-yl acetate are active compounds that elicit significant alarm responses. Gamma-octanoic lactone elicited the strongest response to a single compound and has not been previously reported in honey bee alarm pheromone. Isopentyl acetate is widely found in the alarm pheromones of sympatric Asian honey bee species, and thus alarmed A. dorsata foragers may produce information useful for conspecifics and heterospecifics, thereby broadening the effects of alarm information on plant pollination. © 2014. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

Local Orientation and the Evolution of Foraging: Changes in Decision Making Can Eliminate Evolutionary Trade-offs

Science.gov (United States)

van der Post, Daniel J.; Semmann, Dirk

2011-01-01

Information processing is a major aspect of the evolution of animal behavior. In foraging, responsiveness to local feeding opportunities can generate patterns of behavior which reflect or “recognize patterns” in the environment beyond the perception of individuals. Theory on the evolution of behavior generally neglects such opportunity-based adaptation. Using a spatial individual-based model we study the role of opportunity-based adaptation in the evolution of foraging, and how it depends on local decision making. We compare two model variants which differ in the individual decision making that can evolve (restricted and extended model), and study the evolution of simple foraging behavior in environments where food is distributed either uniformly or in patches. We find that opportunity-based adaptation and the pattern recognition it generates, plays an important role in foraging success, particularly in patchy environments where one of the main challenges is “staying in patches”. In the restricted model this is achieved by genetic adaptation of move and search behavior, in light of a trade-off on within- and between-patch behavior. In the extended model this trade-off does not arise because decision making capabilities allow for differentiated behavioral patterns. As a consequence, it becomes possible for properties of movement to be specialized for detection of patches with more food, a larger scale information processing not present in the restricted model. Our results show that changes in decision making abilities can alter what kinds of pattern recognition are possible, eliminate an evolutionary trade-off and change the adaptive landscape. PMID:21998571

Great cormorants ( Phalacrocorax carbo) can detect auditory cues while diving

Science.gov (United States)

Hansen, Kirstin Anderson; Maxwell, Alyssa; Siebert, Ursula; Larsen, Ole Næsbye; Wahlberg, Magnus

2017-06-01

In-air hearing in birds has been thoroughly investigated. Sound provides birds with auditory information for species and individual recognition from their complex vocalizations, as well as cues while foraging and for avoiding predators. Some 10% of existing species of birds obtain their food under the water surface. Whether some of these birds make use of acoustic cues while underwater is unknown. An interesting species in this respect is the great cormorant ( Phalacrocorax carbo), being one of the most effective marine predators and relying on the aquatic environment for food year round. Here, its underwater hearing abilities were investigated using psychophysics, where the bird learned to detect the presence or absence of a tone while submerged. The greatest sensitivity was found at 2 kHz, with an underwater hearing threshold of 71 dB re 1 μPa rms. The great cormorant is better at hearing underwater than expected, and the hearing thresholds are comparable to seals and toothed whales in the frequency band 1-4 kHz. This opens up the possibility of cormorants and other aquatic birds having special adaptations for underwater hearing and making use of underwater acoustic cues from, e.g., conspecifics, their surroundings, as well as prey and predators.

Modelling foraging movements of diving predators: a theoretical study exploring the effect of heterogeneous landscapes on foraging efficiency

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marianna Chimienti

2014-09-01

Full Text Available Foraging in the marine environment presents particular challenges for air-breathing predators. Information about prey capture rates, the strategies that diving predators use to maximise prey encounter rates and foraging success are still largely unknown and difficult to observe. As well, with the growing awareness of potential climate change impacts and the increasing interest in the development of renewable sources it is unknown how the foraging activity of diving predators such as seabirds will respond to both the presence of underwater structures and the potential corresponding changes in prey distributions. Motivated by this issue we developed a theoretical model to gain general understanding of how the foraging efficiency of diving predators may vary according to landscape structure and foraging strategy. Our theoretical model highlights that animal movements, intervals between prey capture and foraging efficiency are likely to critically depend on the distribution of the prey resource and the size and distribution of introduced underwater structures. For multiple prey loaders, changes in prey distribution affected the searching time necessary to catch a set amount of prey which in turn affected the foraging efficiency. The spatial aggregation of prey around small devices (∼ 9 × 9 m created a valuable habitat for a successful foraging activity resulting in shorter intervals between prey captures and higher foraging efficiency. The presence of large devices (∼ 24 × 24 m however represented an obstacle for predator movement, thus increasing the intervals between prey captures. In contrast, for single prey loaders the introduction of spatial aggregation of the resources did not represent an advantage suggesting that their foraging efficiency is more strongly affected by other factors such as the timing to find the first prey item which was found to occur faster in the presence of large devices. The development of this theoretical model

Foraging strategies of the ant Ectatomma vizottoi (Hymenoptera, Formicidae

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Luan D. Lima

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Foraging strategies of the ant Ectatomma vizottoi (Hymenoptera, Formicidae. Foraging activity may be limited by temperature, humidity, radiation, wind, and other abiotic factors, all of which can affect energy costs during foraging. Ectatomma vizottoi's biology has only recently been studied, and no detailed information is available on its foraging patterns or diet in the field. For this reason, and because foraging activity is an important part of the ecological success of social insects, the present study aimed to investigate E. vizottoi's foraging strategies and dietary habits. First, we determined how abiotic factors constrained E. vizottoi's foraging patterns in the field by monitoring the foraging activity of 16 colonies on eight different days across two seasons. Second, we characterized E. vizottoi's diet by monitoring another set of 26 colonies during peak foraging activity. Our results show that E. vizottoi has foraging strategies that are similar to those of congeneric species. In spite of having a low efficiency index, colonies adopted strategies that allowed them to successfully obtain food resources while avoiding adverse conditions. These strategies included preying on other ant species, a foraging tactic that could arise if a wide variety of food items are not available in the environment or if E. vizottoi simply prefers, regardless of resource availability, to prey on other invertebrates and especially on other ant species.

Trapline foraging by bumble bees: VII. Adjustments for foraging success following competitor removal

OpenAIRE

Kazuharu Ohashi; Alison Leslie; James D. Thomson

2013-01-01

Animals collecting food from renewable resource patches scattered in space often establish small foraging areas to which they return faithfully. Such area fidelity offers foraging advantages through selection of profitable patches, route minimization, and regular circuit visits to these patches (“trapline foraging”). Resource distribution under field conditions may often vary in time, however, especially when competitors suddenly vanish and a number of patches become available for their neigh...

Cooperative Bacterial Foraging Optimization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hanning Chen

2009-01-01

Full Text Available Bacterial Foraging Optimization (BFO is a novel optimization algorithm based on the social foraging behavior of E. coli bacteria. This paper presents a variation on the original BFO algorithm, namely, the Cooperative Bacterial Foraging Optimization (CBFO, which significantly improve the original BFO in solving complex optimization problems. This significant improvement is achieved by applying two cooperative approaches to the original BFO, namely, the serial heterogeneous cooperation on the implicit space decomposition level and the serial heterogeneous cooperation on the hybrid space decomposition level. The experiments compare the performance of two CBFO variants with the original BFO, the standard PSO and a real-coded GA on four widely used benchmark functions. The new method shows a marked improvement in performance over the original BFO and appears to be comparable with the PSO and GA.

Expression of the Foraging Gene Is Associated with Age Polyethism, Not Task Preference, in the Ant Cardiocondyla obscurior.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jan Oettler

Full Text Available One of the fundamental principles of social organization, age polyethism, describes behavioral maturation of workers leading to switches in task preference. Here we present a system that allows for studying division of labor (DOL by taking advantage of the relative short life of Cardiocondyla obscurior workers and thereby the pace of behavioral transitions. By challenging same-age young and older age cohorts to de novo establish DOL into nurse and foraging tasks and by forcing nurses to precociously become foragers and vice versa we studied expression patterns of one of the best known candidates for social insect worker behavior, the foraging gene. Contrary to our expectations we found that foraging gene expression correlates with age, but not with the task foraging per se. This suggests that this nutrition-related gene, and the pathways it is embedded in, correlates with physiological changes over time and potentially primes, but not determines task preference of individual workers.

Cumulative Effects of Foraging Behavior and Social Dominance on Brain Development in a Facultatively Social Bee (Ceratina australensis).

Science.gov (United States)

Rehan, Sandra M; Bulova, Susan J; O'Donnell, Sean

2015-01-01

In social insects, both task performance (foraging) and dominance are associated with increased brain investment, particularly in the mushroom bodies. Whether and how these factors interact is unknown. Here we present data on a system where task performance and social behavior can be analyzed simultaneously: the small carpenter bee Ceratina australensis. We show that foraging and dominance have separate and combined cumulative effects on mushroom body calyx investment. Female C. australensis nest solitarily and socially in the same populations at the same time. Social colonies comprise two sisters: the social primary, which monopolizes foraging and reproduction, and the social secondary, which is neither a forager nor reproductive but rather remains at the nest as a guard. We compare the brains of solitary females that forage and reproduce but do not engage in social interactions with those of social individuals while controlling for age, reproductive status, and foraging experience. Mushroom body calyx volume was positively correlated with wing wear, a proxy for foraging experience. We also found that, although total brain volume did not vary among reproductive strategies (solitary vs. social nesters), socially dominant primaries had larger mushroom body calyx volumes (corrected for both brain and body size variation) than solitary females; socially subordinate secondaries (that are neither dominant nor foragers) had the least-developed mushroom body calyces. These data demonstrate that sociality itself does not explain mushroom body volume; however, achieving and maintaining dominance status in a group was associated with mushroom body calyx enlargement. Dominance and foraging effects were cumulative; dominant social primary foragers had larger mushroom body volumes than solitary foragers, and solitary foragers had larger mushroom body volumes than nonforaging social secondary guards. This is the first evidence for cumulative effects on brain development by

Neural Mechanisms of Foraging

OpenAIRE

Kolling, Nils; Behrens, Timothy EJ; Mars, Rogier B; Rushworth, Matthew FS

2012-01-01

Behavioural economic studies, involving limited numbers of choices, have provided key insights into neural decision-making mechanisms. By contrast, animals’ foraging choices arise in the context of sequences of encounters with prey/food. On each encounter the animal chooses to engage or whether the environment is sufficiently rich that searching elsewhere is merited. The cost of foraging is also critical. We demonstrate humans can alternate between two modes of choice, comparative decision-ma...

Genetic resources of perennial forage grasses in Serbia: Current state, broadening and evaluation

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Sokolović Dejan

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Due to historical background of vegetation development, geographical position, climate and relief, Serbia represents one of the 158 world biodiversity centres, based upon the number of plant species and territory size (biodiversity index 0.72. Large areas in Serbia are under natural grasslands and pastures, composed of forage grass species, and important as source of natural plant genetic diversity and germplasm for breeding. These eco-systems represent basic prerequisites for sustainable forage production, but very low potential of them is utilized and genetic resources are not protected. Family Poaceae is present in Serbia flora with 70 genera and among them from the aspect of forage production and quality, the most important are perennial Festuca, Lolium, Dactylis, Phleum, Bromus, Arrhenatherum, Poa and Agrostis species. Most of these grasses have been bred in Serbia and lot of cultivars were released. These cultivars contain autochthonous Serbian material and represent great and important resource of genetic variability. Therefore, collecting of new samples which are acclimatised to local eco-geographical conditions and including them in plant ex situ gene bank is of exceptional importance for further utilization in different plant breeding programmes as well as genetic resources protection. These autochthonous populations have natural variability and very often have satisfactory yielding performance in comparison with introduced cultivars, which referred them for direct phenotypic selection for cultivars release. Broadening of forage grasses genotypes collection is permanent objective of Serbian scientists. Collected accessions are being characterized and evaluated for important phenological, morphological and agronomical traits. In this paper genetic resources of forage grass species, their diversity and potentials, state of the grasses gene banks, as well as possibility for breeding of new cultivars has been analysed.

Annual forage cropping-systems for midwestern ruminant livestock production

OpenAIRE

McMillan, John Ernest

2016-01-01

Annual forage cropping systems are a vital aspect of livestock forage production. One area where this production system can be enhanced is the integration of novel annual forages into conventional cropping systems. Two separate projects were conducted to investigate alternative forage options in annual forage production. In the first discussed research trial, two sets of crops were sown following soft red winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) grain harvest, at two nitrogen application rates 56 ...

Aerobic capacity influences the spatial position of individuals within fish schools

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Killen, Shaun S.; Marras, Stefano; Steffensen, John Fleng

2012-01-01

the rear of schools. These trailing fish required fewer tail beats to swim at the same speed as individuals at the front of schools, indicating that posterior positions provide hydrodynamic benefits that reduce swimming costs. Conversely, fish with high aerobic capacity can withstand increased drag......The schooling behaviour of fish is of great biological importance, playing a crucial role in the foraging and predator avoidance of numerous species. The extent to which physiological performance traits affect the spatial positioning of individual fish within schools is completely unknown. Schools...... of juvenile mullet Liza aurata were filmed at three swim speeds in a swim tunnel, with one focal fish from each school then also measured for standard metabolic rate (SMR), maximal metabolic rate (MMR), aerobic scope (AS) and maximum aerobic swim speed. At faster speeds, fish with lower MMR and AS swam near...

Social and spatial effects on genetic variation between foraging flocks in a wild bird population.

Science.gov (United States)

Radersma, Reinder; Garroway, Colin J; Santure, Anna W; de Cauwer, Isabelle; Farine, Damien R; Slate, Jon; Sheldon, Ben C

2017-10-01

Social interactions are rarely random. In some instances, animals exhibit homophily or heterophily, the tendency to interact with similar or dissimilar conspecifics, respectively. Genetic homophily and heterophily influence the evolutionary dynamics of populations, because they potentially affect sexual and social selection. Here, we investigate the link between social interactions and allele frequencies in foraging flocks of great tits (Parus major) over three consecutive years. We constructed co-occurrence networks which explicitly described the splitting and merging of 85,602 flocks through time (fission-fusion dynamics), at 60 feeding sites. Of the 1,711 birds in those flocks, we genotyped 962 individuals at 4,701 autosomal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). By combining genomewide genotyping with repeated field observations of the same individuals, we were able to investigate links between social structure and allele frequencies at a much finer scale than was previously possible. We explicitly accounted for potential spatial effects underlying genetic structure at the population level. We modelled social structure and spatial configuration of great tit fission-fusion dynamics with eigenvector maps. Variance partitioning revealed that allele frequencies were strongly affected by group fidelity (explaining 27%-45% of variance) as individuals tended to maintain associations with the same conspecifics. These conspecifics were genetically more dissimilar than expected, shown by genomewide heterophily for pure social (i.e., space-independent) grouping preferences. Genomewide homophily was linked to spatial configuration, indicating spatial segregation of genotypes. We did not find evidence for homophily or heterophily for putative socially relevant candidate genes or any other SNP markers. Together, these results demonstrate the importance of distinguishing social and spatial processes in determining population structure. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The Effects of Forage Policy on Feed Costs in Korea

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Jae Bong Chang

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Feeding operations are substantial on livestock farms, besides being potentially expensive. Feeding efficiency has been considered a major influence on profits in the livestock industry. Indeed, feed costs are shown to be the largest single item of production cost in Korea. To promote production and use of domestic forage, the Korean government has enforced the forage base expansion program that strengthens the competitiveness of the livestock industry by reducing the production cost. The forage base expansion program includes three main policies: subsidized forage production, support for processing and distribution, and expanding land for forage production. This paper investigates the influence of the government’s policies often conjectured to have pronounced effects on forage production. To evaluate the forage policies, this paper uses a path-analysis approach linking government spending on forage base expansion programs and feed costs. Results indicate that the Korean government’s spending on supporting domestic forage production results in a decrease in the ratio of forage expenses to total feed cost.

Social Learning in Vespula Germanica Wasps: Do They Use Collective Foraging Strategies?

Science.gov (United States)

Lozada, Mariana; D' Adamo, Paola; Buteler, Micaela; Kuperman, Marcelo N

2016-01-01

Vespula germanica is a social wasp that has become established outside its native range in many regions of the world, becoming a major pest in the invaded areas. In the present work we analyze social communication processes used by V. germanica when exploiting un-depleted food sources. For this purpose, we investigated the arrival pattern of wasps at a protein bait and evaluated whether a forager recruited conspecifics in three different situations: foragers were able to return to the nest (full communication), foragers were removed on arrival (communication impeded), or only one forager was allowed to return to the nest (local enhancement restricted). Results demonstrated the existence of recruitment in V. germanica, given that very different patterns of wasp arrivals and a higher frequency of wasp visits to the resource were observed when communication flow between experienced and naive foragers was allowed. Our findings showed that recruitment takes place at a distance from the food source, in addition to local enhancement. When both local enhancement and distant recruitment were occurring simultaneously, the pattern of wasp arrival was exponential. When recruitment occurred only distant from the feeder, the arrival pattern was linear, but the number of wasps arriving was twice as many as when neither communication nor local enhancement was allowed. Moreover, when return to the nest was impeded, wasp arrival at the bait was regular and constant, indicating that naive wasps forage individually and are not spatially aggregated. In conclusion, this is the first study to demonstrate recruitment in V. germanica at a distance from the food source by modelling wasps' arrival to a protein-based resource. In addition, the existence of correlations when communication was allowed and reflected in tandem arrivals indicates that we were not in the presence of random processes.

Social Learning in Vespula Germanica Wasps: Do They Use Collective Foraging Strategies?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mariana Lozada

Full Text Available Vespula germanica is a social wasp that has become established outside its native range in many regions of the world, becoming a major pest in the invaded areas. In the present work we analyze social communication processes used by V. germanica when exploiting un-depleted food sources. For this purpose, we investigated the arrival pattern of wasps at a protein bait and evaluated whether a forager recruited conspecifics in three different situations: foragers were able to return to the nest (full communication, foragers were removed on arrival (communication impeded, or only one forager was allowed to return to the nest (local enhancement restricted. Results demonstrated the existence of recruitment in V. germanica, given that very different patterns of wasp arrivals and a higher frequency of wasp visits to the resource were observed when communication flow between experienced and naive foragers was allowed. Our findings showed that recruitment takes place at a distance from the food source, in addition to local enhancement. When both local enhancement and distant recruitment were occurring simultaneously, the pattern of wasp arrival was exponential. When recruitment occurred only distant from the feeder, the arrival pattern was linear, but the number of wasps arriving was twice as many as when neither communication nor local enhancement was allowed. Moreover, when return to the nest was impeded, wasp arrival at the bait was regular and constant, indicating that naive wasps forage individually and are not spatially aggregated. In conclusion, this is the first study to demonstrate recruitment in V. germanica at a distance from the food source by modelling wasps' arrival to a protein-based resource. In addition, the existence of correlations when communication was allowed and reflected in tandem arrivals indicates that we were not in the presence of random processes.

The Physiological Suppressing Factors of Dry Forage Intake and the Cause of Water Intake Following Dry Forage Feeding in Goats — A Review

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katsunori Sunagawa

2016-02-01

Full Text Available The goats raised in the barn are usually fed on fresh grass. As dry forage can be stored for long periods in large amounts, dry forage feeding makes it possible to feed large numbers of goats in barns. This review explains the physiological factors involved in suppressing dry forage intake and the cause of drinking following dry forage feeding. Ruminants consume an enormous amount of dry forage in a short time. Eating rates of dry forage rapidly decreased in the first 40 min of feeding and subsequently declined gradually to low states in the remaining time of the feeding period. Saliva in large-type goats is secreted in large volume during the first hour after the commencement of dry forage feeding. It was elucidated that the marked suppression of dry forage intake during the first hour was caused by a feeding-induced hypovolemia and the loss of NaHCO3 due to excessive salivation during the initial stages of dry forage feeding. On the other hand, it was indicated that the marked decrease in feed intake observed in the second hour of the 2 h feeding period was related to ruminal distension caused by the feed consumed and the copious amount of saliva secreted during dry forage feeding. In addition, results indicate that the marked decreases in dry forage intake after 40 min of feeding are caused by increases in plasma osmolality and subsequent thirst sensations produced by dry forage feeding. After 40 min of the 2 h dry forage feeding period, the feed salt content is absorbed into the rumen and plasma osmolality increases. The combined effects of ruminal distension and increased plasma osmolality accounted for 77.6% of the suppression of dry forage intake 40 min after the start of dry forage feeding. The results indicate that ruminal distension and increased plasma osmolality are the main physiological factors in suppression of dry forage intake in large-type goats. There was very little drinking behavior observed during the first hour of the 2 h

Forage evaluation by analysis after

African Journals Online (AJOL)

by forages, can be estimated by amino acid analysis of the products of fermentation in vitro. Typical results of such analyses are presented in Table 1. These results indicate that after fermentation the amino acid balance of forages is not optimal for either milk or meat production, with histidine usually being the first limiting.

A Breath of Fresh Air in Foraging Theory: The Importance of Wind for Food Size Selection in a Central-Place Forager.

Science.gov (United States)

Alma, Andrea Marina; Farji-Brener, Alejandro G; Elizalde, Luciana

2017-09-01

Empirical data about food size carried by central-place foragers do not often fit with the optimum predicted by classical foraging theory. Traditionally, biotic constraints such as predation risk and competition have been proposed to explain this inconsistency, leaving aside the possible role of abiotic factors. Here we documented how wind affects the load size of a central-place forager (leaf-cutting ants) through a mathematical model including the whole foraging process. The model showed that as wind speed at ground level increased from 0 to 2 km/h, load size decreased from 91 to 30 mm 2 , a prediction that agreed with empirical data from windy zones, highlighting the relevance of considering abiotic factors to predict foraging behavior. Furthermore, wind reduced the range of load sizes that workers should select to maintain a similar rate of food intake and decreased the foraging rate by ∼70% when wind speed increased 1 km/h. These results suggest that wind could reduce the fitness of colonies and limit the geographic distribution of leaf-cutting ants. The developed model offers a complementary explanation for why load size in central-place foragers may not fit theoretical predictions and could serve as a basis to study the effects of other abiotic factors that influence foraging.

Optimal Foraging by Birds: Experiments for Secondary & Postsecondary Students

Science.gov (United States)

Pecor, Keith W.; Lake, Ellen C.; Wund, Matthew A.

2015-01-01

Optimal foraging theory attempts to explain the foraging patterns observed in animals, including their choice of particular food items and foraging locations. We describe three experiments designed to test hypotheses about food choice and foraging habitat preference using bird feeders. These experiments can be used alone or in combination and can…

Fragmentation of nest and foraging habitat affects time budgets of solitary bees, their fitness and pollination services, depending on traits: Results from an individual-based model

Science.gov (United States)

Settele, Josef; Dormann, Carsten F.

2018-01-01

Solitary bees are important but declining wild pollinators. During daily foraging in agricultural landscapes, they encounter a mosaic of patches with nest and foraging habitat and unsuitable matrix. It is insufficiently clear how spatial allocation of nesting and foraging resources and foraging traits of bees affect their daily foraging performance. We investigated potential brood cell construction (as proxy of fitness), number of visited flowers, foraging habitat visitation and foraging distance (pollination proxies) with the model SOLBEE (simulating pollen transport by solitary bees, tested and validated in an earlier study), for landscapes varying in landscape fragmentation and spatial allocation of nesting and foraging resources. Simulated bees varied in body size and nesting preference. We aimed to understand effects of landscape fragmentation and bee traits on bee fitness and the pollination services bees provide, as well as interactions between them, and the general consequences it has to our understanding of the system. This broad scope gives multiple key results. 1) Body size determines fitness more than landscape fragmentation, with large bees building fewer brood cells. High pollen requirements for large bees and the related high time budgets for visiting many flowers may not compensate for faster flight speeds and short handling times on flowers, giving them overall a disadvantage compared to small bees. 2) Nest preference does affect distribution of bees over the landscape, with cavity-nesting bees being restricted to nesting along field edges, which inevitably leads to performance reductions. Fragmentation mitigates this for cavity-nesting bees through increased edge habitat. 3) Landscape fragmentation alone had a relatively small effect on all responses. Instead, the local ratio of nest to foraging habitat affected bee fitness positively through reduced local competition. The spatial coverage of pollination increases steeply in response to this ratio

Fragmentation of nest and foraging habitat affects time budgets of solitary bees, their fitness and pollination services, depending on traits: Results from an individual-based model.

Science.gov (United States)

Everaars, Jeroen; Settele, Josef; Dormann, Carsten F

2018-01-01

Solitary bees are important but declining wild pollinators. During daily foraging in agricultural landscapes, they encounter a mosaic of patches with nest and foraging habitat and unsuitable matrix. It is insufficiently clear how spatial allocation of nesting and foraging resources and foraging traits of bees affect their daily foraging performance. We investigated potential brood cell construction (as proxy of fitness), number of visited flowers, foraging habitat visitation and foraging distance (pollination proxies) with the model SOLBEE (simulating pollen transport by solitary bees, tested and validated in an earlier study), for landscapes varying in landscape fragmentation and spatial allocation of nesting and foraging resources. Simulated bees varied in body size and nesting preference. We aimed to understand effects of landscape fragmentation and bee traits on bee fitness and the pollination services bees provide, as well as interactions between them, and the general consequences it has to our understanding of the system. This broad scope gives multiple key results. 1) Body size determines fitness more than landscape fragmentation, with large bees building fewer brood cells. High pollen requirements for large bees and the related high time budgets for visiting many flowers may not compensate for faster flight speeds and short handling times on flowers, giving them overall a disadvantage compared to small bees. 2) Nest preference does affect distribution of bees over the landscape, with cavity-nesting bees being restricted to nesting along field edges, which inevitably leads to performance reductions. Fragmentation mitigates this for cavity-nesting bees through increased edge habitat. 3) Landscape fragmentation alone had a relatively small effect on all responses. Instead, the local ratio of nest to foraging habitat affected bee fitness positively through reduced local competition. The spatial coverage of pollination increases steeply in response to this ratio

Fragmentation of nest and foraging habitat affects time budgets of solitary bees, their fitness and pollination services, depending on traits: Results from an individual-based model.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jeroen Everaars

Full Text Available Solitary bees are important but declining wild pollinators. During daily foraging in agricultural landscapes, they encounter a mosaic of patches with nest and foraging habitat and unsuitable matrix. It is insufficiently clear how spatial allocation of nesting and foraging resources and foraging traits of bees affect their daily foraging performance. We investigated potential brood cell construction (as proxy of fitness, number of visited flowers, foraging habitat visitation and foraging distance (pollination proxies with the model SOLBEE (simulating pollen transport by solitary bees, tested and validated in an earlier study, for landscapes varying in landscape fragmentation and spatial allocation of nesting and foraging resources. Simulated bees varied in body size and nesting preference. We aimed to understand effects of landscape fragmentation and bee traits on bee fitness and the pollination services bees provide, as well as interactions between them, and the general consequences it has to our understanding of the system. This broad scope gives multiple key results. 1 Body size determines fitness more than landscape fragmentation, with large bees building fewer brood cells. High pollen requirements for large bees and the related high time budgets for visiting many flowers may not compensate for faster flight speeds and short handling times on flowers, giving them overall a disadvantage compared to small bees. 2 Nest preference does affect distribution of bees over the landscape, with cavity-nesting bees being restricted to nesting along field edges, which inevitably leads to performance reductions. Fragmentation mitigates this for cavity-nesting bees through increased edge habitat. 3 Landscape fragmentation alone had a relatively small effect on all responses. Instead, the local ratio of nest to foraging habitat affected bee fitness positively through reduced local competition. The spatial coverage of pollination increases steeply in response

Deep-ocean foraging northern elephant seals bioaccumulate persistent organic pollutants

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Peterson, Sarah H.; Peterson, Michael G.; Debier, Cathy; Covaci, Adrian; Dirtu, Alin C.; Malarvannan, Govindan; Crocker, Daniel E.; Schwarz, Lisa K.; Costa, Daniel P.

2015-01-01

ocean food webs. - Highlights: • All elephant seals had detectable concentrations of DDTs, PCBs, CHLs, and PBDEs. • We quantified changes in the blubber burdens of POPs, within individual seals. • Despite mass dilution while foraging, blubber burdens showed POP ingestion. • Bioaccumulation of some POP compounds in seals varied across the North Pacific. • Ratio of ΣDDTs:ΣPCBs corroborated latitudinal variation seen in other species

Deep-ocean foraging northern elephant seals bioaccumulate persistent organic pollutants

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Peterson, Sarah H., E-mail: sarahpeterson23@gmail.com [Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, 100 Shaffer Road, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 (United States); Peterson, Michael G. [Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley, 130 Mulford Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States); Debier, Cathy [Institut des Sciences de la Vie, Université catholique de Louvain, Croix du Sud 2/L7.05.08, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium); Covaci, Adrian [Toxicological Center, Campus Drie Eiken, Universiteit Antwerpen, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610 Wilrijk (Belgium); Dirtu, Alin C. [Toxicological Center, Campus Drie Eiken, Universiteit Antwerpen, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610 Wilrijk (Belgium); Department of Chemistry, “Al. I. Cuza” University of Iasi, 700506 Iasi (Romania); Malarvannan, Govindan [Toxicological Center, Campus Drie Eiken, Universiteit Antwerpen, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610 Wilrijk (Belgium); Crocker, Daniel E. [Department of Biology, Sonoma State University, 1801 East Cotati Ave, Rohnert Park, CA 94928 (United States); Schwarz, Lisa K. [Institute of Marine Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, 100 Shaffer Road, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 (United States); Costa, Daniel P. [Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz, 100 Shaffer Road, Santa Cruz, CA 95060 (United States)

2015-11-15

deep ocean food webs. - Highlights: • All elephant seals had detectable concentrations of DDTs, PCBs, CHLs, and PBDEs. • We quantified changes in the blubber burdens of POPs, within individual seals. • Despite mass dilution while foraging, blubber burdens showed POP ingestion. • Bioaccumulation of some POP compounds in seals varied across the North Pacific. • Ratio of ΣDDTs:ΣPCBs corroborated latitudinal variation seen in other species.

An indirect dispersal pathway for spotted knapweed seeds via deer mice and great-horned owls

Science.gov (United States)

Dean E. Pearson; Yvette K. Ortega

2001-01-01

Spotted Knapweed (Centaurea maculosa) seeds were found in the pellets of Great Horned Owls (Bubo virginianus). That apparently resulted from owls preying upon Deer Mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) which had incidentally consumed knapweed seeds while foraging for the larvae of biological control agents within...

Spatial variation in foraging behaviour of a marine top predator (Phoca vitulina determined by a large-scale satellite tagging program.

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Ruth J Sharples

Full Text Available The harbour seal (Phoca vitulina is a widespread marine predator in Northern Hemisphere waters. British populations have been subject to rapid declines in recent years. Food supply or inter-specific competition may be implicated but basic ecological data are lacking and there are few studies of harbour seal foraging distribution and habits. In this study, satellite tagging conducted at the major seal haul outs around the British Isles showed both that seal movements were highly variable among individuals and that foraging strategy appears to be specialized within particular regions. We investigated whether these apparent differences could be explained by individual level factors: by modelling measures of trip duration and distance travelled as a function of size, sex and body condition. However, these were not found to be good predictors of foraging trip duration or distance, which instead was best predicted by tagging region, time of year and inter-trip duration. Therefore, we propose that local habitat conditions and the constraints they impose are the major determinants of foraging movements. Specifically the distance to profitable feeding grounds from suitable haul-out locations may dictate foraging strategy and behaviour. Accounting for proximity to productive foraging resources is likely to be an important component of understanding population processes. Despite more extensive offshore movements than expected, there was also marked fidelity to the local haul-out region with limited connectivity between study regions. These empirical observations of regional exchange at short time scales demonstrates the value of large scale electronic tagging programs for robust characterization of at-sea foraging behaviour at a wide spatial scale.

Examining short-term nutritional status among BaAka foragers in transitional economies.

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Remis, Melissa J; Jost Robinson, Carolyn A

2014-07-01

Foragers in transitioning economies are at an increased risk of negative health outcomes as they undergo changes in subsistence patterns and diet. Here, we provide anthropometric data and examine the nutrition and health of adult BaAka foragers in relationship to declining wildlife and economic change in the Dzanga Sangha Protected Areas (APDS), Central African Republic. From June to August 2012, we collected biological data and dietary recall surveys from individuals in Mossapoula (MS) and Yandoumbé (YDBE) villages using standard anthropometric techniques and a single capillary blood finger prick. In our analysis, we identified variation in anthropometric measurements and hemoglobin levels by village (MS = 66, YDBE = 75) and gender (64 men, 77 women). Immigration, increased gun hunting and wildlife trades have reduced forager reliance on forest resources. These changes are evidenced in the marginal health of contemporary BaAka foragers of APDS. Although anthropometric measures of nutritional status do not significantly differ between communities, hemoglobin data highlight inequities in access to forest products between villages with different proximity to community hunting zones. Further, poor dietary diversity and low frequency of purchased foods in the diet indicate that the transition to a market economy has not been fully realized and diets are impoverished. Economic changes appear to have had the most impact at MS village, where forest use is most restricted and consumption of meat and forest products was reduced. This work highlights the nutritional and health needs of foragers in rapidly transitioning economies; especially those impacted by conservation management and zoning policies. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Comparative Foraging Efficiency of Two Sympatric Jackals, Silver-Backed Jackals (Canis mesomelas) and Golden Jackals (Canis aureus), in the Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

OpenAIRE

Temu, S. E.; Nahonyo, C. L.; Moehlman, P. D.

2016-01-01

The foraging efficiency of two sympatric species of jackals, silver-backed jackals (Canis mesomelas) and golden jackals (Canis aureus), was studied in the Ngorongoro crater from July 2014 through May 2015. The focal animal observation method was used and individuals of both species were followed as they foraged from morning to evening. Observations of individuals of both jackal species were made from a vehicle using binoculars and a spotting scope. Three major parameters were used for determi...

Fatty acid composition of forage herb species

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Warner, D.; Jensen, Søren Krogh; Cone, J.W.

2010-01-01

The use of alternative forage species in grasslands for intensive livestock production is receiving renewed attention. Data on fatty acid composition of herbs are scarce, so four herbs (Plantago lanceolata, Achillea millefolium, Cichorium intybus, Pastinaca sativa) and one grass species (timothy......, Phleum pratense) were sown in a cutting trial. The chemical composition and concentration of fatty acids (FA) of individual species were determined during the growing season. Concentrations of crude protein and FA were generally higher in the herbs than in timothy. C. intybus had the highest nutritive...

Transport infrastructure shapes foraging habitat in a raptor community.

Science.gov (United States)

Planillo, Aimara; Kramer-Schadt, Stephanie; Malo, Juan E

2015-01-01

Transport infrastructure elements are widespread and increasing in size and length in many countries, with the subsequent alteration of landscapes and wildlife communities. Nonetheless, their effects on habitat selection by raptors are still poorly understood. In this paper, we analyzed raptors' foraging habitat selection in response to conventional roads and high capacity motorways at the landscape scale, and compared their effects with those of other variables, such as habitat structure, food availability, and presence of potential interspecific competitors. We also analyzed whether the raptors' response towards infrastructure depends on the spatial scale of observation, comparing the attraction or avoidance behavior of the species at the landscape scale with the response of individuals observed in the proximity of the infrastructure. Based on ecological hypotheses for foraging habitat selection, we built generalized linear mixed models, selected the best models according to Akaike Information Criterion and assessed variable importance by Akaike weights. At the community level, the traffic volume was the most relevant variable in the landscape for foraging habitat selection. Abundance, richness, and diversity values reached their maximum at medium traffic volumes and decreased at highest traffic volumes. Individual species showed different degrees of tolerance toward traffic, from higher abundance in areas with high traffic values to avoidance of it. Medium-sized opportunistic raptors increased their abundance near the traffic infrastructures, large scavenger raptors avoided areas with higher traffic values, and other species showed no direct response to traffic but to the presence of prey. Finally, our cross-scale analysis revealed that the effect of transport infrastructures on the behavior of some species might be detectable only at a broad scale. Also, food availability may attract raptor species to risky areas such as motorways.

Multiple-stage decisions in a marine central-place forager.

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Friedlaender, Ari S; Johnston, David W; Tyson, Reny B; Kaltenberg, Amanda; Goldbogen, Jeremy A; Stimpert, Alison K; Curtice, Corrie; Hazen, Elliott L; Halpin, Patrick N; Read, Andrew J; Nowacek, Douglas P

2016-05-01

Air-breathing marine animals face a complex set of physical challenges associated with diving that affect the decisions of how to optimize feeding. Baleen whales (Mysticeti) have evolved bulk-filter feeding mechanisms to efficiently feed on dense prey patches. Baleen whales are central place foragers where oxygen at the surface represents the central place and depth acts as the distance to prey. Although hypothesized that baleen whales will target the densest prey patches anywhere in the water column, how depth and density interact to influence foraging behaviour is poorly understood. We used multi-sensor archival tags and active acoustics to quantify Antarctic humpback whale foraging behaviour relative to prey. Our analyses reveal multi-stage foraging decisions driven by both krill depth and density. During daylight hours when whales did not feed, krill were found in deep high-density patches. As krill migrated vertically into larger and less dense patches near the surface, whales began to forage. During foraging bouts, we found that feeding rates (number of feeding lunges per hour) were greatest when prey was shallowest, and feeding rates decreased with increasing dive depth. This strategy is consistent with previous models of how air-breathing diving animals optimize foraging efficiency. Thus, humpback whales forage mainly when prey is more broadly distributed and shallower, presumably to minimize diving and searching costs and to increase feeding rates overall and thus foraging efficiency. Using direct measurements of feeding behaviour from animal-borne tags and prey availability from echosounders, our study demonstrates a multi-stage foraging process in a central place forager that we suggest acts to optimize overall efficiency by maximizing net energy gain over time. These data reveal a previously unrecognized level of complexity in predator-prey interactions and underscores the need to simultaneously measure prey distribution in marine central place forager

Multiple-stage decisions in a marine central-place forager

Science.gov (United States)

Friedlaender, Ari S.; Johnston, David W.; Tyson, Reny B.; Kaltenberg, Amanda; Goldbogen, Jeremy A.; Stimpert, Alison K.; Curtice, Corrie; Hazen, Elliott L.; Halpin, Patrick N.; Read, Andrew J.; Nowacek, Douglas P.

2016-05-01

Air-breathing marine animals face a complex set of physical challenges associated with diving that affect the decisions of how to optimize feeding. Baleen whales (Mysticeti) have evolved bulk-filter feeding mechanisms to efficiently feed on dense prey patches. Baleen whales are central place foragers where oxygen at the surface represents the central place and depth acts as the distance to prey. Although hypothesized that baleen whales will target the densest prey patches anywhere in the water column, how depth and density interact to influence foraging behaviour is poorly understood. We used multi-sensor archival tags and active acoustics to quantify Antarctic humpback whale foraging behaviour relative to prey. Our analyses reveal multi-stage foraging decisions driven by both krill depth and density. During daylight hours when whales did not feed, krill were found in deep high-density patches. As krill migrated vertically into larger and less dense patches near the surface, whales began to forage. During foraging bouts, we found that feeding rates (number of feeding lunges per hour) were greatest when prey was shallowest, and feeding rates decreased with increasing dive depth. This strategy is consistent with previous models of how air-breathing diving animals optimize foraging efficiency. Thus, humpback whales forage mainly when prey is more broadly distributed and shallower, presumably to minimize diving and searching costs and to increase feeding rates overall and thus foraging efficiency. Using direct measurements of feeding behaviour from animal-borne tags and prey availability from echosounders, our study demonstrates a multi-stage foraging process in a central place forager that we suggest acts to optimize overall efficiency by maximizing net energy gain over time. These data reveal a previously unrecognized level of complexity in predator-prey interactions and underscores the need to simultaneously measure prey distribution in marine central place forager

Foundations of cumulative culture in apes: improved foraging efficiency through relinquishing and combining witnessed behaviours in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

Science.gov (United States)

Davis, Sarah J; Vale, Gillian L; Schapiro, Steven J; Lambeth, Susan P; Whiten, Andrew

2016-10-24

A vital prerequisite for cumulative culture, a phenomenon often asserted to be unique to humans, is the ability to modify behaviour and flexibly switch to more productive or efficient alternatives. Here, we first established an inefficient solution to a foraging task in five captive chimpanzee groups (N = 19). Three groups subsequently witnessed a conspecific using an alternative, more efficient, solution. When participants could successfully forage with their established behaviours, most individuals did not switch to this more efficient technique; however, when their foraging method became substantially less efficient, nine chimpanzees with socially-acquired information (four of whom witnessed additional human demonstrations) relinquished their old behaviour in favour of the more efficient one. Only a single chimpanzee in control groups, who had not witnessed a knowledgeable model, discovered this. Individuals who switched were later able to combine components of their two learned techniques to produce a more efficient solution than their extensively used, original foraging method. These results suggest that, although chimpanzees show a considerable degree of conservatism, they also have an ability to combine independent behaviours to produce efficient compound action sequences; one of the foundational abilities (or candidate mechanisms) for human cumulative culture.

Large pollen loads of a South African asclepiad do not interfere with the foraging behaviour or efficiency of pollinating honey bees

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Coombs, G.; Dold, A. P.; Brassine, E. I.; Peter, C. I.

2012-07-01

The pollen of asclepiads (Asclepiadoideae, Apocynaceae) and most orchids (Orchidaceae) are packaged as large aggregations known as pollinaria that are removed as entire units by pollinators. In some instances, individual pollinators may accumulate large loads of these pollinaria. We found that the primary pollinator of Cynanchum ellipticum (Apocynaceae—Asclepiadoideae), the honey bee Apis mellifera, accumulate very large agglomerations of pollinaria on their mouthparts when foraging on this species. We tested whether large pollinarium loads negatively affected the foraging behaviour and foraging efficiency of honey bees by slowing foraging speeds or causing honey bees to visit fewer flowers, and found no evidence to suggest that large pollinarium loads altered foraging behaviour. C. ellipticum displayed consistently high levels of pollination success and pollen transfer efficiency (PTE). This may be a consequence of efficiently loading large numbers of pollinaria onto pollinators even when primary points of attachment on pollinators are already occupied and doing so in a manner that does not impact the foraging behaviour of pollinating insects.

Sheep numbers required for dry matter digestibility evaluations when fed fresh perennial ryegrass or forage rape.

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Xuezhao; Krijgsman, Linda; Waghorn, Garry C; Kjestrup, Holly; Koolaard, John; Pacheco, David

2017-03-01

Research trials with fresh forages often require accurate and precise measurement of digestibility and variation in digestion between individuals, and the duration of measurement periods needs to be established to ensure reliable data are obtained. The variation is likely to be greater when freshly harvested feeds are given, such as perennial ryegrass ( Lolium perenne L.) and forage rape ( Brassica napus L.), because the nutrient composition changes over time and in response to weather conditions. Daily feed intake and faeces output data from a digestibility trial with these forages were used to calculate the effects of differing lengths of the measurement period and differing numbers of sheep, on the precision of digestibility, with a view towards development of a protocol. Sixteen lambs aged 8 months and weighing 33 kg at the commencement of the trial were fed either perennial ryegrass or forage rape (8/treatment group) over 2 periods with 35 d between measurements. They had been acclimatised to the diets, having grazed them for 42 d prior to 11 days of indoor measurements. The sheep numbers required for a digestibility trial with different combinations of acclimatisation and measurement period lengths were subsequently calculated for 3 levels of imposed precision upon the estimate of mean dry matter (DM) digestibility. It is recommended that if the standard error of the mean for digestibility is equal to or higher than 5 g/kg DM, and if sheep are already used to a fresh perennial ryegrass or forage rape diet, then a minimum of 6 animals are needed and 4 acclimatisation days being fed individually in metabolic crates followed by 7 days of measurement.

Quality of the forage apparently consumed by beef calves in natural grassland under fertilization and oversown with cool season forage species

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Denise Adelaide Gomes Elejalde

2012-06-01

Full Text Available The objective of this study was to evaluate the chemical composition of the forage apparently consumed by steers in a natural grassland on region of Campanha, in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, subjected or not to different inputs: NP - natural pasture without inputs; FNP - fertilized natural pasture and INP - improved natural grassland with fertilization and over-seeded with cultivated winter species. Three Angus steers testers and a variable number of regulator animals per experimental unit were utilized in order to maintain 13 kg of DM/100 kg of live weight (LW as forage allowance. One time at each season, hand plucking samples were performed along the daily grazing time simulating forage harvested by the animals. The collected samples after drying and grind were submitted to chemical analysis to determine the forage quality. Except in winter and spring, the values of neutral detergent fiber were higher than the critical value of 550 g/kg of DM, which could limit forage intake, demonstrating that the values of forage on offer provided (15.6; 13.7; 13.5; 15.8 kg of DM/100 kg of LW/day in summer, autumn, winter and spring, respectively were not restrictive to intake. The oversowing of winter cultivated species or fertilization positively alter the degradable fiber content. The seasons had marked influence on the chemical composition of forage apparently consumed; positively increasing some fractions of forage chemical composition in the seasons in which native or cultivated winter species increased their participation. The forage chemical composition is the determining factor in animal performance in natural pasture.

Sexy birds are superior at solving a foraging problem.

Science.gov (United States)

Mateos-Gonzalez, Fernando; Quesada, Javier; Senar, Juan Carlos

2011-10-23

Yellow, red or orange carotenoid-based colorations in male birds are often a signal to prospecting females about body condition, health status and ability to find food. However, this general 'ability to find food' has never been defined. Here we show that more brightly ornamented individuals may also be more efficient when foraging in novel situations. The results highlight the fact that evolution may have provided females tools to evaluate cognitive abilities of the males.

Is there an endogenous tidal foraging rhythm in marine iguanas?

Science.gov (United States)

Wikelski, M; Hau, M

1995-12-01

As strictly herbivorous reptiles, Galápagos marine iguanas graze on algae in the intertidal areas during low tide. Daily foraging rhythms were observed on two islands during 3 years to determine the proximate factors underlying behavioral synchrony with the tides. Marine iguanas walked to their intertidal foraging grounds from far-off resting areas in anticipation of the time of low tide. Foraging activity was restricted to daytime, resulting in a complex bitidal rhythm including conspicuous switches from afternoon foraging to foraging during the subsequent morning when low tide occurred after dusk. The animals anticipated the daily low tide by a maximum of 4 h. The degree of anticipation depended on environmental parameters such as wave action and food supply. "Early foragers" survived in greater numbers than did animals arriving later at foraging sites, a result indicating selection pressure on the timing of anticipation. The timing of foraging trips was better predicted by the daily changes in tabulated low tide than it was by the daily changes in actual exposure of the intertidal foraging flats, suggesting an endogenous nature of the foraging rhythms. Endogenous rhythmicity would also explain why iguanas that had spontaneously fasted for several days nevertheless went foraging at the "right" time of day. A potential lunar component of the foraging rhythmicity of marine iguanas showed up in their assemblage on intertidal rocks during neap tide nights. This may indicate that iguanas possessed information on the semi-monthly rhythms in tide heights. Enclosure experiments showed that bitidal foraging rhythms of iguanas may free run in the absence of direct cues from the intertidal areas and operate independent of the light:dark cycle and social stimuli. Therefore, the existence of a circatidal oscillator in marine iguanas is proposed. The bitidal foraging pattern may result from an interaction of a circadian system with a circatidal system. Food intake or related

Nocturnal Foraging by Red-Legged Kittiwakes, a Surface Feeding Seabird That Relies on Deep Water Prey During Reproduction.

Science.gov (United States)

Kokubun, Nobuo; Yamamoto, Takashi; Kikuchi, Dale M; Kitaysky, Alexander; Takahashi, Akinori

2015-01-01

Narrow foraging specialization may increase the vulnerability of marine predators to climate change. The red-legged kittiwake (Rissa brevirostris) is endemic to the Bering Sea and has experienced drastic population fluctuations in recent decades, presumably due to climate-driven changes in food resources. Red-legged kittiwakes are presumed to be a nocturnal surface-foraging seabird that feed almost entirely on deep water Myctophidae fishes. However, there is little empirical evidence confirming their nocturnal foraging activity during the breeding season. This study investigated the foraging behavior of red-legged kittiwakes by combining GPS tracking, accelerometry, and dietary analyses at the world's largest breeding colony of red-legged kittiwakes on St. George I. GPS tracking of 5 individuals revealed that 82.5% of non-flight behavior (including foraging and resting) occurred over the ocean basin (bottom depth >1,000 m). Acceleration data from 4 birds showed three types of behaviors during foraging trips: (1) flight, characterized by regular wing flapping, (2) resting on water, characterized by non-active behavior, and (3) foraging, when wing flapping was irregular. The proportions of both foraging and resting behaviors were higher at night (14.1 ± 7.1% and 20.8 ± 14.3%) compared to those during the day (6.5 ± 3.0% and 1.7 ± 2.7%). The mean duration of foraging (2.4 ± 2.9 min) was shorter than that of flight between prey patches (24.2 ± 53.1 min). Dietary analyses confirmed myctophids as the dominant prey (100% by occurrence and 98.4 ± 2.4% by wet-weight). Although the sample size was limited, these results suggest that breeding red-legged kittiwakes concentrated their foraging on myctophids available at the surface during nighttime in deep water regions. We propose that the diel patterns and ephemeral nature of their foraging activity reflected the availability of myctophids. Such foraging specialization may exacerbate the vulnerability of red

Nocturnal Foraging by Red-Legged Kittiwakes, a Surface Feeding Seabird That Relies on Deep Water Prey During Reproduction.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nobuo Kokubun

Full Text Available Narrow foraging specialization may increase the vulnerability of marine predators to climate change. The red-legged kittiwake (Rissa brevirostris is endemic to the Bering Sea and has experienced drastic population fluctuations in recent decades, presumably due to climate-driven changes in food resources. Red-legged kittiwakes are presumed to be a nocturnal surface-foraging seabird that feed almost entirely on deep water Myctophidae fishes. However, there is little empirical evidence confirming their nocturnal foraging activity during the breeding season. This study investigated the foraging behavior of red-legged kittiwakes by combining GPS tracking, accelerometry, and dietary analyses at the world's largest breeding colony of red-legged kittiwakes on St. George I. GPS tracking of 5 individuals revealed that 82.5% of non-flight behavior (including foraging and resting occurred over the ocean basin (bottom depth >1,000 m. Acceleration data from 4 birds showed three types of behaviors during foraging trips: (1 flight, characterized by regular wing flapping, (2 resting on water, characterized by non-active behavior, and (3 foraging, when wing flapping was irregular. The proportions of both foraging and resting behaviors were higher at night (14.1 ± 7.1% and 20.8 ± 14.3% compared to those during the day (6.5 ± 3.0% and 1.7 ± 2.7%. The mean duration of foraging (2.4 ± 2.9 min was shorter than that of flight between prey patches (24.2 ± 53.1 min. Dietary analyses confirmed myctophids as the dominant prey (100% by occurrence and 98.4 ± 2.4% by wet-weight. Although the sample size was limited, these results suggest that breeding red-legged kittiwakes concentrated their foraging on myctophids available at the surface during nighttime in deep water regions. We propose that the diel patterns and ephemeral nature of their foraging activity reflected the availability of myctophids. Such foraging specialization may exacerbate the vulnerability of red

Detecting predators and locating competitors while foraging: an experimental study of a medium-sized herbivore in an African savanna.

Science.gov (United States)

Pays, Olivier; Blanchard, Pierrick; Valeix, Marion; Chamaillé-Jammes, Simon; Duncan, Patrick; Périquet, Stéphanie; Lombard, Marion; Ncube, Gugulethu; Tarakini, Tawanda; Makuwe, Edwin; Fritz, Hervé

2012-06-01

Vigilance allows individuals to escape from predators, but it also reduces time for other activities which determine fitness, in particular resource acquisition. The principles determining how prey trade time between the detection of predators and food acquisition are not fully understood, particularly in herbivores because of many potential confounding factors (such as group size), and the ability of these animals to be vigilant while handling food. We designed a fertilization experiment to manipulate the quality of resources, and compared awareness (distinguishing apprehensive foraging and vigilance) of wild impalas (Aepyceros melampus) foraging on patches of different grass height and quality in a wilderness area with a full community of predators. While handling food, these animals can allocate time to other functions. The impalas were aware of their environment less often when on good food patches and when the grass was short. The animals spent more time in apprehensive foraging when grass was tall, and no other variable affected apprehensive behavior. The probability of exhibiting a vigilance posture decreased with group size. The interaction between grass height and patch enrichment also affected the time spent in vigilance, suggesting that resource quality was the main driver when visibility is good, and the risk of predation the main driver when the risk is high. We discuss various possible mechanisms underlying the perception of predation risk: foraging strategy, opportunities for scrounging, and inter-individual interference. Overall, this experiment shows that improving patch quality modifies the trade-off between vigilance and foraging in favor of feeding, but vigilance remains ultimately driven by the visibility of predators by foragers within their feeding patches.

Leaders are more attractive: birds with bigger yellow breast patches are followed by more group-mates in foraging groups.

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Zoltán Tóth

Full Text Available Social network theory provides a perfect tool to better understand the population-level consequences of how individuals interact and make their decisions; however, this approach is generally overlooked among evolutionary biologists interested in social relationships. Here, we used social network analysis to examine the patterns of leader-follower interactions in relation to individual characteristics in foraging groups of free-living rock sparrows (Petronia petronia. We found that yellow feather ornamentation, a carotenoid-based trait, was the best predictor of leadership: birds with bigger ornaments exerted greater influence in the foraging groups and were followed by more group-mates than less elaborate individuals. An individual's tendency for eliciting followings was not influenced by sex, condition or the level of parental investment. None of the above individual characteristics had significant effect on the tendency of individuals to follow others. Our results indicate that a sexually selected trait can also play a significant role in group coordination and social organization of a species.

Breeding limits foraging time : Evidence of interrupted foraging response from body mass variation in a tropical environment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nwaogu, Chima J.; Dietz, Maurine W.; Tieleman, B. Irene; Cresswell, Will

Birds should store body reserves if starvation risk is anticipated; this is known as an ‘interrupted foraging response’. If foraging remains unrestricted, however, body mass should remain low to limit the predation risk that gaining and carrying body reserves entails. In temperate environments mass

Persistence of forage fish ‘hot spots’ and its association with foraging Steller sea lions (Eumetopias jubatus) in southeast Alaska

Science.gov (United States)

Gende, Scott M.; Sigler, Michael F.

2006-02-01

Whereas primary and secondary productivity at oceanic 'hotspots' may be a function of upwelling and temperature fronts, the aggregation of higher-order vertebrates is a function of their ability to search for and locate these areas. Thus, understanding how predators aggregate at these productive foraging areas is germane to the study of oceanic hot spots. We examined the spatial distribution of forage fish in southeast Alaska for three years to better understand Steller sea lion ( Eumetopias jubatus) aggregations and foraging behavior. Energy densities (millions KJ/km 2) of forage fish were orders of magnitude greater during the winter months (November-February), due to the presence of schools of overwintering Pacific herring ( Clupea pallasi). Within the winter months, herring consistently aggregated at a few areas, and these areas persisted throughout the season and among years. Thus, our study area was characterized by seasonally variable, highly abundant but highly patchily distributed forage fish hot spots. More importantly, the persistence of these forage fish hot spots was an important characteristic in determining whether foraging sea lions utilized them. Over 40% of the variation in the distribution of sea lions on our surveys was explained by the persistence of forage fish hot spots. Using a simple spatial model, we demonstrate that when the density of these hot spots is low, effort necessary to locate these spots is minimized when those spots persist through time. In contrast, under similar prey densities but lower persistence, effort increases dramatically. Thus an important characteristic of pelagic hot spots is their persistence, allowing predators to predict their locations and concentrate search efforts accordingly.

Collective motion of a class of social foraging swarms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Liu Bo; Chu Tianguang; Wang Long; Wang Zhanfeng

2008-01-01

This paper considers a class of social foraging swarms with a nutrient profile (or an attractant/repellent) and an attraction-repulsion coupling function, which is chosen to guarantee collision avoidance between individuals. The paper also studies non-identical interaction ability or efficiency among different swarm individuals for different profiles. The swarm behavior is a result of a balance between inter-individual interplays as well as the interplays of the swarm individuals (agents) with their environment. It is proved that the individuals of a quasi-reciprocal swarm will aggregate and eventually form a cohesive cluster of finite size for different profiles. It is also shown that the swarm system is completely stable, that is, every solution converges to the set of equilibrium points of the system. Moreover, all the swarm individuals will converge to more favorable areas of the profile under certain conditions. For general non-reciprocal swarms, numerical simulations show that more complex self-organized rotation may occur in the swarms

Forage mass and the nutritive value of pastures mixed with forage peanut and red clover

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ricardo Lima de Azevedo Junior

2012-04-01

Full Text Available The objective of this research was to estimate three pasture-based systems mixed with elephantgrass + spontaneous growth species, annual ryegrass, for pasture-based system 1; elephantgrass + spontaneous growth species + forage peanut, for pasture-based system 2; and elephantgrass + spontaneous growth species + annual ryegrass + red clover, for pasture-based system 3. Elephantgrass was planted in rows 4 m apart from each other. During the cool-season, annual ryegrass was sown in the alleys between the rows of elephantgrass; forage peanut and red clover were sown in the alleys between the elephantgrass according to the respective treatment. The experimental design was totally randomized in the three treatments (pasture-based systems, two replicates (paddocks in completely split-plot time (grazing cycles. Holstein cows receiving 5.5 kg-daily complementary concentrate feed were used in the evaluation. Pre-grazing forage mass, botanical composition and stocking rate were evaluated. Samples of simulated grazing were collected to analyze organic matter (OM, neutral detergent fiber (NDF, crude protein (CP and organic matter in situ digestibility (OMISD. Nine grazing cycles were performed during the experimental period (341 days. The average dry matter values for pre-grazing and stocking rate were 3.34; 3.46; 3.79 t/ha, and 3.28; 3.34; 3.60 AU/ha for each respective pasture-based system. Similar results were observed between the pasture-based systems for OM, NDF, CP and OMISD. Considering forage mass, stocking rate and nutritive value, the pasture-based system intercropped with forage legumes presented better performance.

Lifetime Stable isotopes profiles in whale earplug: assessment of foraging and migrations in the Northern Hemisphere

Science.gov (United States)

Mansouri, F.; Crain, D.; Winfield, Z.; Trumble, S.; Usenko, S.

2017-12-01

Whale earplugs, historically used for aging, were used to reconstruct lifetime stable isotope profiles for carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) for individual whales by delaminating lamina within the earplug. These stable isotope profile, which provide Continuous lifetime records of feeding, foraging ecology, and migration, were determined for 20 individuals from 4 baleen species including fin, minke, humpback, and blue whales spanning more than a century (1869 - 2014) using stable isotope analysis. Approximately 1 mg tissue from each lamina (n=1200) was analyzed for carbon and nitrogen stable isotope using continuous flow isotope ratio mass spectrometer (CF-IRMS). This research using whale earplugs have combined age estimates with stable isotope measurements to reconstruct lifetime foraging profiles with a 6-month resolution, providing an unprecedented opportunity to assess periods and trends in dietary fluctuations as well as migration between different foraging area which have distinct isotope values. Trends with these profiles suggest long-term changing in migration, while annual variability highlights seasonal fasting and feeding. Isotopic ratios were also used to identify subpopulations of Atlantic fin whales, which enabled us to assign unidentified humpback and minke whales to the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans. This historical archive of data provides us an unprecedented tool to assess long term marine ecosystem and subsequently marine organism transition to alternate foraging area and shed light on the whale's population status in the Northern hemisphere.

Temporal allocation of foraging effort in female Australian fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus doriferus.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Andrew J Hoskins

Full Text Available Across an individual's life, foraging decisions will be affected by multiple intrinsic and extrinsic drivers that act at differing timescales. This study aimed to assess how female Australian fur seals allocated foraging effort and the behavioural changes used to achieve this at three temporal scales: within a day, across a foraging trip and across the final six months of the lactation period. Foraging effort peaked during daylight hours (57% of time diving with lulls in activity just prior to and after daylight. Dive duration reduced across the day (196 s to 168 s but this was compensated for by an increase in the vertical travel rate (1500-1600 m·h(-1 and a reduction in postdive duration (111-90 s. This suggests physiological constraints (digestive costs or prey availability may be limiting mean dive durations as a day progresses. During short trips (2.9 d effort increased up to 2-3 d and then decreased. Dive duration decreased at the same rate in short and long trips, respectively, before stabilising (long trips between 4-5 d. Suggesting that the same processes (digestive costs or prey availability working at the daily scale may also be present across a trip. Across the lactation period, foraging effort, dive duration and vertical travel rate increased until August, before beginning to decrease. This suggests that as the nutritional demands of the suckling pup and developing foetus increase, female effort increases to accommodate this, providing insight into the potential constraints of maternal investment in this species.

The Role of Non-Foraging Nests in Polydomous Wood Ant Colonies.

Science.gov (United States)

Ellis, Samuel; Robinson, Elva J H

2015-01-01

A colony of red wood ants can inhabit more than one spatially separated nest, in a strategy called polydomy. Some nests within these polydomous colonies have no foraging trails to aphid colonies in the canopy. In this study we identify and investigate the possible roles of non-foraging nests in polydomous colonies of the wood ant Formica lugubris. To investigate the role of non-foraging nests we: (i) monitored colonies for three years; (ii) observed the resources being transported between non-foraging nests and the rest of the colony; (iii) measured the amount of extra-nest activity around non-foraging and foraging nests. We used these datasets to investigate the extent to which non-foraging nests within polydomous colonies are acting as: part of the colony expansion process; hunting and scavenging specialists; brood-development specialists; seasonal foragers; or a selfish strategy exploiting the foraging effort of the rest of the colony. We found that, rather than having a specialised role, non-foraging nests are part of the process of colony expansion. Polydomous colonies expand by founding new nests in the area surrounding the existing nests. Nests founded near food begin foraging and become part of the colony; other nests are not founded near food sources and do not initially forage. Some of these non-foraging nests eventually begin foraging; others do not and are abandoned. This is a method of colony growth not available to colonies inhabiting a single nest, and may be an important advantage of the polydomous nesting strategy, allowing the colony to expand into profitable areas.

Intraspecific Variation among Social Insect Colonies: Persistent Regional and Colony-Level Differences in Fire Ant Foraging Behavior.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alison A Bockoven

Full Text Available Individuals vary within a species in many ecologically important ways, but the causes and consequences of such variation are often poorly understood. Foraging behavior is among the most profitable and risky activities in which organisms engage and is expected to be under strong selection. Among social insects there is evidence that within-colony variation in traits such as foraging behavior can increase colony fitness, but variation between colonies and the potential consequences of such variation are poorly documented. In this study, we tested natural populations of the red imported fire ant, Solenopsis invicta, for the existence of colony and regional variation in foraging behavior and tested the persistence of this variation over time and across foraging habitats. We also reared single-lineage colonies in standardized environments to explore the contribution of colony lineage. Fire ants from natural populations exhibited significant and persistent colony and regional-level variation in foraging behaviors such as extra-nest activity, exploration, and discovery of and recruitment to resources. Moreover, colony-level variation in extra-nest activity was significantly correlated with colony growth, suggesting that this variation has fitness consequences. Lineage of the colony had a significant effect on extra-nest activity and exploratory activity and explained approximately half of the variation observed in foraging behaviors, suggesting a heritable component to colony-level variation in behavior.

Foraging efficiency of a predator flock for randomly moving prey: A simulation study

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Sang-Hee; Kwon, Ohsung

2016-03-01

Flocking behavior of animals is highly advantageous for taking food resources. The degree of the advantage is related to the ability of flock members to detect their prey and the mobility of prey individuals. In this study, to explore the relation, we constructed a model to simulate a predator flock and its randomly moving prey. The predator members have the prey detection ability, which was characterized as sensing distance, R, and a sensing angle, θ. The mobility of the prey individuals was characterized as the maximum traveling distance of an iteration time step, L. The relative flock foraging efficiency, ɛ, was defined as ɛ = 1 - (Td/Tup). Tup and Td represent the spent time for the flock to eat all prey individuals and to uptake the last remaining 10% prey, respectively. Simulation results showed that ɛ increased, maximized, and decreased with the increase of R, regardless of L. As the number of prey, N, increased, the tendency of the increasing and decreasing was diluted. The result was briefly discussed in relation to the flock foraging behavior and the development of the model toward applications for real ecosystems.

Risso's dolphins plan foraging dives.

Science.gov (United States)

Arranz, Patricia; Benoit-Bird, Kelly J; Southall, Brandon L; Calambokidis, John; Friedlaender, Ari S; Tyack, Peter L

2018-02-28

Humans remember the past and use that information to plan future actions. Lab experiments that test memory for the location of food show that animals have a similar capability to act in anticipation of future needs, but less work has been done on animals foraging in the wild. We hypothesized that planning abilities are critical and common in breath-hold divers who adjust each dive to forage on prey varying in quality, location and predictability within constraints of limited oxygen availability. We equipped Risso's dolphins with sound-and-motion recording tags to reveal where they focus their attention through their externally observable echolocation and how they fine tune search strategies in response to expected and observed prey distribution. The information from the dolphins was integrated with synoptic prey data obtained from echosounders on an underwater vehicle. At the start of the dives, whales adjusted their echolocation inspection ranges in ways that suggest planning to forage at a particular depth. Once entering a productive prey layer, dolphins reduced their search range comparable to the scale of patches within the layer, suggesting that they were using echolocation to select prey within the patch. On ascent, their search range increased, indicating that they decided to stop foraging within that layer and started searching for prey in shallower layers. Information about prey, learned throughout the dive, was used to plan foraging in the next dive. Our results demonstrate that planning for future dives is modulated by spatial memory derived from multi-modal prey sampling (echoic, visual and capture) during earlier dives. © 2018. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

Evaluation of herbacceous biomass crops in the northern Great Plains. Final report

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Meyer, D.W.; Norby, W.E.; Erickson, D.O.; Johnson, R.G. [North Dakota State Univ., Fargo, ND (United States)

1994-08-01

Herbaceous lignocellulose crops are a potential renewable feedstock for biochemical conversion systems second in size to wood products. Several herbaceous crops are utilized as forage crops in the northern Great Plains, but forage quality considerations usually dictates a early harvest. Biomass cropping does not have this constraint; therefore, little information was available on herbaceous crops utilized as energy crops prior to this project. Our primary objectives were to evaluate the biomass yield and select chemical components of several herbaceous crops for energy crops in the northern Great Plains, compare the economic feasibility of energy crops with common competing crops, and evaluate biomass cropping on summer fallow lands. Three good, two marginal, and one irrigated sites were used during 1988 to 1992 for the first component. At least six perennial and four annual biomass species were included at all sites. Three to four nitrogen (N) levels and a crop-recrop comparison (annuals only) were management intensities included. Biomass cropping on idled lands was performed on dryland at Carrington and evaluated the effects of removing leguminous biomass on fallowed lands. This report summarizes results from the 5-year project.

Resource diversity and landscape-level homogeneity drive native bee foraging.

Science.gov (United States)

Jha, Shalene; Kremen, Claire

2013-01-08

Given widespread declines in pollinator communities and increasing global reliance on pollinator-dependent crops, there is an acute need to develop a mechanistic understanding of native pollinator population and foraging biology. Using a population genetics approach, we determine the impact of habitat and floral resource distributions on nesting and foraging patterns of a critical native pollinator, Bombus vosnesenskii. Our findings demonstrate that native bee foraging is far more plastic and extensive than previously believed and does not follow a simple optimal foraging strategy. Rather, bumble bees forage further in pursuit of species-rich floral patches and in landscapes where patch-to-patch variation in floral resources is less, regardless of habitat composition. Thus, our results reveal extreme foraging plasticity and demonstrate that floral diversity, not density, drives bee foraging distance. Furthermore, we find a negative impact of paved habitat and a positive impact of natural woodland on bumble bee nesting densities. Overall, this study reveals that natural and human-altered landscapes can be managed for increased native bee nesting and extended foraging, dually enhancing biodiversity and the spatial extent of pollination services.

Information Foraging in Nuclear Power Plant Control Rooms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boring, R.L.

2011-01-01

nformation foraging theory articulates the role of the human as an 'informavore' that seeks information and follows optimal foraging strategies (i.e., the 'information scent') to find meaningful information. This paper briefly reviews the findings from information foraging theory outside the nuclear domain and then discusses the types of information foraging strategies operators employ for normal and off-normal operations in the control room. For example, operators may employ a predatory 'wolf' strategy of hunting for information in the face of a plant upset. However, during routine operations, the operators may employ a trapping 'spider' strategy of waiting for relevant indicators to appear. This delineation corresponds to information pull and push strategies, respectively. No studies have been conducted to determine explicitly the characteristics of a control room interface that is optimized for both push and pull information foraging strategies, nor has there been empirical work to validate operator performance when transitioning between push and pull strategies. This paper explores examples of control room operators as wolves vs. spiders and con- cludes by proposing a set of research questions to investigate information foraging in control room settings.

Information Foraging in Nuclear Power Plant Control Rooms

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

R.L. Boring

2011-09-01

nformation foraging theory articulates the role of the human as an 'informavore' that seeks information and follows optimal foraging strategies (i.e., the 'information scent') to find meaningful information. This paper briefly reviews the findings from information foraging theory outside the nuclear domain and then discusses the types of information foraging strategies operators employ for normal and off-normal operations in the control room. For example, operators may employ a predatory 'wolf' strategy of hunting for information in the face of a plant upset. However, during routine operations, the operators may employ a trapping 'spider' strategy of waiting for relevant indicators to appear. This delineation corresponds to information pull and push strategies, respectively. No studies have been conducted to determine explicitly the characteristics of a control room interface that is optimized for both push and pull information foraging strategies, nor has there been empirical work to validate operator performance when transitioning between push and pull strategies. This paper explores examples of control room operators as wolves vs. spiders and con- cludes by proposing a set of research questions to investigate information foraging in control room settings.

Vortex Formation and Foraging in Polyphenic Spadefoot Toad Tadpoles.

Science.gov (United States)

Bazazi, Sepideh; Pfennig, Karin S; Handegard, Nils Olav; Couzin, Iain D

2012-06-01

Animal aggregations are widespread in nature and can exhibit complex emergent properties not found at an individual level. We investigate one such example here, collective vortex formation by congeneric spadefoot toad tadpoles: Spea bombifrons and S. multiplicata. Tadpoles of these species develop into either an omnivorous or a carnivorous (cannibalistic) morph depending on diet. Previous studies show S. multiplicata are more likely to develop into omnivores and feed on suspended organic matter in the water body. The omnivorous morph is frequently social, forming aggregates that move and forage together, and form vortices in which they adopt a distinctive slowly-rotating circular formation. This behaviour has been speculated to act as a means to agitate the substratum in ponds and thus could be a collective foraging strategy. Here we perform a quantitative investigation of the behaviour of tadpoles within aggregates. We found that only S. multiplicata groups exhibited vortex formation, suggesting that social interactions differ between species. The probability of collectively forming a vortex, in response to introduced food particles, increased for higher tadpole densities and when tadpoles were hungry. Individuals inside a vortex moved faster and exhibited higher (by approximately 27%) tailbeat frequencies than those outside the vortex, thus incurring a personal energetic cost. The resulting environmental modification, however, suggests vortex behaviour may be an adaptation to actively create, and exploit, a resource patch within the environment.

Utilization of Swamp Forages from South Kalimantan on Local Goat Performances

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. Rostini

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Forages in swamp area consist of grass and legumes that have good productivity and nutrient quality. This research was aimed to evaluate the potency of swamp forage on digestibility and performance of goats. There were 24 local male goats aged 10-12 months with initial body weight of 13.10±1.55 kg, allocated into 6 treatments. Those were control (R0: 60% grass and 40% legumes; (R1: 60% swamp forages and 40% concentrate; (R2: 100% swamp forages; (R3: 100% swamp forage hay; (R4: 100% swamp forage silage; (R5: 100% haylage swamp forages. Results showed that silage treatment significantly increased (P<0.05 consumption and digestibility. Swamp forages could be utilized well by preservation (silage, hay, and haylage. Ensilage of swamp forages increased protein content from 13.72% to 14.02%, protein intake (74.62 g/d, dry matter intake (532.11 g/d, nitrogen free extract intake (257.39 g/d, with total body weight gain (3.5 kg in eight weeks and average daily gain (62.60 g/d. It is concluded that ensilage of swamp forages (R4 is very potential to be utilized as forage source for ruminants such as goats.

Effects of forage types on digestibility, methane emissions, and nitrogen utilization efficiency in two genotypes of hill ewes.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Y G; Annett, R; Yan, T

2017-08-01

Thirty-six nonpregnant hill ewes (18 pure Scottish Blackface and 18 Swaledale × Scottish Blackface) aged 18 mo and weighing 48 ± 4.8 kg were allocated to 3 forage treatments balanced for genotype and BW. Each genotype was offered 3 forages (pelleted ryegrass, fresh lowland grass, and fresh hill grass) ad libitum with 6 ewes for each of the 6 genotype × diet combination treatments. Pelleted ryegrass was sourced from a commercial supplier (Drygrass South Western Ltd, Burrington, UK). Fresh lowland grass was harvested daily in the morning from a third regrowth perennial ryegrass () sward. Fresh hill grass was harvested from a seminatural hill grassland every 2 d and stored in plastic bags at 4 to 5°C until offered. The animals were individually housed in pens and offered experimental diets for 14 d before being transferred to 6 individual respiration chambers for a further 4 d, during which feed intake, fecal and urine outputs, and CH emissions were measured. There was no interaction between genotype and forage types on any variable measured. In a comparison of effects of the 3 forages, pelleted ryegrass had the greatest ( reduce CH emissions per kilogram DMI. These equations add new information in predicting enteric CH emissions and N utilization efficiency and can be used to quantify the environmental footprint of hill sheep production systems.

Risky business for a juvenile marine predator? Testing the influence of foraging strategies on size and growth rate under natural conditions.

Science.gov (United States)

Hussey, Nigel E; DiBattista, Joseph D; Moore, Jonathan W; Ward, Eric J; Fisk, Aaron T; Kessel, Steven; Guttridge, Tristan L; Feldheim, Kevin A; Franks, Bryan R; Gruber, Samuel H; Weideli, Ornella C; Chapman, Demian D

2017-04-12

Mechanisms driving selection of body size and growth rate in wild marine vertebrates are poorly understood, thus limiting knowledge of their fitness costs at ecological, physiological and genetic scales. Here, we indirectly tested whether selection for size-related traits of juvenile sharks that inhabit a nursery hosting two dichotomous habitats, protected mangroves (low predation risk) and exposed seagrass beds (high predation risk), is influenced by their foraging behaviour. Juvenile sharks displayed a continuum of foraging strategies between mangrove and seagrass areas, with some individuals preferentially feeding in one habitat over another. Foraging habitat was correlated with growth rate, whereby slower growing, smaller individuals fed predominantly in sheltered mangroves, whereas larger, faster growing animals fed over exposed seagrass. Concomitantly, tracked juveniles undertook variable movement behaviours across both the low and high predation risk habitat. These data provide supporting evidence for the hypothesis that directional selection favouring smaller size and slower growth rate, both heritable traits in this shark population, may be driven by variability in foraging behaviour and predation risk. Such evolutionary pathways may be critical to adaptation within predator-driven marine ecosystems. © 2017 The Author(s).

Urban gardens promote bee foraging over natural habitats and plantations.

Science.gov (United States)

Kaluza, Benjamin F; Wallace, Helen; Heard, Tim A; Klein, Alexandra-Maria; Leonhardt, Sara D

2016-03-01

Increasing human land use for agriculture and housing leads to the loss of natural habitat and to widespread declines in wild bees. Bee foraging dynamics and fitness depend on the availability of resources in the surrounding landscape, but how precisely landscape related resource differences affect bee foraging patterns remains unclear. To investigate how landscape and its interaction with season and weather drive foraging and resource intake in social bees, we experimentally compared foraging activity, the allocation of foragers to different resources (pollen, nectar, and resin) and overall resource intake in the Australian stingless bee Tetragonula carbonaria (Apidae, Meliponini). Bee colonies were monitored in different seasons over two years. We compared foraging patterns and resource intake between the bees' natural habitat (forests) and two landscapes differently altered by humans (suburban gardens and agricultural macadamia plantations). We found foraging activity as well as pollen and nectar forager numbers to be highest in suburban gardens, intermediate in forests and low in plantations. Foraging patterns further differed between seasons, but seasonal variations strongly differed between landscapes. Sugar and pollen intake was low in plantations, but contrary with our predictions, it was even higher in gardens than in forests. In contrast, resin intake was similar across landscapes. Consequently, differences in resource availability between natural and altered landscapes strongly affect foraging patterns and thus resource intake in social bees. While agricultural monocultures largely reduce foraging success, suburban gardens can increase resource intake well above rates found in natural habitats of bees, indicating that human activities can both decrease and increase the availability of resources in a landscape and thus reduce or enhance bee fitness.

Monitoring digestibility of forages for herbivores: a new application for an old approach

Science.gov (United States)

Vansomeren, Lindsey L.; Barboza, Perry S.; Thompson, Daniel P.; Gustine, David D.

2015-01-01

Ruminant populations are often limited by how well individuals are able to acquire nutrients for growth, maintenance, and reproduction. Nutrient supply to the animal is dictated by the concentration of nutrients in feeds and the efficiency of digesting those nutrients (i.e., digestibility). Many different methods have been used to measure digestibility of forages for wild herbivores, all of which rely on collecting rumen fluid from animals or incubation within animals. Animal-based methods can provide useful estimates, but the approach is limited by the expense of fistulated animals, wide variation in digestibility among animals, and contamination from endogenous and microbial sources that impairs the estimation of nutrient digestibility. We tested an in vitro method using a two-stage procedure using purified enzymes. The first stage, a 6 h acid–pepsin treatment, was followed by a combined 72 h amylase–cellulase or amylase–Viscozyme treatment. We then validated our estimates using in sacco and in vivo methods to digest samples of the same forages. In vitro estimates of dry matter (DM) digestibility were correlated with estimates of in sacco and in vivo DM digestibility (both P content declined below 0.03–0.06 g/g of DM. The in vitro method is well suited to monitoring forage quality over multiple years because it is reproducible, can be used with minimal investment by other laboratories without animal facilities, and can measure digestibility of individual nutrients such as N.

Effects of forage species or concentrate finishing on animal performance, carcass and meat quality.

Science.gov (United States)

Duckett, S K; Neel, J P S; Lewis, R M; Fontenot, J P; Clapham, W M

2013-03-01

Angus-cross steers (n = 128; initial BW = 270 ± 3.8 kg) were used in a 3-yr study to assess effects of forage species grazed before slaughter versus concentrate finishing on carcass and meat quality. At the completion of the stockering phase, steers were randomly allotted to mixed pasture (MP; n = 36/yr) or corn-silage concentrate (CON; n = 12/yr) finishing treatments. At 40 d before harvest, MP steers were randomly divided into 3 forage species treatments: alfalfa (AL), pearl millet (PM), or mixed pasture (MP). Average daily BW gain was greater (P = 0.001) for CON than for forage-finished (FOR) steers during the early and overall finishing phase. During the late finishing phase when FOR steers were grazing difference forage species, ADG was greater (P = 0.03) for PM than MP or AL. Harvest weight and HCW were greater (P animal performance. Total fat percentage of the 9th to 11th rib section was 46% less(P = 0.028) for FOR than CON due to reductions (P 0.78) between CON and FOR and were not altered (P > 0.40) by forage species. Trained sensory panel juiciness, initial tenderness, and overall tenderness scores did not differ (P > 0.17) by finishing treatment or forage species. Beef flavor intensity was greater (P 0.05) total lipid content of the LM. Oleic acid concentration and total MUFA of the LM were 21% and 22% less (P = 0.001) for FOR than CON. Concentrations of all individual [linolenic acid, eicosapentaenoic (EPA), docosapentaenoic (DPA), and docosadexaenoic (DHA) acids] and total n-3 fatty acids were greater (P carcass weight with same time endpoints and accelerates deposition of MUFA in comparison with FOR, which reduces carcass weight and fat deposition but maintains high concentrations of n-3 and CLA fatty acids. Finishing system or forage species grazed 40 d before slaughter did not alter beef tenderness but FOR had greater off-flavors according to both trained and descriptive sensory panelists.

7 CFR 457.117 - Forage production crop insurance provisions.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... INSURANCE CORPORATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE COMMON CROP INSURANCE REGULATIONS § 457.117 Forage..., or a mixture thereof, or other species as shown in the Actuarial Documents. Harvest—Removal of forage... different price elections by type, in which case you may select one price election for each forage type...

Foraging range, habitat use and minimum flight distances of East Atlantic Light-bellied Brent Geese Branta bernicla hrota in their spring staging areas

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Clausen, Kevin Kuhlmann; Clausen, Preben; Hounisen, Jens Peder

2013-01-01

Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite telemetry was used to determine the foraging range, habitat use and minimum flight distances for individual East Atlantic Light-bellied Brent Geese Branta bernicla hrota at two spring staging areas in Denmark. Foraging ranges (mean ± s.d. = 53.0 ± 23.4 km...

Subterranean termite open-air foraging and tolerance to desiccation: Comparative water relation of two sympatric Macrotermes spp. (Blattodea: Termitidae).

Science.gov (United States)

Hu, Jian; Neoh, Kok-Boon; Appel, Arthur G; Lee, Chow-Yang

2012-02-01

The foraging patterns of termites are strongly related to physiological limits in overcoming desiccation stress. In this study, we examined moisture preferences and physiological characteristics of Macrotermes carbonarius (Hagen) and M. gilvus (Hagen) as both exhibit conspicuous patterns of foraging activity. Despite both species showing no significant differences in calculated cuticular permeability, and percentage of total body water, they differed greatly in rate of water loss and surface area to volume ratio. For example, M. carbonarius which had a lower surface area to volume ratio (29.26-53.66) showed lower rate of water loss and percentage of total body water loss. This also resulted in higher LT(50) when exposed to extreme conditions (≈2% RH). However, contrasting observations were made in M. gilvus that has smaller size with higher surface area to volume ratio of 40.28-69.75. It is likely that the standard equation for calculating insect surface areas is inadequate for these termite species. The trend was further supported by the result of a moisture preference bioassay that indicated M. carbonarius had a broader range of moisture preference (between 5% and 20%) than M. gilvus which had a relatively narrow moisture preference (only 20%). These results explain why M. carbonarius can tolerate desiccation stress for a longer period foraging above-ground in the open air; while M. gilvus only forages below ground or concealed within foraging mud tubes. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review: Feeding conserved forage to horses: recent advances and recommendations.

Science.gov (United States)

Harris, P A; Ellis, A D; Fradinho, M J; Jansson, A; Julliand, V; Luthersson, N; Santos, A S; Vervuert, I

2017-06-01

The horse is a non-ruminant herbivore adapted to eating plant-fibre or forage-based diets. Some horses are stabled for most or the majority of the day with limited or no access to fresh pasture and are fed preserved forage typically as hay or haylage and sometimes silage. This raises questions with respect to the quality and suitability of these preserved forages (considering production, nutritional content, digestibility as well as hygiene) and required quantities. Especially for performance horses, forage is often replaced with energy dense feedstuffs which can result in a reduction in the proportion of the diet that is forage based. This may adversely affect the health, welfare, behaviour and even performance of the horse. In the past 20 years a large body of research work has contributed to a better and deeper understanding of equine forage needs and the physiological and behavioural consequences if these are not met. Recent nutrient requirement systems have incorporated some, but not all, of this new knowledge into their recommendations. This review paper amalgamates recommendations based on the latest understanding in forage feeding for horses, defining forage types and preservation methods, hygienic quality, feed intake behaviour, typical nutrient composition, digestion and digestibility as well as health and performance implications. Based on this, consensual applied recommendations for feeding preserved forages are provided.

Developing Cyber Foraging Applications for Portable Devices

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kristensen, Mads Darø; Bouvin, Niels Olof

2008-01-01

This paper presents the Locusts cyber foraging framework. Cyber foraging is the opportunistic use of computing resources available in the nearby environment, and using such resources thus fall into the category of distributed computing. Furthermore, for the resources to be used efficiently, paral...

Forage: a sensitive indicator of airborne radioactivity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jackson, W.M.; Noakes, J.E.; Spaulding, J.D.

1981-01-01

This paper presents the results of using Ge(Li) γ-ray spectroscopy to measure radioactivity concentration of forage in the vicinity of the Joseph M. Farley Nuclear Plant, Houston County, AL., over a 31/2 yr period. The report period includes 2 yr of pre-operational and 11/2 yr of operational sampling. Although the objective of forage sampling was the measurement of manmade airborne fallout radioactivity, several natural radioisotopes were also found to be present. A summary of natural radioactivity data for all samples measured during the period from August 1975 to December 1978 is given. Approximately 10 days after each of four Chinese atmospheric nuclear tests conducted during the sampling period fresh fission product fallout was measured on the forage. The information from these nuclear tests shows forage sampling to be a convenient and sensitive monitoring tool for airborne fallout radioactivity. (author)

Comparative Effect of Sole Forage and Mixed Concentrate-Forage ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

There was no statistical (P>0.05) difference in average intake of forage between the two treatment groups. Economically, Treatment 1 proves to be better for the enhancement of body weight in growing rabbits than Treatment 2. Key words: Weaner rabbits,Poultry grower mesh, Tridax procumbens, Feed intake,Body weight ...

Great tits search for, capture, kill and eat hibernating bats

Science.gov (United States)

Estók, Péter; Zsebők, Sándor; Siemers, Björn M.

2010-01-01

Ecological pressure paired with opportunism can lead to surprising innovations in animal behaviour. Here, we report predation of great tits (Parus major) on hibernating pipistrelle bats (Pipistrellus pipistrellus) at a Hungarian cave. Over two winters, we directly observed 18 predation events. The tits specifically and systematically searched for and killed bats for food. A substantial decrease in predation on bats after experimental provisioning of food to the tits further supports the hypothesis that bat-killing serves a foraging purpose in times of food scarcity. We finally conducted a playback experiment to test whether tits would eavesdrop on calls of awakening bats to find them in rock crevices. The tits could clearly hear the calls and were attracted to the loudspeaker. Records for tit predation on bats at this cave now span more than ten years and thus raise the question of whether cultural transmission plays a role for the spread of this foraging innovation. PMID:19740892

Hive Relocation Does Not Adversely Affect Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae Foraging

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fiona C. Riddell Pearce

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Honey bees, Apis mellifera, face major challenges including diseases and reduced food availability due to agricultural intensification. Additionally, migratory beekeeping may subject colonies to a moving stress, both during the move itself and after the move, from the bees having to forage in a novel environment where they have no knowledge of flower locations. This study investigated the latter. We moved three colonies housed in observation hives onto the campus from a site 26 km away and compared their foraging performance to three similarly sized colonies at the same location that had not been moved. We obtained data on (1 foraging performance by calculating distance by decoding waggle dances, (2 hive foraging rate by counting forager departure rate, (3 forage quality by assessing sugar content of nectar from returning foragers, and (4 forager success by calculating the proportion of bees returning to the nest entrance with nectar in their crop. We repeated this 3 times (August 2010, October 2010, and June 2011 to encompass any seasonal effects. The data show no consistent difference in foraging performance of moved versus resident hives. Overall the results suggest that moving to a new location does not adversely affect the foraging success of honey bees.

7 CFR 407.13 - Group risk plan for forage.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... acres of hay in the county, as specified in the actuarial documents. The actuarial documents will... a period for forage regrowth. 2. Crop Insured The insured crop will be the forage types shown on the... the Group Risk Plan Common Policy, acreage seeded to forage after July 1 of the previous crop year...

Memory Effects on Movement Behavior in Animal Foraging.

Science.gov (United States)

Bracis, Chloe; Gurarie, Eliezer; Van Moorter, Bram; Goodwin, R Andrew

2015-01-01

An individual's choices are shaped by its experience, a fundamental property of behavior important to understanding complex processes. Learning and memory are observed across many taxa and can drive behaviors, including foraging behavior. To explore the conditions under which memory provides an advantage, we present a continuous-space, continuous-time model of animal movement that incorporates learning and memory. Using simulation models, we evaluate the benefit memory provides across several types of landscapes with variable-quality resources and compare the memory model within a nested hierarchy of simpler models (behavioral switching and random walk). We find that memory almost always leads to improved foraging success, but that this effect is most marked in landscapes containing sparse, contiguous patches of high-value resources that regenerate relatively fast and are located in an otherwise devoid landscape. In these cases, there is a large payoff for finding a resource patch, due to size, value, or locational difficulty. While memory-informed search is difficult to differentiate from other factors using solely movement data, our results suggest that disproportionate spatial use of higher value areas, higher consumption rates, and consumption variability all point to memory influencing the movement direction of animals in certain ecosystems.

Foraging niche segregation in Malaysian babblers (Family: Timaliidae.

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Mohammad Saiful Mansor

Full Text Available Tropical rainforests are considered as hotspots for bird diversity, yet little is known about the system that upholds the coexistence of species. Differences in body size that are associated with foraging strategies and spatial distribution are believed to promote the coexistence of closely related species by reducing competition. However, the fact that many babbler species do not differ significantly in their morphology has challenged this view. We studied the foraging ecology of nine sympatric babbler species (i.e., Pellorneum capistratum, P. bicolor, P. malaccense, Malacopteron cinereum, M. magnum, Stachyris nigriceps, S. nigricollis, S. maculata, and Cyanoderma erythropterum in the Krau Wildlife Reserve in Peninsular Malaysia. We investigated; i how these babblers forage in the wild and use vegetation to obtain food, and ii how these trophically similar species differ in spatial distribution and foraging tactics. Results indicated that most babblers foraged predominantly on aerial leaf litter and used gleaning manoeuvre in intermediate-density foliage but exhibited wide ranges of vertical strata usage, thus reducing interspecific competition. The principal component analysis indicated that two components, i.e., foraging height and substrate are important as mechanisms to allow the coexistence of sympatric babblers. The present findings revealed that these bird species have unique foraging niches that are distinct from each other, and this may apply to other insectivorous birds inhabiting tropical forests. This suggests that niche separation does occur among coexisting birds, thus following Gause' law of competitive exclusion, which states two species occupying the same niche will not stably coexist.

Foraging niche segregation in Malaysian babblers (Family: Timaliidae).

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Mansor, Mohammad Saiful; Ramli, Rosli

2017-01-01

Tropical rainforests are considered as hotspots for bird diversity, yet little is known about the system that upholds the coexistence of species. Differences in body size that are associated with foraging strategies and spatial distribution are believed to promote the coexistence of closely related species by reducing competition. However, the fact that many babbler species do not differ significantly in their morphology has challenged this view. We studied the foraging ecology of nine sympatric babbler species (i.e., Pellorneum capistratum, P. bicolor, P. malaccense, Malacopteron cinereum, M. magnum, Stachyris nigriceps, S. nigricollis, S. maculata, and Cyanoderma erythropterum) in the Krau Wildlife Reserve in Peninsular Malaysia. We investigated; i) how these babblers forage in the wild and use vegetation to obtain food, and ii) how these trophically similar species differ in spatial distribution and foraging tactics. Results indicated that most babblers foraged predominantly on aerial leaf litter and used gleaning manoeuvre in intermediate-density foliage but exhibited wide ranges of vertical strata usage, thus reducing interspecific competition. The principal component analysis indicated that two components, i.e., foraging height and substrate are important as mechanisms to allow the coexistence of sympatric babblers. The present findings revealed that these bird species have unique foraging niches that are distinct from each other, and this may apply to other insectivorous birds inhabiting tropical forests. This suggests that niche separation does occur among coexisting birds, thus following Gause' law of competitive exclusion, which states two species occupying the same niche will not stably coexist.

Foraging niche segregation in Malaysian babblers (Family: Timaliidae)

Science.gov (United States)

Mansor, Mohammad Saiful; Ramli, Rosli

2017-01-01

Tropical rainforests are considered as hotspots for bird diversity, yet little is known about the system that upholds the coexistence of species. Differences in body size that are associated with foraging strategies and spatial distribution are believed to promote the coexistence of closely related species by reducing competition. However, the fact that many babbler species do not differ significantly in their morphology has challenged this view. We studied the foraging ecology of nine sympatric babbler species (i.e., Pellorneum capistratum, P. bicolor, P. malaccense, Malacopteron cinereum, M. magnum, Stachyris nigriceps, S. nigricollis, S. maculata, and Cyanoderma erythropterum) in the Krau Wildlife Reserve in Peninsular Malaysia. We investigated; i) how these babblers forage in the wild and use vegetation to obtain food, and ii) how these trophically similar species differ in spatial distribution and foraging tactics. Results indicated that most babblers foraged predominantly on aerial leaf litter and used gleaning manoeuvre in intermediate-density foliage but exhibited wide ranges of vertical strata usage, thus reducing interspecific competition. The principal component analysis indicated that two components, i.e., foraging height and substrate are important as mechanisms to allow the coexistence of sympatric babblers. The present findings revealed that these bird species have unique foraging niches that are distinct from each other, and this may apply to other insectivorous birds inhabiting tropical forests. This suggests that niche separation does occur among coexisting birds, thus following Gause’ law of competitive exclusion, which states two species occupying the same niche will not stably coexist. PMID:28253284

Social Learning in Bumblebees (Bombus impatiens: Worker Bumblebees Learn to Manipulate and Forage at Artificial Flowers by Observation and Communication within the Colony

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Hamida B. Mirwan

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Social learning occurs when one individual learns from another, mainly conspecific, often by observation, imitation, or communication. Using artificial flowers, we studied social learning by allowing test bumblebees to (a see dead bumblebees arranged in foraging positions or (b watch live bumblebees actually foraging or (c communicate with nestmates within their colony without having seen foraging. Artificial flowers made from 1.5 mL microcentrifuge tubes with closed caps were inserted through the centres of blue 7 cm plastic discs as optical signals through which the bees could not forage. The reinforcer reward syrup was accessible only through holes in the sides of the tubes beneath the blue discs. Two colonies (A and B were used in tandem along with control (C and D colonies. No bee that was not exposed (i.e., from the control colonies (C and D to social learning discovered the access holes. Inside colony B, we imprisoned a group of bees that were prevented from seeing or watching. Bees that saw dead bumblebees in foraging positions, those that watched nest-mates foraging, and those that had only in-hive communication with successful foragers all foraged successfully. The means of in-hive communication are not understood and warrant intense investigation.

Subalpine bumble bee foraging distances and densities in relation to flower availability.

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Elliott, Susan E

2009-06-01

Bees feed almost exclusively on nectar and pollen from flowers. However, little is known about how food availability limits bee populations, especially in high elevation areas. Foraging distances and relationships between forager densities and resource availability can provide insights into the potential for food limitation in mobile consumer populations. For example, if floral resources are limited, bee consumers should fly farther to forage, and they should be more abundant in areas with more flowers. I estimated subalpine bumble bee foraging distances by calculating forager recapture probabilities at increasing distances from eight marking locations. I measured forager and flower densities over the flowering season in six half-hectare plots. Because subalpine bumble bees have little time to build their colonies, they may forage over short distances and forager density may not be constrained by flower density. However, late in the season, when floral resources dwindle, foraging distances may increase, and there may be stronger relationships between forager and flower densities. Throughout the flowering season, marked bees were primarily found within 100 m (and never >1,000 m) from their original marking location, suggesting that they typically did not fly far to forage. Although the density of early season foraging queens increased with early-season flower density, the density of mid- and late-season workers and males did not vary with flower density. Short foraging distances and no relationships between mid- and late-season forager and flower densities suggest that high elevation bumble bees may have ample floral resources for colony growth reproduction.

Three-dimensional foraging habitat use and niche partitioning in two sympatric seabird species, Phalacrocorax auritus and P. penicillatus

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Peck-Richardson, Adam G.; Lyons, Donald E.; Roby, Daniel D.; Cushing, Daniel A.; Lerczak, James A.

2018-01-01

Ecological theory predicts that co-existing, morphologically similar species will partition prey resources when faced with resource limitations. We investigated local movements, foraging dive behavior, and foraging habitat selection by breeding adults of 2 closely related cormorant species, double-crested cormorants Phalacrocorax auritus and Brandt’s cormorants P. penicillatus. These species nest sympatrically at East Sand Island in the Columbia River estuary at the border of Oregon and Washington states, USA. Breeding individuals of each species were tracked using GPS tags with integrated temperature and depth data-loggers. The overall foraging areas and core foraging areas (defined as the 95% and 50% kernel density estimates of dive locations, respectively) of double-crested cormorants were much larger and covered a broader range of riverine, mixed-estuarine, and nearshore marine habitats. Brandt’s cormorant foraging areas were less expansive, were exclusively marine, and mostly overlapped with double-crested cormorant foraging areas. Within these areas of overlap, Brandt’s cormorants tended to dive deeper (median depth = 6.48 m) than double-crested cormorants (median depth = 2.67 m), and selected dive locations where the water was deeper. Brandt’s cormorants also utilized a deeper, more benthic portion of the water column than did double-crested cormorants. Nevertheless, the substantial overlap in foraging habitat between the 2 cormorant species in the Columbia River estuary, particularly for Brandt’s cormorants, suggests that superabundant prey resources allow these 2 large and productive cormorant colonies to coexist on a single island near the mouth of the Columbia River.

Variability in the Foraging Distribution and Diet of Cape Gannets between the Guard and Post-guard Phases of the Breeding Cycle

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Jonathan A. Botha

2018-02-01

Full Text Available During breeding, seabirds are central place foragers and are sensitive to changes in local prey availability. As the breeding season progresses, foraging behavior and distribution is expected to change in response to possible changes in local prey availability. In addition, adult gender, and the increasing nutritional demands of a growing chick may also influence the foraging behavior of individuals. At present, relatively few studies have assessed the foraging behavior of adult birds during the late post-guard stages of chick rearing. Through a combination of GPS tracking and diet sampling we investigated the foraging distances, spatial distribution, and prey composition of adult Cape gannets (Morus capensis during the guard and post-guard stages of chick rearing. We found no clear evidence for consistent sex-specific differences in foraging distances and spatial distribution during the guard stage, although marginal differences in the location of core foraging areas during the post-guard stage were apparent. Results, however, revealed a clear increase in foraging range from the early guard to the late post-guard stage of chick rearing. During December the diet was comprised almost exclusively of anchovy (Engraulis encrasicolus, the proportion of which had decreased significantly in the diet by January. This was mirrored by a substantial increase in the proportion of saury (Scomberesox saurus. These results suggest that Cape gannets show flexibility in the foraging behavior and diet, which may be related to changes in the abundance and distribution of prey or may reflect changes in the energetic requirements of the growing offspring. This study provides the first assessment of Cape gannet foraging behavior and spatial distribution during the post-guard stage of chick rearing. The importance of considering intra-annual variability in foraging distribution when using seabird tracking data in trophic and marine spatial planning studies are

Chemical composition and ruminal degradation kinetics of crude protein and amino acids, and intestinal digestibility of amino acids from tropical forages

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Lidia Ferreira Miranda

2012-03-01

Full Text Available The objective of this research was to determine the chemical composition and ruminal degradation of the crude protein (CP, total and individual amino acids of leaves from tropical forages: perennial soybean (Neonotonia wightii, cassava (Manihot esculenta, leucaena (Leucaena leucocephala and ramie (Boehmeria nivea, and to estimate the intestinal digestibility of the rumen undegradable protein (RUDP and individual amino acids of leaves from the tropical forages above cited, but including pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan. Three nonlactating Holstein cows were used to determine the in situ ruminal degradability of protein and amino acids from leaves (6, 18 and 48 hours of ruminal incubation. For determination of the intestinal digestibility of RUDP, the residue from ruminal incubation of the materials was used for 18 hours. A larger concentration of total amino acids for ramie and smaller for perennial soybean were observed; however, they were very similar in leucaena and cassava. Leucine was the essential amino acid of greater concentration, with the exception of cassava, which exhibited a leucine concentration 40.45% smaller. Ramie showed 14.35 and 22.31% more lysine and methionine, respectively. The intestinal digestibility of RUDP varied from 23.56; 47.87; 23.48; 25.69 and 10.86% for leucaena, perennial soybean, cassava, ramie and pigeon pea, respectively. The individual amino acids of tropical forage disappeared in different extensions in the rumen. For the correct evaluation of those forages, one should consider their composition of amino acids, degradations and intestinal digestibility, once the amino acid composition of the forage does not reflect the amino acid profiles that arrived in the small intestine. Differences between the degradation curves of CP and amino acids indicate that degradation of amino acids cannot be estimated through the degradation curve of CP, and that amino acids are not degraded in a similar degradation profile.

SILAGE QUALITY OF CORN AND SORGHUM ADDED WITH FORAGE PEANUTS

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WALKÍRIA GUIMARÃES CARVALHO

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Corn and sorghum are standard silage crops because of their fermentative characteristics. While corn and sorghum silages have lower crude protein (CP contents than other crops, intercropping with legumes can increase CP content. Furthermore, one way to increase CP content is the addition of legumes to silage. Consequently, the research objective was to evaluate the fermentative and bromatological characteristics of corn (Zea mays and sorghum (Sorghum bicolor silages added with forage peanuts (Arachis pintoi. The experimental design was completely randomized with four replicates. The treatments consisted of corn silage, sorghum silage, forage peanut silage, corn silage with 30% forage peanut, and sorghum silage with 30% forage peanut. The results showed that the corn and sorghum added with peanut helped to improve the silage fermentative and bromatological characteristics, proving to be an efficient technique for silage quality. The forage peanut silage had lower fermentative characteristics than the corn and sorghum silages. However, the forage peanut silage had a greater CP content, which increased the protein contents of the corn and sorghum silages when intercropped with forage peanuts.

Sediment-induced turbidity impairs foraging performance and prey choice of planktivorous coral reef fishes.

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Johansen, J L; Jones, G P

2013-09-01

Sedimentation is a substantial threat to aquatic ecosystems and a primary cause of habitat degradation on near-shore coral reefs. Although numerous studies have demonstrated major impacts of sedimentation and turbidity on corals, virtually nothing is known of the sensitivity of reef fishes. Planktivorous fishes are an important trophic group that funnels pelagic energy sources into reef ecosystems. These fishes are visual predators whose foraging is likely to be impaired by turbidity, but the threshold for such effects and their magnitude are unknown. This study examined the effect of sediment-induced turbidity on foraging in four species of planktivorous damselfishes (Pomacentridae) of the Great Barrier Reef, including inshore and offshore species that potentially differ in tolerance for turbidity. An experimental flow tunnel was used to quantify their ability to catch mobile and immobile planktonic prey under different levels of turbidity and velocity in the range encountered on natural and disturbed reefs. Turbidity of just 4 NTU (nephelometric turbidity units) reduced average attack success by up to 56%, with higher effect sizes for species with offshore distributions. Only the inshore species (Neopomacentrus bankieri), which frequently encounters this turbidity on coastal reefs, could maintain high prey capture success. At elevated turbidity similar to that found on disturbed reefs (8 NTU), attack success was reduced in all species examined by up to 69%. These reductions in attack success led to a 21-24% decrease in foraging rates for all mid to outer-shelf species, in spite of increasing attack rates at high turbidity. Although effects of turbidity varied among species, it always depended heavily on prey mobility and ambient velocity. Attack success was up to 14 times lower on mobile prey, leaving species relatively incapable of foraging on anything but immobile prey at high turbidity. Effects of turbidity were particularly prominent at higher velocities, as

Mercury bioaccumulation and risk to three waterbird foraging guilds is influenced by foraging ecology and breeding stage

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Eagles-Smith, Collin A.; Ackerman, Joshua T.; De La Cruz, Susan E.W.; Takekawa, John Y.

2009-01-01

We evaluated mercury (Hg) in five waterbird species representing three foraging guilds in San Francisco Bay, CA. Fish-eating birds (Forster's and Caspian terns) had the highest Hg concentrations in thier tissues, but concentrations in an invertebrate-foraging shorebird (black-necked stilt) were also elevated. Foraging habitat was important for Hg exposure as illustrated by within-guild differences, where species more associated with marshes and salt ponds had higher concentrations than those more associated with open-bay and tidal mudflats. Importantly, Hg concentrations increased with time spent in the estuary. Surf scoter concentrations tripled over six months, whereas Forster's terns showed an up to 5-fold increase between estuary arrival and breeding. Breeding waterbirds were at elevated risk of Hg-induced reproductive impairment, particularly Forster's terns, in which 48% of breeding birds were at high risk due to their Hg levels. Our results highlight the importance of habitat and exposure timing, in addition to trophic position, on waterbird Hg bioaccumulation and risk. - The influence of foraging habitat, trophic position, and exposure timing on mercury bioaccumulation and risk to reproduction is evaluated in three waterbird guilds.

Activity time budget during foraging trips of emperor penguins.

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Shinichi Watanabe

Full Text Available We developed an automated method using depth and one axis of body acceleration data recorded by animal-borne data loggers to identify activities of penguins over long-term deployments. Using this technique, we evaluated the activity time budget of emperor penguins (n = 10 both in water and on sea ice during foraging trips in chick-rearing season. During the foraging trips, emperor penguins alternated dive bouts (4.8 ± 4.5 h and rest periods on sea ice (2.5 ± 2.3 h. After recorder deployment and release near the colony, the birds spent 17.9 ± 8.4% of their time traveling until they reached the ice edge. Once at the ice edge, they stayed there more than 4 hours before the first dive. After the first dive, the mean proportions of time spent on the ice and in water were 30.8 ± 7.4% and 69.2 ± 7.4%, respectively. When in the water, they spent 67.9 ± 3.1% of time making dives deeper than 5 m. Dive activity had no typical diurnal pattern for individual birds. While in the water between dives, the birds had short resting periods (1.2 ± 1.7 min and periods of swimming at depths shallower than 5 m (0.25 ± 0.38 min. When the birds were on the ice, they primarily used time for resting (90.3 ± 4.1% of time and spent only 9.7 ± 4.1% of time traveling. Thus, it appears that, during foraging trips at sea, emperor penguins traveled during dives >5 m depth, and that sea ice was primarily used for resting. Sea ice probably provides refuge from natural predators such as leopard seals. We also suggest that 24 hours of sunlight and the cycling of dive bouts with short rest periods on sea ice allow emperor penguins to dive continuously throughout the day during foraging trips to sea.

Effects of forage:concentrate ratio and forage type on apparent digestibility, ruminal fermentation, and microbial growth in goats.

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Cantalapiedra-Hijar, G; Yáñez-Ruiz, D R; Martín-García, A I; Molina-Alcaide, E

2009-02-01

The effects of forage type and forage:concentrate ratio (F:C) on apparent nutrient digestibility, ruminal fermentation, and microbial growth were investigated in goats. A comparison between liquid (LAB) and solid (SAB)-associated bacteria to estimate microbial N flow (MNF) from urinary purine derivative excretion was also examined. Treatments were a 2 x 2 factorial arrangement of forage type (grass hay vs. alfalfa hay) and high vs. low F:C (70:30 and 30:70, respectively). Four ruminally cannulated goats were fed, at maintenance intake, 4 experimental diets according to a 4 x 4 Latin square design. High-concentrate diets resulted in greater (P 0.05) when diets included alfalfa hay. Total protozoa numbers and holotricha proportion were greater and less (P forage used. The MNF measured in goats fed different diets was influenced by the bacterial pellet (LAB or SAB). In addition, the purine bases:N ratio values found were different from those reported in the literature, which underlines the need for these variables to be analyzed directly in pellets isolated from specific animals and experimental conditions.

Work or sleep? : honeybee foragers opportunistically nap during the day when forage is not available

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Klein, Barrett; Seeley, Thomas D.

2011-01-01

Shifts in work schedules test humans’ capacity to be flexible in the timing of both work and sleep. Honeybee, Apis mellifera, foragers also shift their work schedules, but how flexible they are in the timing of sleep as they shift the timing of work is unknown, despite the importance of colony-level plasticity in the face of a changing environment. We hypothesized that sleep schedules of foragers are not fixed and instead vary depending on the time when food is available. We trained bees to v...

Forage digestibility and intake by lesser snow geese: effects of dominance and resource heterogeneity

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Hupp, Jerry W.; White, Robert G.; Sedinger, James S.; Robertson, Donna G.

1996-01-01

We measured forage intake, digestibility, and retention time for 11 free-ranging, human-imprinted lesser snow geese (Chen caerulescens caerulescens) as they consumed underground stembases of tall cotton-grass (Eriophorum angustifolium) on an arctic staging area in northeastern Alaska. Geese fed in small patches (x̄=21.5 m2) of forage that made up ≤3% of the study area and consisted of high-quality “aquatic graminoid” and intermediate-quality “wet sedge” vegetation types. Dominant geese spent more time feeding in aquatic graminoid areas (r=0.61), but less total time feeding and more time resting than subdominant geese. Subdominant geese were displaced to areas of wet sedge where cotton-grass was a smaller proportion of underground biomass. Geese metabolized an average of 48% of the organic matter in stembases and there was a positive correlation between dominance and organic matter metabolizability (r=0.61). Total mean retention time of forage was 1.37 h and dry matter intake was 14.3 g/h. Snow geese that stage on the coastal plain of the Beaufort Sea likely use an extensive area because they consume a large mass of forage and exploit habitats that are patchily distributed and make up a small percentage of the landscape. Individual variation in nutrient absorption may result from agonistic interactions in an environment where resources are heterogeneously distributed.

Predicting synergistic effects of resources and predators on foraging decisions by juvenile Steller sea lions.

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Frid, Alejandro; Burns, Jennifer; Baker, Gregory G; Thorne, Richard E

2009-01-01

Many theoretical and experimental studies suggest that synergistic interactions between resources and predators influence foraging decisions and their fitness consequences. This framework, however, has been ignored almost completely by hypotheses on causes of the population decline of Steller sea lions (SSLs) (Eumetopias jubatus) in western Alaska. By comparing predictions from a dynamic state variable model to empirical data on the behaviour of individuals instrumented with satellite-linked time-at-depth recorders, we develop and find preliminary support for the hypothesis that, during winter in Prince William Sound, juvenile SSLs (a) underutilise walleye pollock, a predictable resource in deep strata, due to predation risk from Pacific sleeper sharks, and (b) underutilise the potential energy bonanza of inshore aggregations of Pacific herring due to risk from either killer whales, larger conspecifics, or both. Further, under conditions of resource scarcity-induced by overfishing, long-term oceanographic cycles, or their combination-trade-offs between mortality risk and energy gain may influence demographic parameters. Accordingly, computer simulations illustrated the theoretical plausibility that a decline of Pacific herring in shallow strata would greatly increase the number of deep foraging dives, thereby increasing exposure to sleeper sharks and mortality rates. These results suggest that hypotheses on the decline of SSLs should consider synergistic effects of predators and resources on behaviour and mortality rates. Empirical support for our model, however, is limited and we outline tasks for empirical research that emerge from these limitations. More generally, in the context of today's conservation crises, our work illustrates that the greater the dearth of system-specific data, the greater the need to apply principles of behavioural ecology toward the understanding and management of large-scale marine systems.

Land use in the Northern Great Plains region of the U.S. influences the survival and productivity of honey bee colonies

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Smart, Matthew; Pettis, Jeff S.; Euliss, Ned H. Jr.; Spivak, Marla S.

2016-01-01

The Northern Great Plains region of the US annually hosts a large portion of commercially managed U.S. honey bee colonies each summer. Changing land use patterns over the last several decades have contributed to declines in the availability of bee forage across the region, and the future sustainability of the region to support honey bee colonies is unclear. We examined the influence of varying land use on the survivorship and productivity of honey bee colonies located in six apiaries within the Northern Great Plains state of North Dakota, an area of intensive agriculture and high density of beekeeping operations. Land use surrounding the apiaries was quantified over three years, 2010–2012, and survival and productivity of honey bee colonies were determined in response to the amount of bee forage land within a 3.2-km radius of each apiary. The area of uncultivated forage land (including pasture, USDA conservation program fields, fallow land, flowering woody plants, grassland, hay land, and roadside ditches) exerted a positive impact on annual apiary survival and honey production. Taxonomic diversity of bee-collected pollen and pesticide residues contained therein varied seasonally among apiaries, but overall were not correlated to large-scale land use patterns or survival and honey production. The predominant flowering plants utilized by honey bee colonies for pollen were volunteer species present in unmanaged (for honey bees), and often ephemeral, lands; thus placing honey bee colonies in a precarious situation for acquiring forage and nutrients over the entire growing season. We discuss the implications for land management, conservation, and beekeeper site selection in the Northern Great Plains to adequately support honey bee colonies and insure long term security for pollinator-dependent crops across the entire country.

GPS-tracking and colony observations reveal variation in offshore habitat use and foraging ecology of breeding Sandwich Terns

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Fijn, R. C.; de Jong, J.; Courtens, W.; Verstraete, H.; Stienen, E. W. M.; Poot, M. J. M.

2017-09-01

Breeding success of seabirds critically depends on their foraging success offshore. However, studies combining at-sea tracking and visual provisioning observations are scarce, especially for smaller species of seabirds. This study is the first in which breeding Sandwich Terns were tracked with GPS-loggers to collect detailed data on foraging habitat use in four breeding seasons. The maximum home range of individual Sandwich Terns comprised approximately 1900 km2 and the average foraging range was 27 km. Trip durations were on average 135 min with average trip lengths of 67 km. Actual foraging behaviour comprised 35% of the time budget of a foraging trip. Substantial year-to-year variation was found in habitat use and trip variables, yet with the exception of 2012, home range size remained similar between years. Food availability, chick age and environmental conditions are proposed as the main driving factors between inter- and intra-annual variations in trip variables. Our multi-method approach also provided geo-referenced information on prey presence and we conclude that future combining of colony observations and GPS-loggers deployments can potentially provide a near complete insight into the feeding ecology of breeding Sandwich Terns, including the behaviour of birds at sea.

Consumption and foraging behaviors for common stimulants (nicotine, caffeine).

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Phillips, James G; Currie, Jonathan; Ogeil, Rowan P

2016-01-01

Models are needed to understand the emerging capability to track consumers' movements. Therefore, we examined the use of legal and readily available stimulants that vary in their addictive potential (nicotine, caffeine). One hundred sixty-six participants answered the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10), the Severity of Dependence Scale for nicotine and caffeine, and reported the number of times and locations stimulants were purchased and used. On average, nicotine dependent individuals made their purchases from 2 locations, while caffeine dependent individuals consumed caffeine at 2 locations, but some people exhibited a greater range and intensity of use. Stimulant foraging behavior could be described by power laws, and is exacerbated by dependency. The finding has implications for attempts to control substance use.

The foraging behavior of the Large-headed Flatbill, Ramphotrigon megacephalum and the Dusky-tailed Flatbill, Ramphotrigon fuscicauda (Aves: Tyrannidae

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Tomaz Nascimento de Melo

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Southwestern Amazonia has great bird diversity which includes birds specialized in bamboo forests. In this region, bamboo is considered a key element of the landscape. The objective of this study was to investigate and describe the foraging behavior of the Large-headed Flatbill, Ramphotrigon megacephalum (Swainson, 1835 and the Dusky-tailed Flatbill, Ramphotrigon fuscicauda Chapman, 1925, which occur sympatrically in the region and are considered bamboo specialists. This study was conducted between November 2013 and September 2014, within two fragments in the eastern portion of the state of Acre: Fazenda Experimental Catuaba, in the municipality of Senador Guiomard; and Reserva Florestal Humaitá, in Porto Acre. A total of 109 and 97 foraging events were registered, for the Large-headed Flatbill and the Dusky-tailed Flatbill, respectively. The two species frequently used bamboos for searching and capturing their prey. However, the large-headed Flatbill was more specialized in bamboo substrates. Both species use similar foraging techniques and the differences found between the two are minor, but when taken together, these differences may explain their ability to co-exist.

Climatic and hydrologic influences on wading bird foraging patterns in Everglades National Park

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Kwon, H.; Lall, U.; Engel, V.

2008-05-01

The ability to map the relationship between ecological outcomes and hydrologic conditions in the Everglades National Park is a key building block for the restoration program, a primary goal of which is to improve habitat for wading bird species and to promote nesting. This paper reports on a model linking wading bird foraging numbers to hydrologic conditions in the Park We demonstrate that seasonal hydrologic statistics derived from a single water level recording site are a) well correlated with water depths throughout most areas of the Park, and b) are effective as predictors of Great Egret and White Ibis foraging numbers at the end of the nesting season when using a nonlinear Bayesian Hierarchical model that permits the estimation of a conditional distribution of bird populations given the seasonal statistics of stage at the index location. Model parameters are estimated using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo procedure. Parameter and model uncertainty are both assessed as a byproduct of the estimation process. Water depths at the beginning of the nesting season, the recession rate, and the numbers of reversals in the recession are identified as significant predictors, consistent with the hydrologic conditions considered important in the seasonal production and concentration of prey organisms in this system. Long-term hydrologic records at the index location allow for a retrospective analysis (1952-2006) of wading bird foraging numbers showing low frequency oscillations in response to decadal and multi-decadal fluctuations in hydroclimatic conditions.

Pronounced Seasonal Changes in the Movement Ecology of a Highly Gregarious Central-Place Forager, the African Straw-Coloured Fruit Bat (Eidolon helvum.

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Jakob Fahr

Full Text Available Straw-coloured fruit bats (Eidolon helvum migrate over vast distances across the African continent, probably following seasonal bursts of resource availability. This causes enormous fluctuations in population size, which in turn may influence the bats' impact on local ecosystems. We studied the movement ecology of this central-place forager with state-of-the-art GPS/acceleration loggers and concurrently monitored the seasonal fluctuation of the colony in Accra, Ghana. Habitat use on the landscape scale was assessed with remote sensing data as well as ground-truthing of foraging areas.During the wet season population low (~ 4000 individuals, bats foraged locally (3.5-36.7 km in urban areas with low tree cover. Major food sources during this period were fruits of introduced trees. Foraging distances almost tripled (24.1-87.9 km during the dry season population peak (~ 150,000 individuals, but this was not compensated for by reduced resting periods. Dry season foraging areas were random with regard to urban footprint and tree cover, and food consisted almost exclusively of nectar and pollen of native trees.Our study suggests that straw-coloured fruit bats disperse seeds in the range of hundreds of meters up to dozens of kilometres, and pollinate trees for up to 88 km. Straw-coloured fruit bats forage over much larger distances compared to most other Old World fruit bats, thus providing vital ecosystem services across extensive landscapes. We recommend increased efforts aimed at maintaining E. helvum populations throughout Africa since their keystone role in various ecosystems is likely to increase due to the escalating loss of other seed dispersers as well as continued urbanization and habitat fragmentation.

Pronounced Seasonal Changes in the Movement Ecology of a Highly Gregarious Central-Place Forager, the African Straw-Coloured Fruit Bat (Eidolon helvum).

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Fahr, Jakob; Abedi-Lartey, Michael; Esch, Thomas; Machwitz, Miriam; Suu-Ire, Richard; Wikelski, Martin; Dechmann, Dina K N

2015-01-01

Straw-coloured fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) migrate over vast distances across the African continent, probably following seasonal bursts of resource availability. This causes enormous fluctuations in population size, which in turn may influence the bats' impact on local ecosystems. We studied the movement ecology of this central-place forager with state-of-the-art GPS/acceleration loggers and concurrently monitored the seasonal fluctuation of the colony in Accra, Ghana. Habitat use on the landscape scale was assessed with remote sensing data as well as ground-truthing of foraging areas. During the wet season population low (~ 4000 individuals), bats foraged locally (3.5-36.7 km) in urban areas with low tree cover. Major food sources during this period were fruits of introduced trees. Foraging distances almost tripled (24.1-87.9 km) during the dry season population peak (~ 150,000 individuals), but this was not compensated for by reduced resting periods. Dry season foraging areas were random with regard to urban footprint and tree cover, and food consisted almost exclusively of nectar and pollen of native trees. Our study suggests that straw-coloured fruit bats disperse seeds in the range of hundreds of meters up to dozens of kilometres, and pollinate trees for up to 88 km. Straw-coloured fruit bats forage over much larger distances compared to most other Old World fruit bats, thus providing vital ecosystem services across extensive landscapes. We recommend increased efforts aimed at maintaining E. helvum populations throughout Africa since their keystone role in various ecosystems is likely to increase due to the escalating loss of other seed dispersers as well as continued urbanization and habitat fragmentation.

Scheduling and development support in the Scavenger cyber foraging system

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kristensen, Mads Darø; Bouvin, Niels Olof

2010-01-01

Cyber foraging is a pervasive computing technique where small mobile devices offload resource intensive tasks to stronger computing machinery in the vicinity. One of the main challenges within cyber foraging is that it is very difficult to develop cyber foraging enabled applications. An applicati...

Comparative sucrose responsiveness in Apis mellifera and A. cerana foragers.

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Yang, Wenchao; Kuang, Haiou; Wang, Shanshan; Wang, Jie; Liu, Wei; Wu, Zhenhong; Tian, Yuanyuan; Huang, Zachary Y; Miao, Xiaoqing

2013-01-01

In the European honey bee, Apis mellifera, pollen foragers have a higher sucrose responsiveness than nectar foragers when tested using a proboscis extension response (PER) assay. In addition, Africanized honey bees have a higher sucrose responsiveness than European honey bees. Based on the biology of the Eastern honey bee, A. cerana, we hypothesized that A. cerana should also have a higher responsiveness to sucrose than A. mellifera. To test this hypothesis, we compared the sucrose thresholds of pollen foragers and nectar foragers in both A. cerana and A. mellifera in Fujian Province, China. Pollen foragers were more responsive to sucrose than nectar foragers in both species, consistent with previous studies. However, contrary to our hypothesis, A. mellifera was more responsive than A. cerana. We also demonstrated that this higher sucrose responsiveness in A. mellifera was not due to differences in the colony environment by co-fostering two species of bees in the same mixed-species colonies. Because A. mellifera foragers were more responsive to sucrose, we predicted that their nectar foragers should bring in less concentrated nectar compared to that of A. cerana. However, we found no differences between the two species. We conclude that A. cerana shows a different pattern in sucrose responsiveness from that of Africanized bees. There may be other mechanisms that enable A. cerana to perform well in areas with sparse nectar resources.

Comparative sucrose responsiveness in Apis mellifera and A. cerana foragers.

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Wenchao Yang

Full Text Available In the European honey bee, Apis mellifera, pollen foragers have a higher sucrose responsiveness than nectar foragers when tested using a proboscis extension response (PER assay. In addition, Africanized honey bees have a higher sucrose responsiveness than European honey bees. Based on the biology of the Eastern honey bee, A. cerana, we hypothesized that A. cerana should also have a higher responsiveness to sucrose than A. mellifera. To test this hypothesis, we compared the sucrose thresholds of pollen foragers and nectar foragers in both A. cerana and A. mellifera in Fujian Province, China. Pollen foragers were more responsive to sucrose than nectar foragers in both species, consistent with previous studies. However, contrary to our hypothesis, A. mellifera was more responsive than A. cerana. We also demonstrated that this higher sucrose responsiveness in A. mellifera was not due to differences in the colony environment by co-fostering two species of bees in the same mixed-species colonies. Because A. mellifera foragers were more responsive to sucrose, we predicted that their nectar foragers should bring in less concentrated nectar compared to that of A. cerana. However, we found no differences between the two species. We conclude that A. cerana shows a different pattern in sucrose responsiveness from that of Africanized bees. There may be other mechanisms that enable A. cerana to perform well in areas with sparse nectar resources.

Comparative Sucrose Responsiveness in Apis mellifera and A. cerana Foragers

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Yang, Wenchao; Kuang, Haiou; Wang, Shanshan; Wang, Jie; Liu, Wei; Wu, Zhenhong; Tian, Yuanyuan; Huang, Zachary Y.; Miao, Xiaoqing

2013-01-01

In the European honey bee, Apis mellifera, pollen foragers have a higher sucrose responsiveness than nectar foragers when tested using a proboscis extension response (PER) assay. In addition, Africanized honey bees have a higher sucrose responsiveness than European honey bees. Based on the biology of the Eastern honey bee, A. cerana, we hypothesized that A. cerana should also have a higher responsiveness to sucrose than A. mellifera. To test this hypothesis, we compared the sucrose thresholds of pollen foragers and nectar foragers in both A. cerana and A. mellifera in Fujian Province, China. Pollen foragers were more responsive to sucrose than nectar foragers in both species, consistent with previous studies. However, contrary to our hypothesis, A. mellifera was more responsive than A. cerana. We also demonstrated that this higher sucrose responsiveness in A. mellifera was not due to differences in the colony environment by co-fostering two species of bees in the same mixed-species colonies. Because A. mellifera foragers were more responsive to sucrose, we predicted that their nectar foragers should bring in less concentrated nectar compared to that of A. cerana. However, we found no differences between the two species. We conclude that A. cerana shows a different pattern in sucrose responsiveness from that of Africanized bees. There may be other mechanisms that enable A. cerana to perform well in areas with sparse nectar resources. PMID:24194958

Nutritional status influences socially regulated foraging ontogeny in honey bees.

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Toth, Amy L; Kantarovich, Sara; Meisel, Adam F; Robinson, Gene E

2005-12-01

In many social insects, including honey bees, worker energy reserve levels are correlated with task performance in the colony. Honey bee nest workers have abundant stored lipid and protein while foragers are depleted of these reserves; this depletion precedes the shift from nest work to foraging. The first objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that lipid depletion has a causal effect on the age at onset of foraging in honey bees (Apis mellifera L.). We found that bees treated with a fatty acid synthesis inhibitor (TOFA) were more likely to forage precociously. The second objective of this study was to determine whether there is a relationship between social interactions, nutritional state and behavioral maturation. Since older bees are known to inhibit the development of young bees into foragers, we asked whether this effect is mediated nutritionally via the passage of food from old to young bees. We found that bees reared in social isolation have low lipid stores, but social inhibition occurs in colonies in the field, whether young bees are starved or fed. These results indicate that although social interactions affect the nutritional status of young bees, social and nutritional factors act independently to influence age at onset of foraging. Our findings suggest that mechanisms linking internal nutritional physiology to foraging in solitary insects have been co-opted to regulate altruistic foraging in a social context.

Foraging task specialisation and foraging labour allocation in stingless bees

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hofstede, Frouke Elisabeth

2006-01-01

Social bees collect nectar and pollen from flowering plants for energy of the adult bees and for feeding the larvae in the colony. The flowering patterns of plants imply that periods of high food availability are often followed by periods of meagre foraging conditions. Being dependent on such a

Foraging Behavior of Odontomachus bauri on Barro Colorado Island, Panama

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Birgit Ehmer

1995-01-01

Full Text Available Foraging behavior and partitioning of foraging areas of Odonomachus bauri were investigated on Barro Colorado Island in Panama. The activity of the ants did not show any daily pattern; foragers were active day and night. The type of prey captured by O. bauri supports the idea that in higher Odontomachus and Anochetus species, the high speed of mandible closure serves more for generating power than capturing elusive prey. Polydomous nests may enable O. bauri colonies to enlarge their foraging areas.

Simulation modeling to understand how selective foraging by beaver can drive the structure and function of a willow community

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Peinetti, H.R.; Baker, B.W.; Coughenour, M.B.

2009-01-01

Beaver-willow (Castor-Salix) communities are a unique and vital component of healthy wetlands throughout the Holarctic region. Beaver selectively forage willow to provide fresh food, stored winter food, and construction material. The effects of this complex foraging behavior on the structure and function of willow communities is poorly understood. Simulation modeling may help ecologists understand these complex interactions. In this study, a modified version of the SAVANNA ecosystem model was developed to better understand how beaver foraging affects the structure and function of a willow community in a simulated riparian ecosystem in Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado (RMNP). The model represents willow in terms of plant and stem dynamics and beaver foraging in terms of the quantity and quality of stems cut to meet the energetic and life history requirements of beaver. Given a site where all stems were equally available, the model suggested a simulated beaver family of 2 adults, 2 yearlings, and 2 kits required a minimum of 4 ha of willow (containing about10 stems m-2) to persist in a steady-state condition. Beaver created a willow community where the annual net primary productivity (ANPP) was 2 times higher and plant architecture was more diverse than the willow community without beaver. Beaver foraging created a plant architecture dominated by medium size willow plants, which likely explains how beaver can increase ANPP. Long-term simulations suggested that woody biomass stabilized at similar values even though availability differed greatly at initial condition. Simulations also suggested that willow ANPP increased across a range of beaver densities until beaver became food limited. Thus, selective foraging by beaver increased productivity, decreased biomass, and increased structural heterogeneity in a simulated willow community.

Age-related variation in foraging behaviour in the wandering albatross at South Georgia: no evidence for senescence.

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Hannah Froy

Full Text Available Age-related variation in demographic rates is now widely documented in wild vertebrate systems, and has significant consequences for population and evolutionary dynamics. However, the mechanisms underpinning such variation, particularly in later life, are less well understood. Foraging efficiency is a key determinant of fitness, with implications for individual life history trade-offs. A variety of faculties known to decline in old age, such as muscular function and visual acuity, are likely to influence foraging performance. We examine age-related variation in the foraging behaviour of a long-lived, wide-ranging oceanic seabird, the wandering albatross Diomedea exulans. Using miniaturised tracking technologies, we compared foraging trip characteristics of birds breeding at Bird Island, South Georgia. Based on movement and immersion data collected during the incubation phase of a single breeding season, and from extensive tracking data collected in previous years from different stages of the breeding cycle, we found limited evidence for age-related variation in commonly reported trip parameters, and failed to detect signs of senescent decline. Our results contrast with the limited number of past studies that have examined foraging behaviour in later life, since these have documented changes in performance consistent with senescence. This highlights the importance of studies across different wild animal populations to gain a broader perspective on the processes driving variation in ageing rates.

Are stress hormone levels a good proxy of foraging success? An experiment with king penguins, Aptenodytes patagonicus.

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Angelier, Frédéric; Giraudeau, Mathieu; Bost, Charles-André; Le Bouard, Fabrice; Chastel, Olivier

2009-09-01

In seabirds, variations in stress hormone (corticosterone; henceforth CORT) levels have been shown to reflect changing marine conditions and, especially, changes in food availability. However, it remains unclear how CORT levels can be mechanistically affected by these changes at the individual level. Specifically, the influence of food acquisition and foraging success on CORT secretion is poorly understood. In this study, we tested whether food acquisition can reduce baseline CORT levels (;the food intake hypothesis') by experimentally reducing foraging success of King Penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus). Although CORT levels overall decreased during a foraging trip, CORT levels did not differ between experimental birds and controls. These results demonstrate that mass gain at sea is not involved in changes in baseline CORT levels in this species. The overall decrease in CORT levels during a foraging trip could result from CORT-mediated energy regulation (;the energy utilisation hypothesis'). Along with other evidence, we suggest that the influence of foraging success and food intake on CORT levels is complex and that the ecological meaning of baseline CORT levels can definitely vary between species and ecological contexts. Therefore, further studies are needed to better understand (1) how baseline CORT levels are functionally regulated according to energetic status and energetic demands and (2) to what extent CORT can be used to aid in the conservation of seabird populations.

Pollen foraging in colonies of Melipona bicolor (Apidae, Meliponini): effects of season, colony size and queen number.

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Hilário, S D; Imperatriz-Fonseca, V L

2009-01-01

We evaluated the ratio between the number of pollen foragers and the total number of bees entering colonies of Melipona bicolor, a facultative polygynous species of stingless bees. The variables considered in our analysis were: seasonality, colony size and the number of physogastric queens in each colony. The pollen forager ratios varied significantly between seasons; the ratio was higher in winter than in summer. However, colony size and number of queens per colony had no significant effect. We conclude that seasonal differences in pollen harvest are related to the production of sexuals and to the number of individuals and their body size.

Nutrient balance affects foraging behaviour of a trap-building predator

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mayntz, David; Toft, Søren; Vollrath, Fritz

2009-01-01

Predator foraging may be affected by previous prey capture, but it is unknown how nutrient balance affects foraging behaviour. Here, we use a trap-building predator to test whether nutrients from previous prey captures affect foraging behaviour. We fed orb-weaving spiders (Zygiella x-notata) prey...

Information Foraging Theory: A Framework for Intelligence Analysis

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2014-11-01

oceanographic information, human intelligence (HUMINT), open-source intelligence ( OSINT ), and information provided by other governmental departments [1][5...Human Intelligence IFT Information Foraging Theory LSA Latent Semantic Similarity MVT Marginal Value Theorem OFT Optimal Foraging Theory OSINT

Multi-Robot Item Delivery and Foraging: Two Sides of a Coin

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Somchaya Liemhetcharat

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Multi-robot foraging has been widely studied in the literature, and the general assumption is that the robots are simple, i.e., with limited processing and carrying capacity. We previously studied continuous foraging with slightly more capable robots, and in this article, we are interested in using similar robots for item delivery. Interestingly, item delivery and foraging are two sides of the same coin: foraging an item from a location is similar to satisfying a demand. We formally define the multi-robot item delivery problem and show that the continuous foraging problem is a special case of it. We contribute distributed multi-robot algorithms that solve the item delivery and foraging problems and describe how our shared world model is synchronized across the multi-robot team. We performed extensive experiments on simulated robots using a Java simulator, and we present our results to demonstrate that we outperform benchmark algorithms from multi-robot foraging.

Geographic profiling and animal foraging.

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Le Comber, Steven C; Nicholls, Barry; Rossmo, D Kim; Racey, Paul A

2006-05-21

Geographic profiling was originally developed as a statistical tool for use in criminal cases, particularly those involving serial killers and rapists. It is designed to help police forces prioritize lists of suspects by using the location of crime scenes to identify the areas in which the criminal is most likely to live. Two important concepts are the buffer zone (criminals are less likely to commit crimes in the immediate vicinity of their home) and distance decay (criminals commit fewer crimes as the distance from their home increases). In this study, we show how the techniques of geographic profiling may be applied to animal data, using as an example foraging patterns in two sympatric colonies of pipistrelle bats, Pipistrellus pipistrellus and P. pygmaeus, in the northeast of Scotland. We show that if model variables are fitted to known roost locations, these variables may be used as numerical descriptors of foraging patterns. We go on to show that these variables can be used to differentiate patterns of foraging in these two species.

Forage yield and nutritive value of Elephant grass, Italian ryegrass and spontaneous growing species mixed with forage peanut or red clover

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Michelle Schalemberg Diehl

2014-10-01

Full Text Available The objective of this research was to evaluate of three grazing systems (GS with elephant grass (EG, Italian ryegrass (IR + spontaneous growing species (SGS; EG + IR + SGS + forage peanut (FP; and EG + IR + SGS + red clover (RC, during the winter and summer periods in rotational grazing with dairy cattle. Experimental design was completely randomized with three treatments, two replicates with repeated measures. Lactating Holstein cows receiving 1% BW-daily feed supplement with concentrate were used in the evaluation. Eight grazing cycles were performed during the experimental period. The values of pre forage mass and stocking rate were 2.52, 2.60 and 2.99 t ha-1 and 2.64, 2.77 and 3.14 animal unit ha-1, respectively for GS. Samples of forage were collected by hand-plucking technique to analyze the crude protein (CP, neutral detergent fiber (NDF, in situ dry matter digestibility (ISDMD, in situ organic matter digestibility (ISOMD of forage present between rows of elephant grass, in the rows of elephant grass and the legumes. Higher value of CP, ISOMD and lower of NDF were observed for the grazing systems mixed with legumes forage.

Forage based animal production systems and sustainability, an invited keynote

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Abdul Shakoor Chaudhry

2008-07-01

Full Text Available Forages are essential for the successful operation of animal production systems. This is more relevant to ruminants which are heavily dependant upon forages for their health and production in a cost-effective and sustainable manner. While forages are an economical source of nutrients for animal production, they also help conserve the soil integrity, water supply and air quality. Although the role of these forages for animal production could vary depending upon the regional preferences for the animal and forage species, climate and resources, their importance in the success of ruminant production is acknowledged. However with the increasing global human population and urbanisation, the sustainability of forage based animal production systems is sometimes questioned due to the interrelationship between animal production and the environment. It is therefore vital to examine the suitability of these systems for their place in the future to supply quality food which is safe for human consumption and available at a competitive price to the growing human population. Grassland and forage crops are recognised for their contribution to the environment, recreation and efficiency of meat and milk production,. To maintain sustainability, it is crucial that such farming systems remain profitable and environmentally friendly while producing nutritious foods of high economical value. Thus, it is pertinent to improve the nutritive value of grasses and other forage plants in order to enhance animal production to obtain quality food. It is also vital to develop new forages which are efficiently utilised and wasted less by involving efficient animals. A combination of forage legumes, fresh or conserved grasses, crop residues and other feeds could help develop an animal production system which is economically efficient, beneficial and viable. Also, it is crucial to use efficient animals, improved forage conservation methods, better manure handling, and minimum

Application of genomics to forage crop breeding for quality traits

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lübberstedt, Thomas

2007-01-01

Forage quality depends on the digestibility of fodder, and can be directly measured by the intake and metabolic conversion in animal trials. However, animal trials are time-consuming, laborious, and thus expensive. It is not possible to study thousands of plant genotypes, as required in breeding...... studied in detail and sequence motifs with likely effect on forage quality have been identified by association studies. Moreover, transgenic approaches substantiated the effect of several of these genes on forage quality. Perspectives and limitations of these findings for forage crop breeding...

Spatiotemporal heterogeneity in prey abundance and vulnerability shapes the foraging tactics of an omnivore

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Rayl, Nathaniel; Bastille-Rousseau, Guillaume; Organ, John F.; Mumma, Matthew; Mahoney, Shane P.; Soulliere, Colleen; Lewis, Keith; Otto, Robert; Murray, Dennis; Waits, Lisette; Fuller, Todd

2018-01-01

Prey abundance and prey vulnerability vary across space and time, but we know little about how they mediate predator–prey interactions and predator foraging tactics. To evaluate the interplay between prey abundance, prey vulnerability and predator space use, we examined patterns of black bear (Ursus americanus) predation of caribou (Rangifer tarandus) neonates in Newfoundland, Canada using data from 317 collared individuals (9 bears, 34 adult female caribou, 274 caribou calves).During the caribou calving season, we predicted that landscape features would influence calf vulnerability to bear predation, and that bears would actively hunt calves by selecting areas associated with increased calf vulnerability. Further, we hypothesized that bears would dynamically adjust their foraging tactics in response to spatiotemporal changes in calf abundance and vulnerability (collectively, calf availability). Accordingly, we expected bears to actively hunt calves when they were most abundant and vulnerable, but switch to foraging on other resources as calf availability declined.As predicted, landscape heterogeneity influenced risk of mortality, and bears displayed the strongest selection for areas where they were most likely to kill calves, which suggested they were actively hunting caribou. Initially, the per‐capita rate at which bears killed calves followed a type‐I functional response, but as the calving season progressed and calf vulnerability declined, kill rates dissociated from calf abundance. In support of our hypothesis, bears adjusted their foraging tactics when they were less efficient at catching calves, highlighting the influence that predation phenology may have on predator space use. Contrary to our expectations, however, bears appeared to continue to hunt caribou as calf availability declined, but switched from a tactic of selecting areas of increased calf vulnerability to a tactic that maximized encounter rates with calves.Our results reveal that

Floral odor learning within the hive affects honeybees' foraging decisions

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Arenas, Andrés; Fernández, Vanesa M.; Farina, Walter M.

2007-03-01

Honeybees learn odor cues quickly and efficiently when visiting rewarding flowers. Memorization of these cues facilitates the localization and recognition of food sources during foraging flights. Bees can also use information gained inside the hive during social interactions with successful foragers. An important information cue that can be learned during these interactions is food odor. However, little is known about how floral odors learned in the hive affect later decisions of foragers in the field. We studied the effect of food scent on foraging preferences when this learning is acquired directly inside the hive. By using in-hive feeders that were removed 24 h before the test, we showed that foragers use the odor information acquired during a 3-day stimulation period with a scented solution during a food-choice situation outside the nest. This bias in food preference is maintained even 24 h after the replacement of all the hive combs. Thus, without being previously collected outside by foragers, food odors learned within the hive can be used during short-range foraging flights. Moreover, correct landings at a dual-choice device after replacing the storing combs suggests that long-term memories formed within the colony can be retrieved while bees search for food in the field.

Is Bumblebee Foraging Efficiency Mediated by Morphological Correspondence to Flowers?

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Ikumi Dohzono

2011-01-01

Full Text Available Preference for certain types of flowers in bee species may be an adaptation for efficient foraging, and they often prefer flowers whose shape fits their mouthparts. However, it is unclear whether such flowers are truly beneficial for them. We address this issue by experimentally measuring foraging efficiency of bumblebees, the volume of sucrose solution consumed over handling time (μL/second, using long-tongued Bombus diversus Smith and short-tongued B. honshuensis Tkalcu that visit Clematis stans Siebold et Zuccarini. The corolla tube length of C. stans decreases during a flowering period, and male flowers are longer than female flowers. Long- and short-tongued bumblebees frequently visited longer and shorter flowers, respectively. Based on these preferences, we hypothesized that bumblebee foraging efficiency is higher when visiting flowers that show a good morphological fit between the proboscis and the corolla tube. Foraging efficiency of bumblebees was estimated using flowers for which nectar quality and quantity were controlled, in an experimental enclosure. We show that 1 the foraging efficiency of B. diversus was enhanced when visiting younger, longer flowers, and that 2 the foraging efficiency of B. honshuensis was higher when visiting shorter female flowers. This suggests that morphological correspondence between insects and flowers is important for insect foraging efficiency. However, in contradiction to our prediction, 3 short-tongued bumblebees B. honshuensis sucked nectar more efficiently when visiting younger, longer flowers, and 4 there was no significant difference in the foraging efficiency of B. diversus between flower sexes. These results suggest that morphological fit between the proboscis and the corolla tube is not a sole determinant of foraging efficiency. Bumblebees may adjust their sucking behavior in response to available rewards, and competition over rewards between bumblebee species might change visitation patterns

Corn in consortium with forages

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Cássia Maria de Paula Garcia

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The basic premises for sustainable agricultural development with focus on rural producers are reducing the costs of production and aggregation of values through the use crop-livestock system (CLS throughout the year. The CLS is based on the consortium of grain crops, especially corn with tropical forages, mainly of the genus Panicum and Urochloa. The study aimed to evaluate the grain yield of irrigated corn crop intercropped with forage of the genus Panicum and Urochloa. The experiment was conducted at the Fazenda de Ensino, Pesquisa e Extensão – FEPE  of the Faculdade de Engenharia - UNESP, Ilha Solteira in an Oxisol in savannah conditions and in the autumn winter of 2009. The experimental area was irrigated by a center pivot and had a history of no-tillage system for 8 years. The corn hybrid used was simple DKB 390 YG at distances of 0.90 m. The seeds of grasses were sown in 0.34 m spacing in the amount of 5 kg ha-1, they were mixed with fertilizer minutes before sowing  and placed in a compartment fertilizer seeder and fertilizers were mechanically deposited in the soil at a depth of 0.03 m. The experimental design used was a randomized block with four replications and five treatments: Panicum maximum cv. Tanzania sown during the nitrogen fertilization (CTD of the corn; Panicum maximum cv. Mombaça sown during the nitrogen fertilization (CMD of the corn; Urochloa brizantha cv. Xaraés sown during the occasion of nitrogen fertilization (CBD of the corn; Urochloa ruziziensis cv. Comumsown during the nitrogen fertilization (CRD of the corn and single corn (control. The production components of corn: plant population per hectare (PlPo, number of ears per hectare (NE ha-1, number of rows per ear (NRE, number of kernels per row on the cob (NKR, number of grain in the ear (NGE and mass of 100 grains (M100G were not influenced by consortium with forage. Comparing grain yield (GY single corn and maize intercropped with forage of the genus Panicum

Blue Oak Canopy Effect on Seasonal Forage Production and Quality

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William E. Frost; Neil K. McDougald; Montague W. Demment

1991-01-01

Forage production and forage quality were measured seasonally beneath the canopy of blue oak (Quercus douglasii) and in open grassland at the San Joaquin Experimental Range. At the March and peak standing crop sampling dates forage production was significantly greater (p=.05) beneath blue oak compared to open grassland. At most sampling dates, the...

In vivo and in situ measurements of the digestive characteristics of sainfoin in comparison with lucerne fed to sheep as fresh forages at two growth stages and as hay.

Science.gov (United States)

Aufrère, J; Dudilieu, M; Poncet, C

2008-09-01

In vivo and in situ digestive characteristics of sainfoin (Onobrychis viciifolia L., a tannin-rich forage) and lucerne (Medicago sativa L., a tannin-free forage) were compared to evaluate the effects of condensed tannins (CT) and growth stage (vegetative v. early flowering) in experiment 1. In experiment 2, the hays of the two forages, harvested at early flowering, were compared. Ingestibility, organic matter digestibility (OMD) and nitrogen (N) retention were measured in sheep fed sainfoin and lucerne fresh forages and hays. The loss of dry matter (DM) and N from polyester bags suspended in the rumen, abomasum and small intestine was also measured using rumen fistulated sheep and other intestine fistulated sheep. Nitrogen content was lower in sainfoin than in lucerne. Content of CT in sainfoin decreased with growth stage (3.5 to 2.5 g CT/kg DM) and was lower for sainfoin hay (0.6 g CT/kg DM). Ingestibility and OMD did not differ between fresh-fed forage species. Total N tract digestibility in vivo was much lower for sainfoin than for lucerne fresh forages (mean value 0.540 v. 0.721, P forages. Nitrogen degradability in the rumen determined by the nylon bag technique (DegN) was lower for sainfoin than for lucerne when forages were studied both fresh (mean value 0.608 and 0.818, respectively) and as hays (0.631 and 0.767). The efficiency of forage N digestion (ENd) was higher for sainfoin at the vegetative stage. Compared with lucerne, sainfoin greatly increased the in situ estimate of forage N escaping the rumen but decreased its intestinal digestibility.

Effect of a different concentrate-forage sequence on digesta passage rate, faeces traits and milk features of dairy cows

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L. Sarti

2010-04-01

Full Text Available To ascertain the effects of a different feed sequence, which could modify digestion rate and sites as well as metabolic - endocrine status and milk features, 6 lactating dairy cows have received the same diet with a different time of concentrate administration when close to the two daily forage meals: 30’ before or 60’ after them. Cows were tied in a barn with controlled temperature, humidity and light, individually fed and monitored for: daily dry matter intake, milk yield and its features at 2 milkings, concentrate passage rate and faecal traits. The results have showed that DMI, feeding behaviour, milk yield and milk features were not significantly affected (except fat content, increased when forage was supplied as first feed. The digesta passage rate was also different: concentrate escaped more rapidly from the rumen when fed before forage or 4 hours after them. This effect has not modified the faeces, but some endocrine and /or metabolic changes can be hypothesized, because milk fat content was increased when concentrate was supplied after forage.

Food and foraging preferences of three pteropodid bats in southern India

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M.R Sudhakaran

2012-01-01

Full Text Available A study on the food, foraging and flight height in three species of pteropodid bats, namely Cynopterus sphinx, Rousettus leschenaultii and Pteropus giganteus was conducted in Tirunelveli and Tuticorin districts of southern Tamil Nadu, India. A total of 37 species of plants were identified as potential food plants of the pteropodid bats. The preference for fruits by pteropodids varied according to the developmental stages of fruits namely, immature, unripe and ripe. There is a relationship between the foraging activities of bats and the moon phase. Bats exhibit a varied foraging pattern and flight height. A variation in the foraging flight height was observed in C. sphinx and R. leschenaultii. R. leschenaultii was observed to have a higher foraging echelon than that of the C. sphinx. In our study we found that the C. sphinx forages normally at canopy level (up to 3.5m, R. leschenaultii forages at upper canopy levels (up to 9m and P. giganteus at a height above the canopy area (>9m.

Stable Isotopes Reveal Long-Term Fidelity to Foraging Grounds in the Galapagos Sea Lion (Zalophus wollebaeki.

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Massimiliano Drago

Full Text Available Most otariids have colony-specific foraging areas during the breeding season, when they behave as central place foragers. However, they may disperse over broad areas after the breeding season and individuals from different colonies may share foraging grounds at that time. Here, stable isotope ratios in the skull bone of adult Galapagos sea lions (Zalophus wollebaeki were used to assess the long-term fidelity of both sexes to foraging grounds across the different regions of the Galapagos archipelago. Results indicated that the stable isotope ratios (δ(13C and δ(15N of sea lion bone significantly differed among regions of the archipelago, without any significant difference between sexes and with a non significant interaction between sex and region. Moreover, standard ellipses, estimated by Bayesian inference and used as a measure of the isotopic resource use area at the population level, overlapped widely for the sea lions from the southern and central regions, whereas the overlap of the ellipses for sea lions from the central and western regions was small and non-existing for those from the western and southern regions. These results suggest that males and females from the same region within the archipelago use similar foraging grounds and have similar diets. Furthermore, they indicate that the exchange of adults between regions is limited, thus revealing a certain degree of foraging philopatry at a regional scale within the archipelago. The constraints imposed on males by an expanded reproductive season (~ 6 months, resulting from the weak reproductive synchrony among females, and those imposed on females by a very long lactation period (at least one year but up to three years, may explain the limited mobility of adult Galapagos sea lions of both sexes across the archipelago.

Evaluation of nutritional value some forage species available in Iran ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Novin

2012-07-17

Jul 17, 2012 ... and chemical composition of forage species was estimated. MATERIALS AND METHODS ... head per day at 8.00 a.m. and 6.00 p.m. Forage samples (2 g DM with 2 mm screen ) were weighed into nylon bags ..... methods to study the kinetics of degradation of forage species, instead of the in situ technique, ...

The forager oral tradition and the evolution of prolonged juvenility.

Science.gov (United States)

Scalise Sugiyama, Michelle

2011-01-01

The foraging niche is characterized by the exploitation of nutrient-rich resources using complex extraction techniques that take a long time to acquire. This costly period of development is supported by intensive parental investment. Although human life history theory tends to characterize this investment in terms of food and care, ethnographic research on foraging skill transmission suggests that the flow of resources from old-to-young also includes knowledge. Given the adaptive value of information, parents may have been under selection pressure to invest knowledge - e.g., warnings, advice - in children: proactive provisioning of reliable information would have increased offspring survival rates and, hence, parental fitness. One way that foragers acquire subsistence knowledge is through symbolic communication, including narrative. Tellingly, oral traditions are characterized by an old-to-young transmission pattern, which suggests that, in forager groups, storytelling might be an important means by which adults transfer knowledge to juveniles. In particular, by providing juveniles with vicarious experience, storytelling may expand episodic memory, which is believed to be integral to the generation of possible future scenarios (i.e., planning). In support of this hypothesis, this essay reviews evidence that: mastery of foraging knowledge and skill sets takes a long time to acquire; foraging knowledge is transmitted from parent to child; the human mind contains adaptations specific to social learning; full assembly of learning mechanisms is not complete in early childhood; and forager oral traditions contain a wide range of information integral to occupation of the foraging niche. It concludes with suggestions for tests of the proposed hypothesis.

The forager oral tradition and the evolution of prolonged juvenility

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Michelle Scalise Sugiyama

2011-08-01

Full Text Available The foraging niche is characterized by the exploitation of nutrient-rich resources using complex extraction techniques that take a long time to acquire. This costly period of development is supported by intensive parental investment. Although human life history theory tends to characterize this investment in terms of food and care, ethnographic research on foraging skill transmission suggests that the flow of resources from old to young also includes knowledge. Given the adaptive value of information, parents may have been under selection pressure to invest knowledge—e.g., warnings, advice--in children: proactive provisioning of reliable information would have increased offspring survival rates and, hence, parental fitness. One way that foragers acquire subsistence knowledge is through symbolic communication, including narrative. Tellingly, oral traditions are characterized by an old-to-young transmission pattern, which suggests that, in forager groups, storytelling might be an important means by which adults transfer knowledge to juveniles. In particular, by providing juveniles with vicarious experience, storytelling may expand episodic memory, which is believed to be integral to the generation of possible future scenarios (i.e., planning. In support of this hypothesis, this essay reviews evidence that: mastery of foraging knowledge and skill sets takes a long time to acquire; foraging knowledge is transmitted from parent to child; the human mind contains adaptations specific to social learning; full assembly of learning mechanisms is not complete in early childhood; and forager oral traditions contain a wide range of information integral to occupation of the foraging niche. It concludes with suggestions for tests of the proposed hypothesis.

Scavenger: Transparent Development of Efficient Cyber Foraging Applications

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kristensen, Mads Darø

2010-01-01

delivering efficient, mobile use of remote computing resources through the use of a custom built mobile code execution environment and a new dual-profiling scheduler. One of the main difficulties within cyber foraging is that it is very challenging for application programmers to develop cyber foraging...

Evidence of Levy walk foraging patterns in human hunter-gatherers.

Science.gov (United States)

Raichlen, David A; Wood, Brian M; Gordon, Adam D; Mabulla, Audax Z P; Marlowe, Frank W; Pontzer, Herman

2014-01-14

When searching for food, many organisms adopt a superdiffusive, scale-free movement pattern called a Lévy walk, which is considered optimal when foraging for heterogeneously located resources with little prior knowledge of distribution patterns [Viswanathan GM, da Luz MGE, Raposo EP, Stanley HE (2011) The Physics of Foraging: An Introduction to Random Searches and Biological Encounters]. Although memory of food locations and higher cognition may limit the benefits of random walk strategies, no studies to date have fully explored search patterns in human foraging. Here, we show that human hunter-gatherers, the Hadza of northern Tanzania, perform Lévy walks in nearly one-half of all foraging bouts. Lévy walks occur when searching for a wide variety of foods from animal prey to underground tubers, suggesting that, even in the most cognitively complex forager on Earth, such patterns are essential to understanding elementary foraging mechanisms. This movement pattern may be fundamental to how humans experience and interact with the world across a wide range of ecological contexts, and it may be adaptive to food distribution patterns on the landscape, which previous studies suggested for organisms with more limited cognition. Additionally, Lévy walks may have become common early in our genus when hunting and gathering arose as a major foraging strategy, playing an important role in the evolution of human mobility.

Variation in predator foraging behavior changes predator-prey spatio-temporal dynamics

Science.gov (United States)

1. Foraging underlies the ability of all animals to acquire essential resources and, thus, provides a critical link to understanding population dynamics. A key issue is how variation in foraging behavior affects foraging efficiency and predator-prey interactions in spatially-heterogeneous environmen...

Colour learning when foraging for nectar and pollen: bees learn two colours at once.

Science.gov (United States)

Muth, Felicity; Papaj, Daniel R; Leonard, Anne S

2015-09-01

Bees are model organisms for the study of learning and memory, yet nearly all such research to date has used a single reward, nectar. Many bees collect both nectar (carbohydrates) and pollen (protein) on a single foraging bout, sometimes from different plant species. We tested whether individual bumblebees could learn colour associations with nectar and pollen rewards simultaneously in a foraging scenario where one floral type offered only nectar and the other only pollen. We found that bees readily learned multiple reward-colour associations, and when presented with novel floral targets generalized to colours similar to those trained for each reward type. These results expand the ecological significance of work on bee learning and raise new questions regarding the cognitive ecology of pollination. © 2015 The Author(s).

Foraging behavior analysis of swarm robotics system

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Sakthivelmurugan E.

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Swarm robotics is a number of small robots that are synchronically works together to accomplish a given task. Swarm robotics faces many problems in performing a given task. The problems are pattern formation, aggregation, Chain formation, self-assembly, coordinated movement, hole avoidance, foraging and self-deployment. Foraging is most essential part in swarm robotics. Foraging is the task to discover the item and get back into the shell. The researchers conducted foraging experiments with random-movement of robots and they have end up with unique solutions. Most of the researchers have conducted experiments using the circular arena. The shell is placed at the centre of the arena and environment boundary is well known. In this study, an attempt is made to different strategic movements like straight line approach, parallel line approach, divider approach, expanding square approach, and parallel sweep approach. All these approaches are to be simulated by using player/stage open-source simulation software based on C and C++ programming language in Linux operating system. Finally statistical comparison will be done with task completion time of all these strategies using ANOVA to identify the significant searching strategy.

Factors affecting individual foraging specialization and temporal diet stability across the range of a large "generalist" apex predator.

Science.gov (United States)

Rosenblatt, Adam E; Nifong, James C; Heithaus, Michael R; Mazzotti, Frank J; Cherkiss, Michael S; Jeffery, Brian M; Elsey, Ruth M; Decker, Rachel A; Silliman, Brian R; Guillette, Louis J; Lowers, Russell H; Larson, Justin C

2015-05-01

Individual niche specialization (INS) is increasingly recognized as an important component of ecological and evolutionary dynamics. However, most studies that have investigated INS have focused on the effects of niche width and inter- and intraspecific competition on INS in small-bodied species for short time periods, with less attention paid to INS in large-bodied reptilian predators and the effects of available prey types on INS. We investigated the prevalence, causes, and consequences of INS in foraging behaviors across different populations of American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis), the dominant aquatic apex predator across the southeast US, using stomach contents and stable isotopes. Gut contents revealed that, over the short term, although alligator populations occupied wide ranges of the INS spectrum, general patterns were apparent. Alligator populations inhabiting lakes exhibited lower INS than coastal populations, likely driven by variation in habitat type and available prey types. Stable isotopes revealed that over longer time spans alligators exhibited remarkably consistent use of variable mixtures of carbon pools (e.g., marine and freshwater food webs). We conclude that INS in large-bodied reptilian predator populations is likely affected by variation in available prey types and habitat heterogeneity, and that INS should be incorporated into management strategies to efficiently meet intended goals. Also, ecological models, which typically do not consider behavioral variability, should include INS to increase model realism and applicability.

Nutritional Characteristics of Forage Grown in South of Benin

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Nadia Musco

2016-01-01

Full Text Available In order to provide recommendations on the most useful forage species to smallholder farmers, eleven grass and eleven legume forages grown in Abomey-Calavi in Republic of Benin were investigated for nutritive value (i.e. chemical composition and energy content and fermentation characteristics (i.e. gas and volatile fatty acid production, organic matter degradability. The in vitro gas production technique was used, incubating the forages for 120 h under anaerobic condition with buffalo rumen fluid. Compared to legume, tropical grass forages showed lower energy (8.07 vs 10.57 MJ/kg dry matter [DM] and crude protein level (16.10% vs 19.91% DM and higher cell wall content (neutral detergent fiber: 63.8% vs 40.45% DM, respectively. In grass forages, the chemical composition showed a quite high crude protein content; the in vitro degradability was slightly lower than the range of tropical pasture. The woody legumes were richer in protein and energy and lower in structural carbohydrates than herbaceous plants, however, their in vitro results are influenced by the presence of complex compounds (i.e. tannins. Significant correlations were found between chemical composition and in vitro fermentation characteristics. The in vitro gas production method appears to be a suitable technique for the evaluation of the nutritive value of forages in developing countries.

MODELING ECONOMIC AND ECOLOGICAL BENEFITS OF POST-FIRE REVEGETATION IN THE GREAT BASIN

OpenAIRE

Niell, Rebecca; Englin, Jeffrey E.; Nalle, Darek

2004-01-01

This study employs a Markov chain model of vegetation dynamics to examine the economic and ecological benefits of post-fire revegetation in the Great Basin sagebrush steppe. The analysis is important because synergies between wildland fire and invasive weeds in this ecosystem are likely to result in the loss of native biodiversity, less predictable forage availability for livestock and wildlife, reduced watershed stability and water quality, and increased costs and risk associated with firefi...

Forage herbs improve mineral composition of grassland herbage

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Pirhofer-Walzl, Karin; Søegaard, Karen; Jensen, Henning Høgh

2011-01-01

there is limited information about mineral concentrations in forage herbs. To determine whether herbs have greater macro- and micromineral concentrations than forage legumes and grasses, we conducted a 2-year experiment on a loamy-sand site in Denmark sown with a multi-species mixture comprised of three functional...

Foraging behavior and success of a mesopelagic predator in the northeast Pacific Ocean: insights from a data-rich species, the northern elephant seal.

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Patrick W Robinson

Full Text Available The mesopelagic zone of the northeast Pacific Ocean is an important foraging habitat for many predators, yet few studies have addressed the factors driving basin-scale predator distributions or inter-annual variability in foraging and breeding success. Understanding these processes is critical to reveal how conditions at sea cascade to population-level effects. To begin addressing these challenging questions, we collected diving, tracking, foraging success, and natality data for 297 adult female northern elephant seal migrations from 2004 to 2010. During the longer post-molting migration, individual energy gain rates were significant predictors of pregnancy. At sea, seals focused their foraging effort along a narrow band corresponding to the boundary between the sub-arctic and sub-tropical gyres. In contrast to shallow-diving predators, elephant seals target the gyre-gyre boundary throughout the year rather than follow the southward winter migration of surface features, such as the Transition Zone Chlorophyll Front. We also assessed the impact of added transit costs by studying seals at a colony near the southern extent of the species' range, 1,150 km to the south. A much larger proportion of seals foraged locally, implying plasticity in foraging strategies and possibly prey type. While these findings are derived from a single species, the results may provide insight to the foraging patterns of many other meso-pelagic predators in the northeast Pacific Ocean.

Does foraging behaviour affect female mate preferences and pair formation in captive zebra finches?

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Neeltje J Boogert

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Successful foraging is essential for survival and reproductive success. In many bird species, foraging is a learned behaviour. To cope with environmental change and survive periods in which regular foods are scarce, the ability to solve novel foraging problems by learning new foraging techniques can be crucial. Although females have been shown to prefer more efficient foragers, the effect of males' foraging techniques on female mate choice has never been studied. We tested whether females would prefer males showing the same learned foraging technique as they had been exposed to as juveniles, or whether females would prefer males that showed a complementary foraging technique. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We first trained juvenile male and female zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata to obtain a significant proportion of their food by one of two foraging techniques. We then tested whether females showed a preference for males with the same or the alternative technique. We found that neither a male's foraging technique nor his foraging performance affected the time females spent in his proximity in the mate-choice apparatus. We then released flocks of these finches into an aviary to investigate whether assortative pairing would be facilitated by birds taught the same technique exploiting the same habitat. Zebra finches trained as juveniles in a specific foraging technique maintained their foraging specialisation in the aviary as adults. However, pair formation and nest location were random with regard to foraging technique. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our findings show that zebra finches can be successfully trained to be foraging specialists. However, the robust negative results of the conditions tested here suggest that learned foraging specializations do not affect mate choice or pair formation in our experimental context.

PRODUCTIVE IMPACT OF THE GREEN FORAGE SUPPLY USAGE AT THE DAIRY FARMS

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LAVINIA MOISE

2007-05-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the importance of the crop structure as a tool to maximize efficiency in the conceiving of the green forage supply scheme in a dairy farm. Several apects are necessary to consider for proper green forage utilization by the cattle, as follows: climatic conditions, proper field operations for each crop, optimal harvest date, and farm technical and economical resources. With a high degree of succulence, green forage and derived products (silage, haylage, present addvantages as compared to hay, having superior indices of nutritive value and palatability. A green forage supply scheme was applied on an area of 188 ha taking into account dairy cattle biological traits. Crop structure was as follows: forage maize, Sudan grass, Italian ryegrass, new lucern and old lucerne, and orchardgrass. Insuring the required superior green forage for the dairy cattle according to forage rations, represents one of the main techniques to maximize milk production and to minimize milk production cost.

Consistent Individual Differences Drive Collective Behavior and Group Functioning of Schooling Fish.

Science.gov (United States)

Jolles, Jolle W; Boogert, Neeltje J; Sridhar, Vivek H; Couzin, Iain D; Manica, Andrea

2017-09-25

The ubiquity of consistent inter-individual differences in behavior ("animal personalities") [1, 2] suggests that they might play a fundamental role in driving the movements and functioning of animal groups [3, 4], including their collective decision-making, foraging performance, and predator avoidance. Despite increasing evidence that highlights their importance [5-16], we still lack a unified mechanistic framework to explain and to predict how consistent inter-individual differences may drive collective behavior. Here we investigate how the structure, leadership, movement dynamics, and foraging performance of groups can emerge from inter-individual differences by high-resolution tracking of known behavioral types in free-swimming stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) shoals. We show that individual's propensity to stay near others, measured by a classic "sociability" assay, was negatively linked to swim speed across a range of contexts, and predicted spatial positioning and leadership within groups as well as differences in structure and movement dynamics between groups. In turn, this trait, together with individual's exploratory tendency, measured by a classic "boldness" assay, explained individual and group foraging performance. These effects of consistent individual differences on group-level states emerged naturally from a generic model of self-organizing groups composed of individuals differing in speed and goal-orientedness. Our study provides experimental and theoretical evidence for a simple mechanism to explain the emergence of collective behavior from consistent individual differences, including variation in the structure, leadership, movement dynamics, and functional capabilities of groups, across social and ecological scales. In addition, we demonstrate individual performance is conditional on group composition, indicating how social selection may drive behavioral differentiation between individuals. Copyright © 2017 The Author(s). Published by

Foraging behavior of stingless bee Heterotrigona itama (Cockerell, 1918) (Hymenoptera : Apidae : Meliponini)

Science.gov (United States)

Jaapar, Mohd Fahimee; Jajuli, Rosliza; Mispan, Muhamad Radzali; Ghani, Idris Abd

2018-04-01

A study to investigate the foraging behavior of Heterotrigona itama (Cockerell, 1918) was conducted on three colonies between January 2016 and June 2016. A digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) with macro lens attached, and action camera (SJCAM) was used to record foraging behavior of H. itama in its colonies for 5 min per hour between 0800 to 1700 h for a day per 6 months. In addition, three data loggers (Watchdog B100 2K) has been installed adjacent to the observation nest for collect temperature and humidity in the study areas. Result showed that the numbers of return foragers was significantly different from January to June also with outgoing forager. The returning forager between hours showed significant different from 8 am to 5 pm also for outgoing forager. The ideal temperature related to foraging behavior for H. itama was 29°C to 32 °C Our finding also, helps to guide researcher to expand the knowledge in foraging behavior by stingless bee as well as encouraging more small farmers to start rearing at least for their own consumption. In addition, these findings also guide the farmers to manage their chemical toxic inside the meliponiculture.

Behavioural environments and niche construction: the evolution of dim-light foraging in bees.

Science.gov (United States)

Wcislo, William T; Tierney, Simon M

2009-02-01

Most bees forage for floral resources during the day, but temporal patterns of foraging activity vary extensively, and foraging in dim-light environments has evolved repeatedly. Facultative dim-light foraging behaviour is known in five of nine families of bees, while obligate behaviour is known in four families and evolved independently at least 19 times. The light intensity under which bees forage varies by a factor of 10(8), and therefore the evolution of dim-light foraging represents the invasion of a new, extreme niche. The repeated evolution of dim-light foraging behaviour in bees allows tests of the hypothesis that behaviour acts as an evolutionary pacemaker. With the exception of one species of Apis, facultative dim-light foragers show no external structural traits that are thought to enable visually mediated flight behaviour in low-light environments. By contrast, most obligate dim-light foragers show a suite of convergent optical traits such as enlarged ocelli and compound eyes. In one intensively studied species (Megalopta genalis) these optical changes are associated with neurobiological changes to enhance photon capture. The available ecological evidence suggests that an escape from competition for pollen and nectar resources and avoidance of natural enemies are driving factors in the evolution of obligate dim-light foraging.

Recent developments in forage evaluation with special reference to practical applications

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

P. HUHTANEN

2008-12-01

Full Text Available The present re-evaluation of a dataset of systematically collected laboratory analyses and in vivo digestibility information for several types of silages gives convincing evidence of the biological weaknesses of feed characterisation based on the proximate feed analysis. The problems include intrinsic failures of the analysis in describing cause-response relationships between forage composition and digestibility, and heavy dependency of the equations on forage specific and environmental factors. It is concluded that proximate analysis is not suitable for characterisation of neither forages nor concentrate feedstuffs. In vitro pepsin-cellulase solubility of organic matter (OMS and concentration of indigestible neutral detergent fibre (iNDF predicted forage organic matter digestibility (OMD with an acceptable accuracy for practical feed evaluation purposes provided that forage type dependent correction equations were employed. The revised detergent system dividing forage dry matter (DM into almost completely available neutral detergent solubles (NDS, and insoluble residue (neutral detergent fibre, NDF shows potential for future development. The combined use of long-term in situ ruminal incubation and NDF fractionation can be used to divide forage DM into three biologically meaningful fractions: NDS, iNDF and potentially digestible NDF (pdNDF. The summative models can then be used to predict forage D-value, i.e. apparently digestible organic matter in forage (g kg-1 DM. The models sum digestible NDS, which can be determined by Lucas equation, and digestible NDF (dNDF, which is the amount of pdNDF that is actually digested during any specific fermentation or retention time. Forage type specific summative models were as good as regression equations based on OMS or iNDF in predicting forage D-value and general summative models gave better results than general equations based on iNDF and especially OMS. If the goal is to reduce prediction error of D

Effects of forage type, forage to concentrate ratio, and crushed linseed supplementation on milk fatty acid profile in lactating dairy cows

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Sterk, A.R.; Johansson, B.E.O.; Taweel, H.Z.H.; Murphy, M.; Vuuren, van A.M.; Hendriks, W.H.; Dijkstra, J.

2011-01-01

The effects of an increasing proportion of crushed linseed (CL) in combination with varying forage type (grass or corn silage) and forage to concentrate ratio (F:C), and their interactions on milk fatty acid (FA) profile of high-producing dairy cows was studied using a 3-factor Box-Behnken design.

Does supplemental feeding affect behaviour and foraging of ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

In response to the provision of high-quality pods of Acacia albida, animals reduced foraging time in 2008 and allocated it to resting. This pattern corresponds to the animals' behaviour in captivity without foraging versus vigilance trade-offs and with predictable (in time and space) access to food. In 2009, supplemental ...

Dreissenid mussels from the Great Lakes contain elevated thiaminase activity

Science.gov (United States)

Tillitt, D.E.; Riley, S.C.; Evans, A.N.; Nichols, S.J.; Zajicek, J.L.; Rinchard, J.; Richter, C.A.; Krueger, C.C.

2009-01-01

We examined thiaminase activity in dreissenid mussels collected at different depths and seasons, and from various locations in Lakes Michigan, Ontario, and Huron. Here we present evidence that two dreissenid mussel species (Dreissena bugensis and D. polymorpha) contain thiaminase activity that is 5-100 fold greater than observed in Great Lakes fishes. Thiaminase activity in zebra mussels ranged from 10,600 to 47,900??pmol g- 1??min- 1 and activities in quagga mussels ranged from 19,500 to 223,800??pmol g- 1??min- 1. Activity in the mussels was greatest in spring, less in summer, and least in fall. Additionally, we observed greater thiaminase activity in dreissenid mussels collected at shallow depths compared to mussels collected at deeper depths. Dreissenids constitute a significant and previously unknown pool of thiaminase in the Great Lakes food web compared to other known sources of this thiamine (vitamin B1)-degrading enzyme. Thiaminase in forage fish of the Great Lakes has been causally linked to thiamine deficiency in salmonines. We currently do not know whether linkages exist between thiaminase activities observed in dreissenids and the thiaminase activities in higher trophic levels of the Great Lakes food web. However, the extreme thiaminase activities observed in dreissenids from the Great Lakes may represent a serious unanticipated negative effect of these exotic species on Great Lakes ecosystems.

Effects of forage source and forage particle size as a free-choice provision on growth performance, rumen fermentation, and behavior of dairy calves fed texturized starters.

Science.gov (United States)

Omidi-Mirzaei, H; Azarfar, A; Mirzaei, M; Kiani, A; Ghaffari, M H

2018-05-01

We investigated the interactive effects of forage source and forage particle size (PS) as a free-choice provision on growth performance, rumen fermentation, and behavior of dairy calves fed texturized starters. Forty-eight Holstein calves (42 ± 3 kg of body weight) were randomly assigned (n = 12 calves per treatment) in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of treatments with the factors of forage source [alfalfa hay (AH) and wheat straw (WS)] and forage PS [(AH: medium = 1.96 mm or long = 3.93 mm) and (WS: medium = 2.03 mm or long = 4.10 mm), as geometric mean diameters]. The treatments were (1) AH with medium PS (AH-MPS), (2) AH with long PS (AH-LPS), (3) WS with medium PS (WS-MPS), and (4) WS with long PS (WS-LPS). Regardless of forage PS, the preweaning starter intake, dry matter intake, metabolizable energy intake, weaning body weight, and forage intake were greater for AH calves than WS calves. Average daily gain, average daily gain/metabolizable energy intake, feed efficiency, and final body weight of the calves did not differ among groups. An interaction of forage source and forage PS influenced acetate, propionate, and acetate-to-propionate ratio in the rumen on d 35, with the greatest acetate proportion and acetate-to-propionate ratio, but the least propionate proportion for AH-MPS calves than the other calves. The total volatile fatty acid concentration and the rumen proportions of propionate (d 70), butyrate (d 35), and valerate (d 35) were greater in AH-MPS calves than in AH-LPS calves. Calves fed AH had greater total volatile fatty acid concentration (d 35 and 70) and propionate proportion (d 70), but lesser ruminal proportions of butyrate (d 35 and 70), valerate (d 35 and 70), and acetate-to-propionate ratio (d 70) compared with calves fed WS. The ruminal valerate proportion (d 70) was greatest in WS-MPS calves than the other calves. An interaction of forage source and forage PS influenced preweaning standing time and starter eating time, with the least

To walk or to fly? How birds choose among foraging modes

Science.gov (United States)

Bautista, Luis M.; Tinbergen, Joost; Kacelnik, Alejandro

2001-01-01

We test the predictive value of the main energetic currencies used in foraging theory using starlings that choose between two foraging modes (walking versus flying). Walking is low-cost, low-yield, whereas flying is the opposite. We fixed experimentally, at 11 different values, the amount of flight required to get one food reward, and for each flight cost value, we titrated the amount of walking until the birds showed indifference between foraging modes. We then compared the indifference points to those predicted by gross rate of gain over time, net rate of gain over time, and the ratio of gain to expenditure (efficiency). The results for the choice between modes show strong qualitative and quantitative support for net rate of gain over time over the alternatives. However, the birds foraged for only a fraction of the available time, indicating that the choice between foraging and resting could not be explained by any of these currencies. We suggest that this discrepancy could be accounted for functionally because nonenergetic factors such as predation risk may differ between resting and foraging in any mode but may not differ much between foraging modes, hence releasing the choice between foraging modes from the influence of such factors. Alternatively, the discrepancy may be attributable to the use of predictable (rather than stochastic) ratios of effort per prey in our experiment, and it may thus be better understood with mechanistic rather than functional arguments. PMID:11158599

Human memory retrieval as Lévy foraging

Science.gov (United States)

Rhodes, Theo; Turvey, Michael T.

2007-11-01

When people attempt to recall as many words as possible from a specific category (e.g., animal names) their retrievals occur sporadically over an extended temporal period. Retrievals decline as recall progresses, but short retrieval bursts can occur even after tens of minutes of performing the task. To date, efforts to gain insight into the nature of retrieval from this fundamental phenomenon of semantic memory have focused primarily upon the exponential growth rate of cumulative recall. Here we focus upon the time intervals between retrievals. We expected and found that, for each participant in our experiment, these intervals conformed to a Lévy distribution suggesting that the Lévy flight dynamics that characterize foraging behavior may also characterize retrieval from semantic memory. The closer the exponent on the inverse square power-law distribution of retrieval intervals approximated the optimal foraging value of 2, the more efficient was the retrieval. At an abstract dynamical level, foraging for particular foods in one's niche and searching for particular words in one's memory must be similar processes if particular foods and particular words are randomly and sparsely located in their respective spaces at sites that are not known a priori. We discuss whether Lévy dynamics imply that memory processes, like foraging, are optimized in an ecological way.

Optimal search behavior and classic foraging theory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bartumeus, F; Catalan, J

2009-01-01

Random walk methods and diffusion theory pervaded ecological sciences as methods to analyze and describe animal movement. Consequently, statistical physics was mostly seen as a toolbox rather than as a conceptual framework that could contribute to theory on evolutionary biology and ecology. However, the existence of mechanistic relationships and feedbacks between behavioral processes and statistical patterns of movement suggests that, beyond movement quantification, statistical physics may prove to be an adequate framework to understand animal behavior across scales from an ecological and evolutionary perspective. Recently developed random search theory has served to critically re-evaluate classic ecological questions on animal foraging. For instance, during the last few years, there has been a growing debate on whether search behavior can include traits that improve success by optimizing random (stochastic) searches. Here, we stress the need to bring together the general encounter problem within foraging theory, as a mean for making progress in the biological understanding of random searching. By sketching the assumptions of optimal foraging theory (OFT) and by summarizing recent results on random search strategies, we pinpoint ways to extend classic OFT, and integrate the study of search strategies and its main results into the more general theory of optimal foraging.

Growth references for Tsimane forager-horticulturalists of the Bolivian Amazon.

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Blackwell, Aaron D; Urlacher, Samuel S; Beheim, Bret; von Rueden, Christopher; Jaeggi, Adrian; Stieglitz, Jonathan; Trumble, Benjamin C; Gurven, Michael; Kaplan, Hillard

2017-03-01

Growth standards and references currently used to assess population and individual health are derived primarily from urban populations, including few individuals from indigenous or subsistence groups. Given environmental and genetic differences, growth may vary in these populations. Thus, there is a need to assess whether international standards are appropriate for all populations, and to produce population specific references if growth differs. Here we present and assess growth references for the Tsimane, an indigenous population of Bolivian forager-horticulturalists. Mixed cross-sectional/longitudinal anthropometrics (9,614 individuals; 30,118 observations; ages 0-29 years) were used to generate centile curves and Lambda-Mu-Sigma (LMS) tables for height-for-age, weight-for-age, body mass index (BMI)-for-age, and weight-for-height (WFH) using Generalized Additive Models for Location Shape and Scale (GAMLSS). Velocity curves were generated using SuperImposition by Translation and Rotation (SITAR). Tsimane ≤5 years were compared to World Health Organization (WHO) standards while those >5 years were compared to WHO school age references. All ages were compared to published references for Shuar forager-horticulturalists of the Ecuadorian Amazon. Tsimane growth differs from WHO values in height and weight, but is similar for BMI and WFH. Tsimane growth is characterized by slow height velocity in childhood and early adolescent peak height velocity at 11.3 and 13.2 years for girls and boys. Tsimane growth patterns are similar to Shuar, suggesting shared features of growth among indigenous South Americans. International references for BMI-for-age and WFH are likely appropriate for Tsimane, but differences in height-for-age and weight-for-age suggest Tsimane specific references may be useful for these measures. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Morphological responses of forage sorghums to salinity and ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

The response of forage sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] varieties to salinity and irrigation frequency were studied from December 2007 to December 2009. Two forage sorghum varieties (Speedfeed and KFS4) were grown under salinity levels of 0, 5, 10 and 15 dS m-1 and irrigated when the leaf water potential ...

Foraging behavior and virulence of some entomopathogenic nematodes

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Manana A. Lortkipanidze

2016-06-01

Full Text Available At present the biological control as a pest control technology is becoming more desirable. Biological formulations on basis of entomopathogenic nematodes are one of the effective means for the protection of agricultural and forest plants from harmful insects. Nowadays, the use of entomopathogenic nematodes as biological control agents is a key component in IPM system. The foraging strategies of entomopathogenic nematodes (EPNs vary between species. This variation is consistent with use of different foraging strategies between ambush, cruise and intermediate to find their host insects. In order to ambush prey, some species of EPNs nictate, or raise their bodies of the soil surface so they are better poised to attach passing insects, other species adopt a cruising strategy and rarely nictate. Some species adopt an intermediate strategy between ambush and cruise. We compared in laboratory the foraging strategies of the entomopathogenic nematode species: Steinernema carpocapsae, Heterorhabditis bacteriophora and the recently described species Steinernema tbilisiensis and assessed their virulence against mealworm beetle, Tenebrio molitor L. (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae. The tests showed that S. tbilisiensis adopts both foraging strategies.

Prey distribution, physical habitat features, and guild traits interact to produce contrasting shorebird assemblages among foraging patches.

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Beth M VanDusen

Full Text Available Worldwide declines in shorebird populations, driven largely by habitat loss and degradation, motivate environmental managers to preserve and restore the critical coastal habitats on which these birds depend. Effective habitat management requires an understanding of the factors that determine habitat use and value to shorebirds, extending from individuals to the entire community. While investigating the factors that influenced shorebird foraging distributions among neighboring intertidal sand flats, we built upon species-level understandings of individual-based, small-scale foraging decisions to develop more comprehensive guild- and community-level insights. We found that densities and community composition of foraging shorebirds varied substantially among elevations within some tidal flats and among five flats despite their proximity (all located within a 400-m stretch of natural, unmodified inlet shoreline. Non-dimensional multivariate analyses revealed that the changing composition of the shorebird community among flats and tidal elevations correlated significantly (ρ(s = 0.56 with the spatial structure of the benthic invertebrate prey community. Sediment grain-sizes affected shorebird community spatial patterns indirectly by influencing benthic macroinvertebrate community compositions. Furthermore, combining sediment and macroinvertebrate information produced a 27% increase in correlation (ρ(s = 0.71 with shorebird assemblage patterns over the correlation of the bird community with the macroinvertebrate community alone. Beyond its indirect effects acting through prey distributions, granulometry of the flats influenced shorebird foraging directly by modifying prey availability. Our study highlights the importance of habitat heterogeneity, showing that no single patch type was ideal for the entire shorebird community. Generally, shorebird density and diversity were greatest at lower elevations on flats when they became exposed; these

Longitudinal Effects of Supplemental Forage on the Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) Microbiota and Inter- and Intra-Colony Variability.

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Rothman, Jason A; Carroll, Mark J; Meikle, William G; Anderson, Kirk E; McFrederick, Quinn S

2018-02-03

Honey bees (Apis mellifera) provide vital pollination services for a variety of agricultural crops around the world and are known to host a consistent core bacterial microbiome. This symbiotic microbial community is essential to many facets of bee health, including likely nutrient acquisition, disease prevention and optimal physiological function. Being that the bee microbiome is likely involved in the digestion of nutrients, we either provided or excluded honey bee colonies from supplemental floral forage before being used for almond pollination. We then used 16S rRNA gene sequencing to examine the effects of forage treatment on the bees' microbial gut communities over four months. In agreement with previous studies, we found that the honey bee gut microbiota is quite stable over time. Similarly, we compared the gut communities of bees from separate colonies and sisters sampled from within the same hive over four months. Surprisingly, we found that the gut microbial communities of individual sisters from the same colony can exhibit as much variation as bees from different colonies. Supplemental floral forage had a subtle effect on the composition of the microbiome during the month of March only, with strains of Gilliamella apicola, Lactobacillus, and Bartonella being less proportionally abundant in bees exposed to forage in the winter. Collectively, our findings show that there is unexpected longitudinal variation within the gut microbial communities of sister honey bees and that supplemental floral forage can subtly alter the microbiome of managed honey bees.

Dance communication affects consistency, but not breadth, of resource use in pollen-foraging honey bees.

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Matina Donaldson-Matasci

Full Text Available In groups of cooperatively foraging individuals, communication may improve the group's performance by directing foraging effort to where it is most useful. Honey bees (Apis mellifera use a specialized dance to communicate the location of floral resources. Because honey bees dance longer for more rewarding resources, communication may shift the colony's foraging effort towards higher quality resources, and thus narrow the spectrum of resource types used. To test the hypothesis that dance communication changes how much honey bee colonies specialize on particular resources, we manipulated their ability to communicate location, and assessed the relative abundance of different pollen taxa they collected. This was repeated across five natural habitats that differed in floral species richness and spatial distribution. Contrary to expectation, impairing communication did not change the number or diversity of pollen (resource types used by individual colonies per day. However, colonies with intact dance communication were more consistent in their resource use, while those with impaired communication were more likely to collect rare, novel pollen types. This suggests that communication plays an important role in shaping how much colonies invest in exploring new resources versus exploiting known ones. Furthermore, colonies that did more exploration also tended to collect less pollen overall, but only in environments with greater floral abundance per patch. In such environments, the ability to effectively exploit highly rewarding resources may be especially important-and dance communication may help colonies do just that. This could help explain how communication benefits honey bee colonies, and also why it does so only under certain environmental conditions.

Genetic diversity within honeybee colonies increases signal production by waggle-dancing foragers

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Mattila, Heather R; Burke, Kelly M; Seeley, Thomas D

2008-01-01

Recent work has demonstrated considerable benefits of intracolonial genetic diversity for the productivity of honeybee colonies: single-patriline colonies have depressed foraging rates, smaller food stores and slower weight gain relative to multiple-patriline colonies. We explored whether differences in the use of foraging-related communication behaviour (waggle dances and shaking signals) underlie differences in foraging effort of genetically diverse and genetically uniform colonies. We created three pairs of colonies; each pair had one colony headed by a multiply mated queen (inseminated by 15 drones) and one colony headed by a singly mated queen. For each pair, we monitored the production of foraging-related signals over the course of 3 days. Foragers in genetically diverse colonies had substantially more information available to them about food resources than foragers in uniform colonies. On average, in genetically diverse colonies compared with genetically uniform colonies, 36% more waggle dances were identified daily, dancers performed 62% more waggle runs per dance, foragers reported food discoveries that were farther from the nest and 91% more shaking signals were exchanged among workers each morning prior to foraging. Extreme polyandry by honeybee queens enhances the production of worker–worker communication signals that facilitate the swift discovery and exploitation of food resources. PMID:18198143

Spatiotemporal heterogeneity in prey abundance and vulnerability shapes the foraging tactics of an omnivore.

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Rayl, Nathaniel D; Bastille-Rousseau, Guillaume; Organ, John F; Mumma, Matthew A; Mahoney, Shane P; Soulliere, Colleen E; Lewis, Keith P; Otto, Robert D; Murray, Dennis L; Waits, Lisette P; Fuller, Todd K

2018-05-01

Prey abundance and prey vulnerability vary across space and time, but we know little about how they mediate predator-prey interactions and predator foraging tactics. To evaluate the interplay between prey abundance, prey vulnerability and predator space use, we examined patterns of black bear (Ursus americanus) predation of caribou (Rangifer tarandus) neonates in Newfoundland, Canada using data from 317 collared individuals (9 bears, 34 adult female caribou, 274 caribou calves). During the caribou calving season, we predicted that landscape features would influence calf vulnerability to bear predation, and that bears would actively hunt calves by selecting areas associated with increased calf vulnerability. Further, we hypothesized that bears would dynamically adjust their foraging tactics in response to spatiotemporal changes in calf abundance and vulnerability (collectively, calf availability). Accordingly, we expected bears to actively hunt calves when they were most abundant and vulnerable, but switch to foraging on other resources as calf availability declined. As predicted, landscape heterogeneity influenced risk of mortality, and bears displayed the strongest selection for areas where they were most likely to kill calves, which suggested they were actively hunting caribou. Initially, the per-capita rate at which bears killed calves followed a type-I functional response, but as the calving season progressed and calf vulnerability declined, kill rates dissociated from calf abundance. In support of our hypothesis, bears adjusted their foraging tactics when they were less efficient at catching calves, highlighting the influence that predation phenology may have on predator space use. Contrary to our expectations, however, bears appeared to continue to hunt caribou as calf availability declined, but switched from a tactic of selecting areas of increased calf vulnerability to a tactic that maximized encounter rates with calves. Our results reveal that generalist

King eider foraging effort during the pre-breeding period in Alaska

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Oppel, Steffen; Powell, Abby N.; Butler, Malcolm G.

2011-01-01

For reproduction, many arctic-nesting migratory birds rely on nutrients obtained on the breeding grounds, so they devote sufficient time to foraging immediately prior to nesting. However, little is known about the increase in foraging effort necessary to meet the energetic requirements of reproduction. In early June 2006 and 2008, we quantified the proportion of time spent foraging before breeding by a large sea duck, the King Eider (Somateria spectabilis), on its breeding grounds in northern Alaska. During >235 hours of behavioral observations, both male and female King Eiders spent >50% of the day loafing (resting, sleeping, comfort behavior, or being alert). Females foraged on average 30% of the time (mean 7.2 hr day-1,95% CI 6.0-8.4 hr day-1), three times as much as males (9%; 2.3 hr day-1, 95% CI 1.5–2.8 hr day-1). The most common prey in ponds where the eiders foraged were chironomid larvae and worms ranging in length from 1 to 30 mm. If the King Eider's daily energy expenditure on its breeding grounds is similar to values published for related species, it would need to ingest only 0.2–0.6 g dry mass of invertebrates per minute of foraging to meet its energetic requirements. Males did not lose body mass before breeding, and we assume that their foraging effort was sufficient for energy balance. Therefore, female King Eiders appear to triple their foraging effort over maintenance requirements to meet the energetic challenges of egg formation.

Foraging for brain stimulation: toward a neurobiology of computation.

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Gallistel, C R

1994-01-01

The self-stimulating rat performs foraging tasks mediated by simple computations that use interreward intervals and subjective reward magnitudes to determine stay durations. This is a simplified preparation in which to study the neurobiology of the elementary computational operations that make cognition possible, because the neural signal specifying the value of a computationally relevant variable is produced by direct electrical stimulation of a neural pathway. Newly developed measurement methods yield functions relating the subjective reward magnitude to the parameters of the neural signal. These measurements also show that the decision process that governs foraging behavior divides the subjective reward magnitude by the most recent interreward interval to determine the preferability of an option (a foraging patch). The decision process sets the parameters that determine stay durations (durations of visits to foraging patches) so that the ratios of the stay durations match the ratios of the preferabilities.

Foraging in corallivorous butterflyfish varies with wave exposure

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Noble, Mae M.; Pratchett, Morgan S.; Coker, Darren J.; Cvitanovic, Christopher; Fulton, Christopher J.

2014-06-01

Understanding the foraging patterns of reef fishes is crucial for determining patterns of resource use and the sensitivity of species to environmental change. While changes in prey availability and interspecific competition have been linked to patterns of prey selection, body condition, and survival in coral reef fishes, rarely has the influence of abiotic environmental conditions on foraging been considered. We used underwater digital video to explore how prey availability and wave exposure influence the behavioural time budgets and prey selectivity of four species of obligate coral-feeding butterflyfishes. All four species displayed high selectivity towards live hard corals, both in terms of time invested and frequency of searching and feeding events. However, our novel analysis revealed that such selectivity was sensitive to wave exposure in some species, despite there being no significant differences in the availability of each prey category across exposures. In most cases, these obligate corallivores increased their selectivity towards their most favoured prey types at sites of high wave exposure. This suggests there are costs to foraging under different wave environments that can shape the foraging patterns of butterflyfishes in concert with other conditions such as prey availability, interspecific competition, and territoriality. Given that energy acquisition is crucial to the survival and fitness of fishes, we highlight how such environmental forcing of foraging behaviour may influence the ecological response of species to the ubiquitous and highly variable wave climates of shallow coral reefs.

Skill ontogeny among Tsimane forager-horticulturalists.

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Schniter, Eric; Gurven, Michael; Kaplan, Hillard S; Wilcox, Nathaniel T; Hooper, Paul L

2015-09-01

We investigate whether age profiles of Tsimane forager-horticulturalists' reported skill development are consistent with predictions derived from life history theory about the timing of productivity and reproduction. Previous studies of forager skill development have often focused on a few abilities (e.g. hunting), and neglected the broad range of skills and services typical of forager economies (e.g. childcare, craft production, music performance, story-telling). By systematically examining age patterns in reported acquisition, proficiency, and expertise across a broad range of activities including food production, childcare, and other services, we provide the most complete skill development study of a traditional subsistence society to date. Our results show that: (1) most essential skills are acquired prior to first reproduction, then developed further so that their productive returns meet the increasing demands of dependent offspring during adulthood; (2) as postreproductive adults age beyond earlier years of peak performance, they report developing additional conceptual and procedural proficiency, and despite greater physical frailty than younger adults, are consensually regarded as the most expert (especially in music and storytelling), consistent with their roles as providers and educators. We find that adults have accurate understandings of their skillsets and skill levels -an important awareness for social exchange, comparison, learning, and pedagogy. These findings extend our understanding of the evolved human life history by illustrating how changes in embodied capital and the needs of dependent offspring predict the development of complementary skills and services in a forager-horticulturalist economy. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Visual field shape and foraging ecology in diurnal raptors.

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Potier, Simon; Duriez, Olivier; Cunningham, Gregory B; Bonhomme, Vincent; O'Rourke, Colleen; Fernández-Juricic, Esteban; Bonadonna, Francesco

2018-05-18

Birds, particularly raptors, are believed to forage primarily using visual cues. However, raptor foraging tactics are highly diverse - from chasing mobile prey to scavenging - which may reflect adaptations of their visual systems. To investigate this, we studied the visual field configuration of 15 species of diurnal Accipitriformes that differ in such tactics, first focusing on the binocular field and blind area by using a single traits approach, and then exploring the shape of the binocular field with morphometric approaches. While the maximum binocular field width did not differ in species of different foraging tactics, the overall shape of their binocular fields did. In particular, raptors chasing terrestrial prey (ground predators) had a more protruding binocular field and a wider blind area above the head than did raptors chasing aerial or aquatic prey and obligate scavengers. Ground predators that forage on mammals from above have a wide but short bill - which increases ingestion rate - and large suborbital ridge to avoid sun glare. This may explain the protruding binocular field and the wide blind area above the head. By contrast, species from the two other groups have long but narrow bills used to pluck, flake or tear food and may need large visual coverage (and reduced suborbital ridges) to increase their foraging efficiency ( e.g. using large visual coverage to follow the escaping prey in three dimensions or detect conspecifics). We propose that binocular field shape is associated with bill and suborbital ridge shape and, ultimately, foraging strategies. © 2018. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd.

The critical role of islands for waterbird breeding and foraging habitat in managed ponds of the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project, South San Francisco Bay, California

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Ackerman, Joshua T.; Hartman, C. Alex; Herzog, Mark P.; Smith, Lacy M.; Moskal, Stacy M.; De La Cruz, Susan E. W.; Yee, Julie L.; Takekawa, John Y.

2014-01-01

The South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project aims to restore 50–90 percent of former salt evaporation ponds into tidal marsh in South San Francisco Bay, California. However, large numbers of waterbirds use these ponds annually as nesting and foraging habitat. Islands within ponds are particularly important habitat for nesting, foraging, and roosting waterbirds. To maintain current waterbird populations, the South Bay Salt Pond Restoration Project plans to create new islands within former salt ponds in South San Francisco Bay. In a series of studies, we investigated pond and individual island attributes that are most beneficial to nesting, foraging, and roosting waterbirds.

Cognitive plasticity in foraging Vespula germanica wasps.

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D'Adamo, Paola; Lozada, Mariana

2011-01-01

Vespula germanica (F.) (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) is a highly invasive social wasp that exhibits a rich behavioral repertoire in which learning and memory play a fundamental role in foraging. The learning abilities of these wasps were analyzed while relocating a food source and whether V. germanica foragers are capable of discriminating between different orientation patterns and generalizing their choice to a new pattern. Foraging wasps were trained to associate two different stripe orientation patterns with their respective food locations. Their response to a novel configuration that maintained the orientation of one of the learned patterns but differed in other aspects (e.g. width of stripes) was then evaluated. The results support the hypothesis that V. germanica wasps are able to associate a particular oriented pattern with the location of a feeder and to generalize their choice to a new pattern, which differed in quality, but presented the same orientation.

Forage selection by Royle's pika (Ochotona roylei) in the western Himalaya, India.

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Bhattacharyya, Sabuj; Adhikari, Bhupendra S; Rawat, Gopal S

2013-10-01

Forage selection decisions of herbivores are often complex and dynamic; they are modulated by multiple cues, such as quality, accessibility and abundance of forage plants. To advance the understanding of plant-herbivore interactions, we explored foraging behavior of the alpine lagomorph Royle's pika (Ochotona roylei) in Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary, India. Pika bite counts on food plants were recorded through focal sampling in three permanently marked plots. Food plant abundance was recorded by traditional quadrat procedures; forage selection was estimated with Jacob's selection index. Multiple food-choice experiments were conducted to determine whether forage selection criteria would change with variation in food plant composition. We also analyzed leaf morphology and nutrient content in both major food plants and abundantly available non-food plants. Linear regression models were used to test competing hypotheses in order to identify factors governing forage selection. Royle's pika fed primarily on 17 plant species and each forage selection decision was positively modulated by leaf area and negatively modulated by contents of avoided substances (neutral detergent fiber, acid detergent fiber, acid detergent lignin and tannin) in food plants. Furthermore, significance of the interaction term "leaf size × avoided substance" indicates that plants with large leaves were selected only when they had low avoided substance content. The forage selection criteria did not differ between field and laboratory experiments. The parameter estimates of best fit models indicate that the influence of leaf size or amount of avoided substance on pika forage selection was modulated by the magnitude of predation risk. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.

Fine-scale foraging ecology of leatherback turtles

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Bryan P Wallace

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Remote tracking of migratory species and statistical modeling of behaviors have enabled identification of areas that are of high ecological value to these widely distributed taxa. However, direct observations at fine spatio-temporal scales are often needed to correctly interpret behaviors. In this study, we combined GPS-derived locations and archival dive records (1 sec sampling rate with animal-borne video footage from foraging leatherback turtles (Dermochelys coriacea in Nova Scotia, Canada (Northwest Atlantic Ocean to generate the most highly detailed description of natural leatherback behavior presented to date. Turtles traveled shorter distances at slower rates and increased diving rates in areas of high prey abundance, which resulted in higher prey capture rates. Increased foraging effort (e.g., dive rate, dive duration, prey handling time, number of bites was not associated with increased time at the surface breathing to replenish oxygen stores. Instead, leatherbacks generally performed short, shallow dives in the photic zone to or above the thermocline, where they disproportionately captured prey at bottoms of dives and during ascents. This foraging strategy supports visual prey detection, allows leatherbacks to exploit physically structured prey at relatively shallow depths (typically <30m, and increases time turtles spend in warmer water temperatures, thus optimizing net energy acquisition. Our results demonstrate that leatherbacks appear to be continuously foraging during daylight hours while in continental shelf waters of Nova Scotia, and that leatherback foraging behavior is driven by prey availability, not by whether or not a turtle is in a resource patch characterized by a particular size or prey density. Our study demonstrates the fundamental importance of obtaining field-based, direct observations of true behaviors at fine spatial and temporal scales to enhance our efforts to both study and manage migratory species.

Impact of Different Forms of Environmental Enrichment on Foraging and Activity Levels in Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla

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Kristie Charmoy

2015-08-01

Full Text Available The maintenance of species-specific behaviors for animals in zoological institutions is of top priority, as this can help ensure high levels of animal welfare. Strict feeding schedules within institutions can often impact natural foraging behaviors of animals, as they are no longer required to seek out or manipulate food items. In the wild, western lowland gorillas would spend a majority of their time foraging. The goal of the current study was to examine the impact of different forms of environmental enrichment on activity and foraging levels in gorillas at the Brookfield Zoo. Results suggest that automatic belt feeders that can feed at randomized times, will have the largest impact on behavior of all enrichment tested. However, there were individual differences observed between animals and the level of impact on their behavior. Using enrichment to increase the amount of time that zoo-housed gorillas spend searching for, acquiring, and consuming food can increase their overall activity levels and shift their behavior towards a more naturalistic direction.

Factors affecting individual foraging specialization and temporal diet stability across the range of a large “generalist” apex predator

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Rosenblatt, Adam E.; Nifong, James C.; Heithaus, Michael R.; Mazzotti, Frank J.; Cherkiss, Michael S.; Jeffery, Brian M.; Elsey, Ruth M.; Decker, Rachel A.; Silliman, Brian R.; Guillette, Louis J.; Lowers, Russell H.; Larson, Justin C.

2015-01-01

Individual niche specialization (INS) is increasingly recognized as an important component of ecological and evolutionary dynamics. However, most studies that have investigated INS have focused on the effects of niche width and inter- and intraspecific competition on INS in small-bodied species for short time periods, with less attention paid to INS in large-bodied reptilian predators and the effects of available prey types on INS. We investigated the prevalence, causes, and consequences of INS in foraging behaviors across different populations of American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis), the dominant aquatic apex predator across the southeast US, using stomach contents and stable isotopes. Gut contents revealed that, over the short term, although alligator populations occupied wide ranges of the INS spectrum, general patterns were apparent. Alligator populations inhabiting lakes exhibited lower INS than coastal populations, likely driven by variation in habitat type and available prey types. Stable isotopes revealed that over longer time spans alligators exhibited remarkably consistent use of variable mixtures of carbon pools (e.g., marine and freshwater food webs). We conclude that INS in large-bodied reptilian predator populations is likely affected by variation in available prey types and habitat heterogeneity, and that INS should be incorporated into management strategies to efficiently meet intended goals. Also, ecological models, which typically do not consider behavioral variability, should include INS to increase model realism and applicability.

A New Perspective on the Foraging Ecology of Apex Predators in the California Current: Results from a Fully Coupled Ecosystem Model

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Fiechter, J.; Huckstadt, L. A.; Rose, K.; Costa, D. P.; Curchitser, E. N.; Hedstrom, K.; Edwards, C. A.; Moore, A. M.

2016-02-01

Results from a fully coupled end-to-end ecosystem model for the California Current Large Marine Ecosystem are used to describe the impact of environmental variability on the foraging ecology of its most abundant apex predator, California sea lions (Zalophus californianus). The ecosystem model consists of a biogeochemical submodel embedded in a regional ocean circulation submodel, and both coupled with a multi-species individual-based submodel for forage fish (sardine and anchovy) and California sea lions. For sea lions, bioenergetics and behavioral attributes are specified using available TOPP (Tagging Of Pacific Predators) data on their foraging patterns and diet in the California Current. Sardine and anchovy are explicitly included in the model as they represent important prey sources for California sea lions and exhibit significant interannual and decadal variability in population abundances. Output from a 20-year run (1989-2008) of the model demonstrates how different physical and biological processes control habitat utilization and foraging success of California sea lions on interannual time scales. A principal component analysis of sea lion foraging patterns indicates that the first mode of variability is alongshore and tied to sardine availability, while the second mode is cross-shore and associated with coastal upwelling intensity (a behavior consistent with male sea lion tracking data collected in 2004 vs. 2005). The results also illustrate how variability in environmental conditions and forage fish distribution affects sea lions feeding success. While specifically focusing on the foraging ecology of sea lions, our modeling framework has the ability to provide new and unique perspectives on trophic interactions in the California Current, or other regions where similar end-to-end ecosystem models may be implemented.

Foraging behaviour and feeding ecology of the Black-cheeked ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Foraging behaviour and feeding ecology of the Black-cheeked Lovebird Agapornis nigrigenis were studied in Zambia. The birds fed on at least 39 species, and food items included seeds, leaves, flowers (especially nectar), fruit pulp, invertebrates, bark, lichen and resin. Terrestrial foraging was dominant, whereas arboreal ...

Optimal Foraging for Multiple Resources in Several Food Species

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hengeveld, G.M.; Langevelde, van F.; Groen, T.A.; Knegt, de H.J.

2009-01-01

The concentrations of resources in forage are not perfectly balanced to the needs of an animal, and food species differ in these concentrations. Under many circumstances, animals should thus forage on multiple food species to attain the maximum and most balanced intake of several resources. In this

Optimal foraging for multiple resources in several food species

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hengeveld, G.M.; van Langevelde, F.; Groen, T.A.; de Knegt, H.J.

2009-01-01

The concentrations of resources in forage are not perfectly balanced to the needs of an animal, and food species differ in these concentrations. Under many circumstances, animals should thus forage on multiple food species to attain the maximum and most balanced intake of several resources. In this

A properly adjusted forage harvester can save time and money

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A properly adjusted forage harvester can save fuel and increase the realizable milk per ton of your silage. This article details the adjustments necessary to minimize energy while maximizing productivity and forage quality....

Red-cockaded woodpecker male/female foraging differences in young forest stands.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Franzreb, Kathleen, E.

2010-07-01

ABSTRACT The Red-cockaded Woodpecker (Picoides borealis) is an endangered species endemic to pine (Pinus spp.) forests of the southeastern United States. I examined Red-cockaded Woodpecker foraging behavior to learn if there were male/female differences at the Savannah River Site, South Carolina. The study was conducted in largely young forest stands (,50 years of age) in contrast to earlier foraging behavior studies that focused on more mature forest. The Redcockaded Woodpecker at the Savannah River site is intensively managed including monitoring, translocation, and installation of artificial cavity inserts for roosting and nesting. Over a 3-year period, 6,407 foraging observations covering seven woodpecker family groups were recorded during all seasons of the year and all times of day. The most striking differences occurred in foraging method (males usually scaled [45% of observations] and females mostly probed [47%]),substrate used (females had a stronger preference [93%] for the trunk than males [79%]), and foraging height from the ground (mean 6 SE foraging height was higher for males [11.1 6 0.5 m] than females [9.8 6 0.5 m]). Niche overlap between males and females was lowest for substrate (85.6%) and foraging height (87.8%), and highest for tree species (99.0%), tree condition (98.3%), and tree height (96.4%). Both males and females preferred to forage in older, large pine trees. The habitat available at the Savannah River Site was considerably younger than at most other locations, but the pattern of male/female habitat partitioning observed was similar to that documented elsewhere within the range attesting to the species’ ability to adjust behaviorally.

Forage yield and nitrogen nutrition dynamics of warm-season native forage genotypes under two shading levels and in full sunlight

OpenAIRE

Barro,Raquel Santiago; Varella,Alexandre Costa; Lemaire,Gilles; Medeiros,Renato Borges de; Saibro,João Carlos de; Nabinger,Carlos; Bangel,Felipe Villamil; Carassai,Igor Justin

2012-01-01

The successful achievement of a highly productive understorey pasture in silvopastoral systems depends on the use of well-adapted forage genotypes, showing good agronomic performance and persistence under shading and grazing. In this study, the herbage dry matter yield (DMY) and nitrogen nutrition dynamics were determined in three native warm-season grasses (Paspalum regnellii, Paspalum dilatatum and Paspalum notatum) and a forage legume (Arachis pintoi) under two shading levels compared with...

Use of biosolids to enhance rangeland forage quality.

Science.gov (United States)

McFarland, Michael J; Vasquez, Issaak Romero; Vutran, MaiAnh; Schmitz, Mark; Brobst, Robert B

2010-05-01

Biosolids land application was demonstrated to be a potentially cost-effective means for restoring forage productivity and enhancing soil-moisture-holding capacity on disturbed rangelands. By land-applying aerobically digested, anaerobically digested, composted, and lime-stabilized biosolids on rangeland test plots at rates of up to 20 times (20X) the estimated nitrogen-based agronomic rate, forage yields were found to increase from 132.8 kg/ha (118.2 lb/ac) (control plots) to 1182.3 kg/ha (1052.8 lb/ac). Despite the environmental benefits associated with increased forage yield (e.g., reduced soil erosion, improved drainage, and enhanced terrestrial carbon sequestration), the type of forage generated both before and after biosolids land application was found to be dominated by invasive weeds, all of which were characterized as having fair to poor nutritional value. Opportunistic and shallow rooting invasive weeds not only have marginal nutritional value, they also limit the establishment of native perennial grasses and thus biodiversity. Many of the identified invasive species (e.g., Cheatgrass) mature early, a characteristic that significantly increases the fuel loads that support the increased frequency and extent of western wildfires.

Amino acid profiles of rumen undegradable protein: a comparison between forages including cereal straws and alfalfa and their respective total mixed rations.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, B; Jiang, L S; Liu, J X

2018-06-01

Optimizing the amino acid (AA) profile of rumen undegradable protein (RUP) can positively affect the amount of milk protein. This study was conducted to improve knowledge regarding the AA profile of rumen undegradable protein from corn stover, rice straw and alfalfa hay as well as the total mixed ratio diets (TMR) based on one of them as forage source [forage-to-concentrate ratio of 45:55 (30% of corn stover (CS), 30% of rice straw (RS), 23% of alfalfa hay (AH) and dry matter basis)]. The other ingredients in the three TMR diets were similar. The RUP of all the forages and diets was estimated by incubation for 16 hr in the rumen of three ruminally cannulated lactating cows. All residues were corrected for microbial colonization, which was necessary in determining the AA composition of RUP from feed samples using in situ method. Compared with their original AA composition, the AA pattern of forages and forage-based diets changed drastically after rumen exposure. In addition, the extent of ruminal degradation of analysed AA was not constant among the forages. The greatest individual AA degradability of alfalfa hay and corn stover was Pro, but was His of rice straw. A remarkable difference was observed between microbial attachment corrected and uncorrected AA profiles of RUP, except for alfalfa hay and His in the three forages and TMR diets. The ruminal AA degradability of cereal straws was altered compared with alfalfa hay but not for the TMR diets. In summary, the AA composition of forages and TMR-based diets changed significantly after ruminal exposure, indicating that the original AA profiles of the feed cannot represent its AA composition of RUP. The AA profile of RUP and ruminal AA degradability for corn stover and rice straw contributed to missing information in the field. © 2017 Blackwell Verlag GmbH.

Rumen passage kinetics of forage and concentrate derived fiber in dairy cows

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Krämer, Monika; Lund, Peter; Weisbjerg, Martin Riis

2013-01-01

, were used in a completely randomized block experiment. Treatments differed in forage type (corn silage versus grass silage) and forage:concentrate ratio (50:50 versus 75:25 on organic matter basis). Fiber passage kinetics were studied based on rumen evacuations and on marker excretion profiles in feces....... The forage type itself (corn silage and grass silage) rather than ration composition seemed to determine the total tract retention time of forage fiber......Rumen passage kinetics of forage and concentrate fiber were analyzed to determine intrinsic feed effects and extrinsic ration effects on the retention time of fiber in the rumen. Sixteen Danish Holstein cows (557 + 37 kg body weight, 120 + 21 days in milk, mean + SD), 8 fitted with ruminal cannulas...

Patch dynamics of a foraging assemblage of bees.

Science.gov (United States)

Wright, David Hamilton

1985-03-01

The composition and dynamics of foraging assemblages of bees were examined from the standpoint of species-level arrival and departure processes in patches of flowers. Experiments with bees visiting 4 different species of flowers in subalpine meadows in Colorado gave the following results: 1) In enriched patches the rates of departure of bees were reduced, resulting in increases in both the number of bees per species and the average number of species present. 2) The reduction in bee departure rates from enriched patches was due to mechanical factors-increased flower handling time, and to behavioral factors-an increase in the number of flowers visited per inflorescence and in the number of inflorescences visited per patch. Bees foraging in enriched patches could collect nectar 30-45% faster than those foraging in control patches. 3) The quantitative changes in foraging assemblages due to enrichment, in terms of means and variances of species population sizes, fraction of time a species was present in a patch, and in mean and variance of the number of species present, were in reasonable agreement with predictions drawn from queuing theory and studies in island biogeography. 4) Experiments performed with 2 species of flowers with different corolla tube lengths demonstrated that manipulation of resources of differing availability had unequal effects on particular subsets of the larger foraging community. The arrival-departure process of bees on flowers and the immigration-extinction process of species on islands are contrasted, and the value of the stochastic, species-level approach to community composition is briefly discussed.

Contrafreeloading in grizzly bears: implications for captive foraging enrichment.

Science.gov (United States)

McGowan, Ragen T S; Robbins, Charles T; Alldredge, J Richard; Newberry, Ruth C

2010-01-01

Although traditional feeding regimens for captive animals were focused on meeting physiological needs to assure good health, more recently emphasis has also been placed on non-nutritive aspects of feeding. The provision of foraging materials to diversify feeding behavior is a common practice in zoos but selective consumption of foraging enrichment items over more balanced "chow" diets could lead to nutrient imbalance. One alternative is to provide balanced diets in a contrafreeloading paradigm. Contrafreeloading occurs when animals choose resources that require effort to exploit when identical resources are freely available. To investigate contrafreeloading and its potential as a theoretical foundation for foraging enrichment, we conducted two experiments with captive grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis). In Experiment 1, bears were presented with five foraging choices simultaneously: apples, apples in ice, salmon, salmon in ice, and plain ice under two levels of food restriction. Two measures of contrafreeloading were considered: weight of earned food consumed and time spent working for earned food. More free than earned food was eaten, with only two bears consuming food extracted from ice, but all bears spent more time manipulating ice containing salmon or apples than plain ice regardless of level of food restriction. In Experiment 2, food-restricted bears were presented with three foraging choices simultaneously: apples, apples inside a box, and an empty box. Although they ate more free than earned food, five bears consumed food from boxes and all spent more time manipulating boxes containing apples than empty boxes. Our findings support the provision of contrafreeloading opportunities as a foraging enrichment strategy for captive wildlife. (c) 2009 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Comparison of alternative beef production systems based on forage finishing or grain-forage diets with or without growth promotants: 2. Meat quality, fatty acid composition, and overall palatability.

Science.gov (United States)

Faucitano, L; Chouinard, P Y; Fortin, J; Mandell, I B; Lafrenière, C; Girard, C L; Berthiaume, R

2008-07-01

Five beef cattle management regimens were evaluated for their effect on meat quality, fatty acid composition, and overall palatability of the longis-simus dorsi (LD) muscle in Angus cross steers. A 98-d growing phase was conducted using grass silage with or without supplementation of growth promotants (Revalor G and Rumensin) or soybean meal. Dietary treatments in the finishing phase were developed with or without supplementation of growth promotants based on exclusive feeding of forages with no grain supplementation, or the feeding of grain:forage (70:30) diets. Growth promotants increased (P forages increased the proportion of cis-9, cis-12, cis-15 C18:3 as well as several other isomers of the n-3 family and decreased in the ratio of n-6 to n-3 fatty acids in the LD muscle as compared with supplementing grain (P forage-based diet increased (P Forage feeding also increased the proportion of cis-9, trans-11 C18:2 (P forage-finishing and growth promotants-free beef production system.

Wolf, Canis lupus, visits to white-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus, summer ranges: Optimal foraging?

Science.gov (United States)

Demma, D.J.; Mech, L.D.

2009-01-01

We tested whether Wolf (Canis lupus) visits to individual female White-tailed Deer (Odocoileus virginianus) summer ranges during 2003 and 2004 in northeastern Minnesota were in accord with optimal-foraging theory. Using GPS collars with 10- to 30-minute location attempts on four Wolves and five female deer, plus eleven VHF-collared female deer in the Wolves' territory, provided new insights into the frequency of Wolf visits to summer ranges of female deer. Wolves made a mean 0.055 visits/day to summer ranges of deer three years and older, significantly more than their 0.032 mean visits/day to ranges of two-year-old deer, which generally produce fewer fawns, and most Wolf visits to ranges of older deer were much longer than those to ranges of younger deer. Because fawns comprise the major part of the Wolf's summer diet, this Wolf behavior accords with optimal-foraging theory.

Supplementation of native grass hay with cowpea (Vigna unguiculata hay, wilted leucaena (Leucaena leucocephala forage, wilted tagasaste (Chamaecytisus palmensis forage or a wheat middling for young Friesian x Zebu (Boran crossbred steers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tuomo Varvikko

1992-03-01

Full Text Available A 100-day experiment of a randomized block design was conducted with forty Friesian x Zebu (Boran crossbred growing steers to compare the value of wheat middling, an agro-industrial by-product (diet W, cowpea (Vigna unguiculata hay (diet C, and wilted forages of leucaena (Leucaena leucocephala, diet L and tagasaste (Chamaecytisus palmensis, diet T as cattle feed. These feeds were fed daily at a level of 1.5 kg (on an air dry basis to supplement the basal diet (diet H of native hay. A mineral supplement containing 50 g bone meal and 10 g common salt was also given daily. The steers were group-fed, but during the last two weeks at the end of the experiment the animals were housed individually in feeding pens to estimate the feed intake and apparent digestibilities of the diets. The animals were weighed at the beginning of the experiment, thereafter every two weeks, and finally at the end of the experiment. The animals consumed all the offered supplements, except for tagasaste forage, of which one third remained unconsumed. The mean daily total dry matter intake during the individual feeding period ranged from 4.0 to 5.0 kg between the diets (P

Amygdala Signaling during Foraging in a Hazardous Environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Amir, Alon; Lee, Seung-Chan; Headley, Drew B; Herzallah, Mohammad M; Pare, Denis

2015-09-23

We recorded basolateral amygdala (BL) neurons in a seminaturalistic foraging task. Rats had to leave their nest to retrieve food in an elongated arena inhabited by a mechanical predator. There were marked trial-to-trial variations in behavior. After poking their head into the foraging arena and waiting there for a while, rats either retreated to their nest or initiated foraging. Before initiating foraging, rats waited longer on trials that followed failed than successful trials indicating that prior experience influenced behavior. Upon foraging initiation, most principal cells (Type-1) reduced their firing rate, while in a minority (Type-2) it increased. When rats aborted foraging, Type-1 cells increased their firing rates, whereas in Type-2 cells it did not change. Surprisingly, the opposite activity profiles of Type-1 and Type-2 units were also seen in control tasks devoid of explicit threats or rewards. The common correlate of BL activity across these tasks was movement velocity, although an influence of position was also observed. Thus depending on whether rats initiated movement or not, the activity of BL neurons decreased or increased, regardless of whether threat or rewards were present. Therefore, BL activity not only encodes threats or rewards, but is closely related to behavioral output. We propose that higher order cortical areas determine task-related changes in BL activity as a function of reward/threat expectations and internal states. Because Type-1 and Type-2 cells likely form differential connections with the central amygdala (controlling freezing), this process would determine whether movement aimed at attaining food or exploration is suppressed or facilitated. Significance statement: For decades, amygdala research has been dominated by pavlovian and operant conditioning paradigms. This work has led to the view that amygdala neurons signal threats or rewards, in turn causing defensive or approach behaviors. However, the artificial circumstances of

EXPLORATION UNDER SHADE PLANTS OF CASSAVA AND IT’S POTENTIAL AS FORAGE

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Novia Qomariyah

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Utilization of forage plants growing among cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz is not optimal. Potential for development of integration of both very large and mutually beneficial. Purpose of this study is to explore and identify types of forage that grows in shade of the cassava plant and potential for development as a source of forage. This study took place in March 2014 Month held at IPB Sinar Sari Complex Dramaga. This research method to define area of cassava plants as treatments that cassava plants were planted separately with another crop (monoculture and cassava crops are planted among crops and horticultural crops such as pariah plants, beans, squash and corn (polyculture. Furthermore, observed and forage samples taken were grown in both location and made herbarium and identified its kind. Results: forage crops are grown between cassava monoculture is more diverse than polyculture. Types of forage crops grown on cassava monoculture is Echinochloa colona, Setaria barbata, Family Juncaceae, Cyperus sp., Conjugatum paspalum, Cynodon dactylon, Stenotaphrum secundatum, Axonophus compressus (Swartz P. Beauv, Eleusine indica and Panicum maximum. Types of forage crops grown on cassava polyculture is colona Echinochloa, Setaria barbata, Family Juncaceae, Cyperus sp., Stenotaphrum secundatum, Eleusine indica and Leucaena leucephala.

More milk from forage: Milk production, blood metabolites, and forage intake of dairy cows grazing pasture mixtures and spatially adjacent monocultures.

Science.gov (United States)

Pembleton, Keith G; Hills, James L; Freeman, Mark J; McLaren, David K; French, Marion; Rawnsley, Richard P

2016-05-01

There is interest in the reincorporation of legumes and forbs into pasture-based dairy production systems as a means of increasing milk production through addressing the nutritive value limitations of grass pastures. The experiments reported in this paper were undertaken to evaluate milk production, blood metabolite concentrations, and forage intake levels of cows grazing either pasture mixtures or spatially adjacent monocultures containing perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne), white clover (Trifolium repens), and plantain (Plantago lanceolata) compared with cows grazing monocultures of perennial ryegrass. Four replicate herds, each containing 4 spring-calving, cross-bred dairy cows, grazed 4 different forage treatments over the periods of early, mid, and late lactation. Forage treatments were perennial ryegrass monoculture (PRG), a mixture of white clover and plantain (CPM), a mixture of perennial ryegrass, white clover, and plantain (RCPM), and spatially adjacent monocultures (SAM) of perennial ryegrass, white clover, and plantain. Milk volume, milk composition, blood fatty acids, blood β-hydroxybutyrate, blood urea N concentrations, live weight change, and estimated forage intake were monitored over a 5-d response period occurring after acclimation to each of the forage treatments. The acclimation period for the early, mid, and late lactation experiments were 13, 13, and 10 d, respectively. Milk yield (volume and milk protein) increased for cows grazing the RCPM and SAM in the early lactation experiment compared with cows grazing the PRG, whereas in the mid lactation experiment, milk fat increased for the cows grazing the RCPM and SAM when compared with the PRG treatments. Improvements in milk production from grazing the RCPM and SAM treatments are attributed to improved nutritive value (particularly lower neutral detergent fiber concentrations) and a potential increase in forage intake. Pasture mixtures or SAM containing plantain and white clover could be a

Systematic review of the influence of foraging habitat on red-cockaded woodpecker reproductive success.

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Garabedian, James E. [North Carolina State University

2014-04-01

Relationships between foraging habitat and reproductive success provide compelling evidence of the contribution of specific vegetative features to foraging habitat quality, a potentially limiting factor for many animal populations. For example, foraging habitat quality likely will gain importance in the recovery of the threatened red-cockaded woodpecker Picoides borealis (RCW) in the USA as immediate nesting constraints are mitigated. Several researchers have characterized resource selection by foraging RCWs, but emerging research linking reproductive success (e.g. clutch size, nestling and fledgling production, and group size) and foraging habitat features has yet to be synthesized. Therefore, we reviewed peer-refereed scientific literature and technical resources (e.g. books, symposia proceedings, and technical reports) that examined RCW foraging ecology, foraging habitat, or demography to evaluate evidence for effects of the key foraging habitat features described in the species’ recovery plan on group reproductive success. Fitness-based habitat models suggest foraging habitat with low to intermediate pine Pinus spp. densities, presence of large and old pines, minimal midstory development, and herbaceous groundcover support more productive RCW groups. However, the relationships between some foraging habitat features and RCW reproductive success are not well supported by empirical data. In addition, few regression models account for > 30% of variation in reproductive success, and unstandardized multiple and simple linear regression coefficient estimates typically range from -0.100 to 0.100, suggesting ancillary variables and perhaps indirect mechanisms influence reproductive success. These findings suggest additional research is needed to address uncertainty in relationships between foraging habitat features and RCW reproductive success and in the mechanisms underlying those relationships.

Forage fish, their fisheries, and their predators: who drives whom?

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Engelhard, Georg H.; Peck, Myron A.; Rindorf, Anna

2014-01-01

exist, as in the North Sea. Sandeel appears to be the most important prey forage fish. Seabirds are most dependent on forage fish, due to specialized diet and distributional constraints (breeding colonies). Other than fisheries, key predators of forage fish are a few piscivorous fish species including...... saithe, whiting, mackerel, and horse-mackerel, exploited in turn by fisheries; seabirds and seals have a more modest impact. Size-based foodwebmodelling suggests that reducing fishing mortality may not necessarily lead to larger stocks of piscivorous fish, especially if their early life stages compete...

Foraging Activity Pattern Is Shaped by Water Loss Rates in a Diurnal Desert Rodent.

Science.gov (United States)

Levy, Ofir; Dayan, Tamar; Porter, Warren P; Kronfeld-Schor, Noga

2016-08-01

Although animals fine-tune their activity to avoid excess heat, we still lack a mechanistic understanding of such behaviors. As the global climate changes, such understanding is particularly important for projecting shifts in the activity patterns of populations and communities. We studied how foraging decisions vary with biotic and abiotic pressures. By tracking the foraging behavior of diurnal desert spiny mice in their natural habitat and estimating the energy and water costs and benefits of foraging, we asked how risk management and thermoregulatory requirements affect foraging decisions. We found that water requirements had the strongest effect on the observed foraging decisions. In their arid environment, mice often lose water while foraging for seeds and cease foraging even at high energetic returns when water loss is high. Mice also foraged more often when energy expenditure was high and for longer times under high seed densities and low predation risks. Gaining insight into both energy and water balance will be crucial to understanding the forces exerted by changing climatic conditions on animal energetics, behavior, and ecology.

Swimming Behavior of Individual Zooplankters During Night-Time Foraging

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

McGehee, Duncan

1998-01-01

Amatzia Genin, Jules Jaffe, Duncan McGehee developed a method for automatically tracking individual plankters swimming through the imaging volume, and applied the method to track approximately 280,000 animals...

Guanaco’s diet and forage preferences in Nothofagus forest environments of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Quinteros, C.P.; Bava, J.; Gobbi, M.E.; Defossé, G.E.

2017-11-01

Aim of study: Guanaco (Lama guanicoe Müller), is a South American native ungulate widely distributed in Patagonia, which in the island of Tierra del Fuego (TF), extends its habitat into Nothofagus spp. forests. Within these forests, guanacos consume lenga (Nothofagus pumilio) leaves and twigs, and other understory species. The aim of this work was to determine: 1) the spring and summer diet of free ranging guanacos, and 2) which plants, grown in the forest understory, guanacos do prefer, or avoid, in these seasons of great forage abundance. Area of study: Tierra del Fuego (Argentina), on three representative areas which combined Nothofagus forests and adjacent meadows (vegas). Material and Methods: uanacos’ diet was determined by comparing epidermal and non-epidermal plant fragments with micro-histological analyses of feces. The analysis was made from composite samples of fresh feces, collected at the seasons of maximum forage productivity (spring and summer). Main results: During spring, 48% of guanacos’ diet was composed of lenga leaves, 30% of grass-like species, 15% of grasses, and less than 7% of herbs, shrubs, and lichens. In summer, 40% of the diet was composed of grasses, 30% of lenga leaves, 25% of grass-like species and the rest corresponded to herbs, shrubs, and lichens. Within the forest understory, guanaco selected lenga leaves and twigs, grass species were consumed according to their availability (or sometimes rejected), while other herbs were not consumed at all. Research highlights: Guanacos’ consumption preference for lenga, even considering the high availability of other forages, could adversely affect forest regeneration.

Guanaco’s diet and forage preferences in Nothofagus forest environments of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Quinteros, C.P.; Bava, J.; Gobbi, M.E.; Defossé, G.E.

2017-01-01

Aim of study: Guanaco (Lama guanicoe Müller), is a South American native ungulate widely distributed in Patagonia, which in the island of Tierra del Fuego (TF), extends its habitat into Nothofagus spp. forests. Within these forests, guanacos consume lenga (Nothofagus pumilio) leaves and twigs, and other understory species. The aim of this work was to determine: 1) the spring and summer diet of free ranging guanacos, and 2) which plants, grown in the forest understory, guanacos do prefer, or avoid, in these seasons of great forage abundance. Area of study: Tierra del Fuego (Argentina), on three representative areas which combined Nothofagus forests and adjacent meadows (vegas). Material and Methods: uanacos’ diet was determined by comparing epidermal and non-epidermal plant fragments with micro-histological analyses of feces. The analysis was made from composite samples of fresh feces, collected at the seasons of maximum forage productivity (spring and summer). Main results: During spring, 48% of guanacos’ diet was composed of lenga leaves, 30% of grass-like species, 15% of grasses, and less than 7% of herbs, shrubs, and lichens. In summer, 40% of the diet was composed of grasses, 30% of lenga leaves, 25% of grass-like species and the rest corresponded to herbs, shrubs, and lichens. Within the forest understory, guanaco selected lenga leaves and twigs, grass species were consumed according to their availability (or sometimes rejected), while other herbs were not consumed at all. Research highlights: Guanacos’ consumption preference for lenga, even considering the high availability of other forages, could adversely affect forest regeneration.

The bacterial communities associated with honey bee (Apis mellifera foragers.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vanessa Corby-Harris

Full Text Available The honey bee is a key pollinator species in decline worldwide. As part of a commercial operation, bee colonies are exposed to a variety of agricultural ecosystems throughout the year and a multitude of environmental variables that may affect the microbial balance of individuals and the hive. While many recent studies support the idea of a core microbiota in guts of younger in-hive bees, it is unknown whether this core is present in forager bees or the pollen they carry back to the hive. Additionally, several studies hypothesize that the foregut (crop, a key interface between the pollination environment and hive food stores, contains a set of 13 lactic acid bacteria (LAB that inoculate collected pollen and act in synergy to preserve pollen stores. Here, we used a combination of 454 based 16S rRNA gene sequencing of the microbial communities of forager guts, crops, and corbicular pollen and crop plate counts to show that (1 despite a very different diet, forager guts contain a core microbiota similar to that found in younger bees, (2 corbicular pollen contains a diverse community dominated by hive-specific, environmental or phyllosphere bacteria that are not prevalent in the gut or crop, and (3 the 13 LAB found in culture-based studies are not specific to the crop but are a small subset of midgut or hindgut specific bacteria identified in many recent 454 amplicon-based studies. The crop is dominated by Lactobacillus kunkeei, and Alpha 2.2 (Acetobacteraceae, highly osmotolerant and acid resistant bacteria found in stored pollen and honey. Crop taxa at low abundance include core hindgut bacteria in transit to their primary niche, and potential pathogens or food spoilage organisms seemingly vectored from the pollination environment. We conclude that the crop microbial environment is influenced by worker task, and may function in both decontamination and inoculation.

Comparison of sorghum classes for grain and forage yield and forage nutritive value

Science.gov (United States)

Sorghum represents a broad category of plants that includes those grown primarily for forage (FS) or grain. Sorghum sudan crosses (SS) are also considered sorghum. Each of these groups can be further classified as brown midrib (BMR), nonBMR, photoperiod sensitive (PS), and nonPS. In our study, sor...

U.S. DAIRY FORAGE RESEARCH CENTER

Data.gov (United States)

Federal Laboratory Consortium — Vision: Leading the world in integrated dairy forage systems research. Mission: Providing dairy industry solutions for food security, environmental sustainability,...

U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center

Data.gov (United States)

Federal Laboratory Consortium — Vision: Leading the world in integrated dairy forage systems research. Mission: Providing dairy industry solutions for food security, environmental sustainability,...

Social foraging by waterbirds in shallow coastal lagoons in Ghana

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Battley, PF; Poot, M; Wiersma, P; Gordon, C; Ntiamoa-Baidu, Y; Piersma, T; Battley, Phil F.

Social foraging in waterbirds in Ghanaian coastal lagoons was studied during October and November 1994. Two types of foraging were social: directionally synchronized flocks (often involving distinctive feeding methods used in unison) and dense pecking aggregations. Social flocks were typically

Climatic and hydrologic influences on wading bird foraging patterns in Everglades National Park

Science.gov (United States)

Kwon, H.; Lall, U.; Engel, V.

2007-12-01

A goal of the Everglades National Park (ENP) restoration project is to ensure that the ecological health of the ENP improves as a direct result of management activities. Achieving hydrologic targets through the proper timing and amount of releases from control structures is a first step in the management process. Significant climate and weather variations in the region influence the ability to make releases and also determine the ecological outcomes. An assessment of the relative impact of climate variations and water releases to ENP in determining ecological outcomes is consequently a key to the evaluation of the success or failure of any restoration plan. Seasonal water depths in ENP depend on managed surface water releases from control structures and on direct rainfall. Here we link wading bird foraging patterns - a fundamental aspect of Everglades' ecology - to hydrologic management and climate variability in the National Park. Our objective is multifold. First, we relate the water levels at P33 and Shark Slough to the synoptic hydrologic conditions. Second, we develop a statistical model relating water levels at a station in central Shark Slough (P33) to wading birds foraging patterns throughout ENP. We attempt to apply a Hierarchical Bayesian scheme to a time series of wading bird to provide an uncertainty distribution of the population over specified time periods given hydrologic condition. Third, we develop a set of hydrologic index derived by recorded water level at P33 for a use of the statistical model of wading birds as an input. Our study will focus on great egret and white ibis that are major species among wading birds in the ENP. The great egret and white ibis prediction predicted by the model using the proposed predictors exhibits strong correlation with the observed streamflow, with an correlation 0.8.

Effects of seasonal advancement on the forage availability, quality ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Effects of seasonal advancement on the forage availability, quality and acceptability by grazing gudali cattle in the humid zone of Nigeria. ... There were significant (p<0.05) differences in the dry matter (DM), crude protein (CP) and neutral detergent fibre (NDF) contents of all the forages. DM content ranged from 9.6% (Tridax ...

Optimal foraging in seasonal environments: implications for residency of Australian flying foxes in food-subsidized urban landscapes.

Science.gov (United States)

Páez, David J; Restif, Olivier; Eby, Peggy; Plowright, Raina K

2018-05-05

Bats provide important ecosystem services such as pollination of native forests; they are also a source of zoonotic pathogens for humans and domestic animals. Human-induced changes to native habitats may have created more opportunities for bats to reside in urban settings, thus decreasing pollination services to native forests and increasing opportunities for zoonotic transmission. In Australia, fruit bats ( Pteropus spp. flying foxes) are increasingly inhabiting urban areas where they feed on anthropogenic food sources with nutritional characteristics and phenology that differ from native habitats. We use optimal foraging theory to investigate the relationship between bat residence time in a patch, the time it takes to search for a new patch (simulating loss of native habitat) and seasonal resource production. We show that it can be beneficial to reside in a patch, even when food productivity is low, as long as foraging intensity is low and the expected searching time is high. A small increase in the expected patch searching time greatly increases the residence time, suggesting nonlinear associations between patch residence and loss of seasonal native resources. We also found that sudden increases in resource consumption due to an influx of new bats has complex effects on patch departure times that again depend on expected searching times and seasonality. Our results suggest that the increased use of urban landscapes by bats may be a response to new spatial and temporal configurations of foraging opportunities. Given that bats are reservoir hosts of zoonotic diseases, our results provide a framework to study the effects of foraging ecology on disease dynamics.One contribution of 14 to a theme isssue 'Anthropogenic resource subsidies and host-parasite dynamics in wildlife'. © 2018 The Author(s).

Whose urban forest? The political ecology of foraging urban nontimber forest products

Science.gov (United States)

Patrick T. Hurley; Marla R. Emery; Rebecca McLain; Melissa Poe; Brian Grabbatin; Cari L. Goetcheus

2015-01-01

Drawing on case studies of foraging in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina, we point to foraging landscapes and practices within diverse urban forest spaces. We examine these spaces in relation to U.S. conservation and development processes and the effects of management and governance on species valued by foragers. These case studies reveal the...

Foraging behavior of pileated woodpeckers in partial cut and uncut bottomland hardwood forest

Science.gov (United States)

Newell, P.; King, Sammy L.; Kaller, Michael D.

2009-01-01

In bottomland hardwood forests, partial cutting techniques are increasingly advocated and used to create habitat for priority wildlife like Louisiana black bear (Ursus americanus luteolus), white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), and Neotropical migrants. Although partial cutting may be beneficial to some species, those that use dead wood may be negatively affected since large diameter and poor quality trees (deformed, moribund, or dead) are rare, but normally targeted for removal. On the other hand, partial cutting can create dead wood if logging slash is left on-site. We studied foraging behavior of pileated woodpeckers (Dryocopus pileatus) in one- and two-year-old partial cuts designed to benefit priority species and in uncut forest during winter, spring, and summer of 2006 and 2007 in Louisiana. Males and females did not differ in their use of tree species, dbh class, decay class, foraging height, use of foraging tactics or substrate types; however, males foraged on larger substrates than females. In both partial cut and uncut forest, standing live trees were most frequently used (83% compared to 14% for standing dead trees and 3% for coarse woody debris); however, dead trees were selected (i.e. used out of proportion to availability). Overcup oak (Quercus lyrata) and bitter pecan (Carya aquatica) were also selected and sugarberry (Celtis laevigata) avoided. Pileated woodpeckers selected trees >= 50 cm dbh and avoided trees in smaller dbh classes (10-20 cm). Density of selected foraging substrates was the same in partial cut and uncut forest. Of the foraging substrates, woodpeckers spent 54% of foraging time on live branches and boles, 37% on dead branches and boles, and 9% on vines. Of the foraging tactics, the highest proportion of foraging time was spent excavating (58%), followed by pecking (14%), gleaning (14%), scaling (7%), berry-eating (4%), and probing (3%). Woodpecker use of foraging tactics and substrates, and foraging height and substrate

Analysis of habitat-selection rules using an individual-based model

Science.gov (United States)

Steven F. Railsback; Bret C. Harvey

2002-01-01

Abstract - Despite their promise for simulating natural complexity,individual-based models (IBMs) are rarely used for ecological research or resource management. Few IBMs have been shown to reproduce realistic patterns of behavior by individual organisms.To test our IBM of stream salmonids and draw conclusions about foraging theory,we analyzed the IBM ’s ability to...

The Müller-Lyer illusion in ant foraging.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tomoko Sakiyama

Full Text Available The Müller-Lyer illusion is a classical geometric illusion in which the apparent (perceived length of a line depends on whether the line terminates in an arrow tail or arrowhead. This effect may be caused by economic compensation for the gap between the physical stimulus and visual fields. Here, we show that the Müller-Lyer illusion can also be produced by the foraging patterns of garden ants (Lasius niger and that the pattern obtained can be explained by a simple, asynchronously updated foraging ant model. Our results suggest that the geometric illusion may be a byproduct of the foraging process, in which local interactions underlying efficient exploitation can also give rise to global exploration, and that visual information processing in human could implement similar modulation between local efficient processing and widespread computation.

Extreme precipitation variability, forage quality and large herbivore diet selection in arid environments

Science.gov (United States)

Cain, James W.; Gedir, Jay V.; Marshal, Jason P.; Krausman, Paul R.; Allen, Jamison D.; Duff, Glenn C.; Jansen, Brian; Morgart, John R.

2017-01-01

Nutritional ecology forms the interface between environmental variability and large herbivore behaviour, life history characteristics, and population dynamics. Forage conditions in arid and semi-arid regions are driven by unpredictable spatial and temporal patterns in rainfall. Diet selection by herbivores should be directed towards overcoming the most pressing nutritional limitation (i.e. energy, protein [nitrogen, N], moisture) within the constraints imposed by temporal and spatial variability in forage conditions. We investigated the influence of precipitation-induced shifts in forage nutritional quality and subsequent large herbivore responses across widely varying precipitation conditions in an arid environment. Specifically, we assessed seasonal changes in diet breadth and forage selection of adult female desert bighorn sheep Ovis canadensis mexicana in relation to potential nutritional limitations in forage N, moisture and energy content (as proxied by dry matter digestibility, DMD). Succulents were consistently high in moisture but low in N and grasses were low in N and moisture until the wet period. Nitrogen and moisture content of shrubs and forbs varied among seasons and climatic periods, whereas trees had consistently high N and moderate moisture levels. Shrubs, trees and succulents composed most of the seasonal sheep diets but had little variation in DMD. Across all seasons during drought and during summer with average precipitation, forages selected by sheep were higher in N and moisture than that of available forage. Differences in DMD between sheep diets and available forage were minor. Diet breadth was lowest during drought and increased with precipitation, reflecting a reliance on few key forage species during drought. Overall, forage selection was more strongly associated with N and moisture content than energy content. Our study demonstrates that unlike north-temperate ungulates which are generally reported to be energy-limited, N and moisture

Propaganda, Public Information, and Prospecting: Explaining the Irrational Exuberance of Central Place Foragers During a Late Nineteenth Century Colorado Silver Rush.

Science.gov (United States)

Glover, Susan M

2009-10-01

Traditionally, models of resource extraction assume individuals act as if they form strategies based on complete information. In reality, gathering information about environmental parameters may be costly. An efficient information gathering strategy is to observe the foraging behavior of others, termed public information. However, media can exploit this strategy by appearing to supply accurate information while actually shaping information to manipulate people to behave in ways that benefit the media or their clients. Here, I use Central Place Foraging (CPF) models to investigate how newspaper propaganda shaped ore foraging strategies of late nineteenth-century Colorado silver prospectors. Data show that optimistic values of silver ore published in local newspapers led prospectors to place mines at a much greater distance than was profitable. Models assuming perfect information neglect the possibility of misinformation among investors, and may underestimate the extent and degree of human impacts on areas of resource extraction.

Faecal nitrogen excretion as an approach to estimate forage intake of wethers.

Science.gov (United States)

Kozloski, G V; Oliveira, L; Poli, C H E C; Azevedo, E B; David, D B; Ribeiro Filho, H M N; Collet, S G

2014-08-01

Data from twenty-two digestibility trials were compiled to examine the relationship between faecal N concentration and organic matter (OM) digestibility (OMD), and between faecal N excretion and OM intake (OMI) by wethers fed tropical or temperate forages alone or with supplements. Data set was grouped by diet type as follows: only tropical grass (n = 204), only temperate grass (n = 160), tropical grass plus supplement (n = 216), temperate grass plus supplement (n = 48), tropical grass plus tropical legume (n = 60) and temperate grass with ruminal infusion of tannins (n = 16). Positive correlation between OMD and either total faecal N concentration (Nfc, % of OM) or metabolic faecal N concentration (Nmetfc, % of OM) was significant for most diet types. Exceptions were the diet that included a tropical legume, where both relationships were negative, and the diet that included tannin extract, where the correlation between OMD and Nfc was not significant. Pearson correlation and linear regressions between OM intake (OMI, g/day) and faecal N excretion (Nf, g/day) were significant for all diet types. When OMI was estimated from the OM faecal excretion and Nfc-based OMD values, the linear comparison between observed and estimated OMI values showed intercept different from 0 and slope different from 1. When OMI was estimated using the Nf-based linear regressions, the linear comparison between observed and estimated OMI values showed neither intercept different from 0 nor slope different from 1. Both linear comparisons showed similar R(2) values (i.e. 0.78 vs. 0.79). In conclusion, linear equations are suitable for directly estimating OM intake by wethers, fed only forage or forage plus supplements, from the amount of N excreted in faeces. The use of this approach in experiments with grazing wethers has the advantage of accounting for individual variations in diet selection and digestion processes and precludes the use of techniques to estimate forage

Female mice respond differently to costly foraging versus food restriction

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Schubert, Kristin A.; Vaanholt, Lobke M.; Stavasius, Fanny; Demas, Gregory E.; Daan, Serge; Visser, G. Henk

2008-01-01

Experimental manipulation of foraging costs per food reward can be used to study the plasticity of physiological systems involved in energy metabolism. This approach is useful for understanding adaptations to natural variation in food availability. Earlier studies have shown that animals foraging on

Foraging ecology and habitat association of black-winged lovebird ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

26.4% of the lovebirds in Bole Sub-City were observed foraging on Zea mays and 16.5 % on Ricinus communis while in Entoto Natural Park, 50% of these lovebirds used the berries of Juniperus procera. Among the identified foraging plant parts, fruit had 60% in Bole Sub-City and 66.6% in Entoto Natural Park. The threat ...

Hidden Markov models: the best models for forager movements?

Science.gov (United States)

Joo, Rocio; Bertrand, Sophie; Tam, Jorge; Fablet, Ronan

2013-01-01

One major challenge in the emerging field of movement ecology is the inference of behavioural modes from movement patterns. This has been mainly addressed through Hidden Markov models (HMMs). We propose here to evaluate two sets of alternative and state-of-the-art modelling approaches. First, we consider hidden semi-Markov models (HSMMs). They may better represent the behavioural dynamics of foragers since they explicitly model the duration of the behavioural modes. Second, we consider discriminative models which state the inference of behavioural modes as a classification issue, and may take better advantage of multivariate and non linear combinations of movement pattern descriptors. For this work, we use a dataset of >200 trips from human foragers, Peruvian fishermen targeting anchovy. Their movements were recorded through a Vessel Monitoring System (∼1 record per hour), while their behavioural modes (fishing, searching and cruising) were reported by on-board observers. We compare the efficiency of hidden Markov, hidden semi-Markov, and three discriminative models (random forests, artificial neural networks and support vector machines) for inferring the fishermen behavioural modes, using a cross-validation procedure. HSMMs show the highest accuracy (80%), significantly outperforming HMMs and discriminative models. Simulations show that data with higher temporal resolution, HSMMs reach nearly 100% of accuracy. Our results demonstrate to what extent the sequential nature of movement is critical for accurately inferring behavioural modes from a trajectory and we strongly recommend the use of HSMMs for such purpose. In addition, this work opens perspectives on the use of hybrid HSMM-discriminative models, where a discriminative setting for the observation process of HSMMs could greatly improve inference performance.

Hidden Markov models: the best models for forager movements?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rocio Joo

Full Text Available One major challenge in the emerging field of movement ecology is the inference of behavioural modes from movement patterns. This has been mainly addressed through Hidden Markov models (HMMs. We propose here to evaluate two sets of alternative and state-of-the-art modelling approaches. First, we consider hidden semi-Markov models (HSMMs. They may better represent the behavioural dynamics of foragers since they explicitly model the duration of the behavioural modes. Second, we consider discriminative models which state the inference of behavioural modes as a classification issue, and may take better advantage of multivariate and non linear combinations of movement pattern descriptors. For this work, we use a dataset of >200 trips from human foragers, Peruvian fishermen targeting anchovy. Their movements were recorded through a Vessel Monitoring System (∼1 record per hour, while their behavioural modes (fishing, searching and cruising were reported by on-board observers. We compare the efficiency of hidden Markov, hidden semi-Markov, and three discriminative models (random forests, artificial neural networks and support vector machines for inferring the fishermen behavioural modes, using a cross-validation procedure. HSMMs show the highest accuracy (80%, significantly outperforming HMMs and discriminative models. Simulations show that data with higher temporal resolution, HSMMs reach nearly 100% of accuracy. Our results demonstrate to what extent the sequential nature of movement is critical for accurately inferring behavioural modes from a trajectory and we strongly recommend the use of HSMMs for such purpose. In addition, this work opens perspectives on the use of hybrid HSMM-discriminative models, where a discriminative setting for the observation process of HSMMs could greatly improve inference performance.

A Novel Plant Root Foraging Algorithm for Image Segmentation Problems

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Lianbo Ma

2014-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a new type of biologically-inspired global optimization methodology for image segmentation based on plant root foraging behavior, namely, artificial root foraging algorithm (ARFO. The essential motive of ARFO is to imitate the significant characteristics of plant root foraging behavior including branching, regrowing, and tropisms for constructing a heuristic algorithm for multidimensional and multimodal problems. A mathematical model is firstly designed to abstract various plant root foraging patterns. Then, the basic process of ARFO algorithm derived in the model is described in details. When tested against ten benchmark functions, ARFO shows the superiority to other state-of-the-art algorithms on several benchmark functions. Further, we employed the ARFO algorithm to deal with multilevel threshold image segmentation problem. Experimental results of the new algorithm on a variety of images demonstrated the suitability of the proposed method for solving such problem.

Microclimate, canopy structure and photosynthesis in canopies of three contrasting temperate forage grasses. III. Canopy photosynthesis, individual leaf photosynthesis and the distribution of current assimilate

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Sheehy, J E

1977-01-01

The rates of canopy and individual leaf photosynthesis and /sup 14/C distribution for three temperate forage grasses Lolium perenne cv. S24, L. perenne cv. Reveille and Festuca arundinacea cv. S170 were determined in the field during a summer growth period. Canopy photosynthesis declined as the growth period progressed, reflecting a decline in the photosynthetic capacity of successive youngest fully expanded leaves. The decline in the maximum photosynthetic capacity of the canopies was correlated with a decline in their quantum efficiencies at low irradiance. Changes in canopy structure resulted in changes in canopy net photosynthesis and dark respiration. No clear relationships between changes in the environment and changes in canopy net photosynthesis and dark respiration were established. The relative distributions of /sup 14/C in the shoots of the varieties gave a good indication of the amount of dry matter per ground area in the varieties. 21 references, 4 figures, 1 table.

A systems approach for the evaluation of ethanol production based on forages

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Alvo, P. [McGill Univ., Ste. Anne de Bellevue, PQ (Canada). Macdonald Coll.; Savoie, P. [Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Quebec, PQ (Canada). Saine-Foy Research Centre; Tremblay, D. [Laval Univ., Quebec, PQ (Canada). Dept. de Genie Rural; Emond, J.-P.; Turcotte, G. [Laval Univ., Quebec City, PQ (Canada). Dept. de Sciences et Technologie des Aliments

1996-04-01

A systems approach is proposed to simultaneously consider the agronomic aspects of forage production and the processing aspects related to the extraction of a glucose or xylose substrate, its fermentation into ethanol and the optimal utilization of co-products (protein meal, fibrous residue). The energy to produce and transport forage on the farm was estimated to be only 375 MJ/t dry matter (DM) when liquid manure was used and 1165 MJ/t DM when mineral fertilizer was used. An additional 126 MJ/t DM would be required to transport it to a processing plant. In contrast, whole-plant corn production using mineral fertilizer required about 3211 MJ/t DM, but it had a potential ethanol yield 3.2 times greater per unit area than perennial forage. A forage system with mechanical juice extraction resulted in 8-20% of the original forage dry matter available in a liquid substrate with subsequent protein meal separation and the fermentation of soluble sugars into ethanol. Another forage system with relatively complete conversion of cellulose and hemicellulose into simple sugars by thermal, acidic and enzymatic treatments was estimated to produce 12-28 times more ethanol per unit area than the mechanically extracted juice. Complete conversion of perennial forages would meet the petroleum industry`s needs more consistently than simple extraction of soluble components. (Author)

Performance and carcass traits of Santa Inês lambs finished with different sources of forage

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Adriana Morato Menezes

2013-06-01

Full Text Available The objective of this study was to evaluate performance and biometrics of lambs fed different sources of forage. Twenty-four six-month-old Santa Inês female lambs were randomly allocated to four experimental diets and housed in individual stalls. They weighed on average 26.35±0.20 kg. The diets were coast cross hay (HAY, cassava hay (CAS, dehydrated by-product of pea crop (PEA and saccharin (SAC. The diets were formulated with the same amount of protein and energy with fixed levels of forage (60% and concentrate (40%. Adaptation to the diet took 7 days, with 45 days on experiment. Weights and biometric measurements were obtained every fortnight and feed intake three times a week. Rights half-carcasses were weighed and sectioned into retail cuts, rib, loin, shoulder, belly, neck and leg, which were weighed individually. Weight gain in lambs was significantly different between diets, with those fed saccharin gaining more. Overall, treatments did not significantly affect biometric measurements. There was a significant difference for feed intake and live weight at the end of the experiment. Animals fed PEA and SAC showed the best results. Average positive correlations were found between biometric measurements and live weight. Treatment PEA had heavier hot (14.36 kg and cold (14.01 kg carcass weights than the other groups. Hot carcass kill-out was higher for animals fed PEA as well as ham weight, belly, neck and heart girth. The weight of the abdominal viscera (% for lambs fed CAS was greater than those fed SAC and PEA. The weights of the thoracic viscera as well as the liver, for lambs fed PEA were higher. The by-product of pea yielded best results, followed by saccharin, and can replace traditional forage sources in the region, providing similar results in terms of cuts and body components. These could be an alternative for feeding sheep in the dry season. The substitution of forages using by-product of pea and saccharin led to improved

Seed storage effects on germination for two forage kochia cultivars

Science.gov (United States)

The cultivar ‘Snowstorm’ forage kochia was released by the USDA-ARS in 2012. It is a synthetic cultivar selected for stature, forage production, and adaptation to semiarid environments. Similar to the earlier released (1984) ‘Immigrant’ cultivar it can increase rangeland productivity magnitudes when...

Do inter-colony differences in Cape fur seal foraging behaviour ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

We investigated how such environmental variability may impact foraging behaviour of the Cape fur seal Arctocephalus pusillus pusillus, using satellite telemetry on animals in northern, central and southern Namibia. We expected that seal foraging behaviour would reflect a gradient of deteriorating feeding conditions from ...

People of the ancient rainforest: late Pleistocene foragers at the Batadomba-lena rockshelter, Sri Lanka.

Science.gov (United States)

Perera, Nimal; Kourampas, Nikos; Simpson, Ian A; Deraniyagala, Siran U; Bulbeck, David; Kamminga, Johan; Perera, Jude; Fuller, Dorian Q; Szabó, Katherine; Oliveira, Nuno V

2011-09-01

Batadomba-lena, a rockshelter in the rainforest of southwestern Sri Lanka, has yielded some of the earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in South Asia. H. sapiens foragers were present at Batadomba-lena from ca. 36,000 cal BP to the terminal Pleistocene and Holocene. Human occupation was sporadic before the global Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Batadomba-lena's Late Pleistocene inhabitants foraged for a broad spectrum of plant and mainly arboreal animal resources (monkeys, squirrels and abundant rainforest snails), derived from a landscape that retained equatorial rainforest cover through periods of pronounced regional aridity during the LGM. Juxtaposed hearths, palaeofloors with habitation debris, postholes, excavated pits, and animal and plant remains, including abundant Canarium nutshells, reflect intensive habitation of the rockshelter in times of monsoon intensification and biome reorganisation after ca. 16,000 cal BP. This period corresponds with further broadening of the economic spectrum, evidenced though increased contribution of squirrels, freshwater snails and Canarium nuts in the diet of the rockshelter occupants. Microliths are more abundant and morphologically diverse in the earliest, pre-LGM layer and decline markedly during intensified rockshelter use on the wane of the LGM. We propose that changing toolkits and subsistence base reflect changing foraging practices, from shorter-lived visits of highly mobile foraging bands in the period before the LGM, to intensified use of Batadomba-lena and intense foraging for diverse resources around the site during and, especially, following the LGM. Traces of ochre, marine shell beads and other objects from an 80 km-distant shore, and, possibly burials reflect symbolic practices from the outset of human presence at the rockshelter. Evidence for differentiated use of space (individual hearths, possible habitation structures) is present in LGM and terminal Pleistocene layers. The record of Batadomba-lena demonstrates

Mercury in San Francisco Bay forage fish

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Greenfield, Ben K., E-mail: ben@sfei.or [San Francisco Estuary Institute, 7770 Pardee Lane, Oakland, CA 94621 (United States); Jahn, Andrew, E-mail: andyjahn@mac.co [1000 Riverside Drive, Ukiah, CA 95482 (United States)

2010-08-15

In the San Francisco Estuary, management actions including tidal marsh restoration could change fish mercury (Hg) concentrations. From 2005 to 2007, small forage fish were collected and analyzed to identify spatial and interannual variation in biotic methylmercury (MeHg) exposure. The average whole body total Hg concentration was 0.052 {mu}g g{sup -1} (wet-weight) for 457 composite samples representing 13 fish species. MeHg constituted 94% of total Hg. At a given length, Hg concentrations were higher in nearshore mudflat and wetland species (Clevelandia ios, Menidia audens, and Ilypnus gilberti), compared to species that move offshore (e.g., Atherinops affinis and Lepidogobius lepidus). Gut content analysis indicated similar diets between Atherinops affinis and Menidia audens, when sampled at the same locations. Hg concentrations were higher in sites closest to the Guadalupe River, which drains a watershed impacted by historic Hg mining. Results demonstrate that despite differences among years and fish species, nearshore forage fish exhibit consistent Hg spatial gradients. - Total mercury in estuarine forage fish varies with species, habitat, and proximity to a historic mercury mine.

Mercury in San Francisco Bay forage fish

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Greenfield, Ben K.; Jahn, Andrew

2010-01-01

In the San Francisco Estuary, management actions including tidal marsh restoration could change fish mercury (Hg) concentrations. From 2005 to 2007, small forage fish were collected and analyzed to identify spatial and interannual variation in biotic methylmercury (MeHg) exposure. The average whole body total Hg concentration was 0.052 μg g -1 (wet-weight) for 457 composite samples representing 13 fish species. MeHg constituted 94% of total Hg. At a given length, Hg concentrations were higher in nearshore mudflat and wetland species (Clevelandia ios, Menidia audens, and Ilypnus gilberti), compared to species that move offshore (e.g., Atherinops affinis and Lepidogobius lepidus). Gut content analysis indicated similar diets between Atherinops affinis and Menidia audens, when sampled at the same locations. Hg concentrations were higher in sites closest to the Guadalupe River, which drains a watershed impacted by historic Hg mining. Results demonstrate that despite differences among years and fish species, nearshore forage fish exhibit consistent Hg spatial gradients. - Total mercury in estuarine forage fish varies with species, habitat, and proximity to a historic mercury mine.

Latitudinal range influences the seasonal variation in the foraging behavior of marine top predators.

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Stella Villegas-Amtmann

Full Text Available Non-migratory resident species should be capable of modifying their foraging behavior to accommodate changes in prey abundance and availability associated with a changing environment. Populations that are better adapted to change will have higher foraging success and greater potential for survival in the face of climate change. We studied two species of resident central place foragers from temperate and equatorial regions with differing population trends and prey availability associated to season, the California sea lion (Zalophus californianus (CSL whose population is increasing and the endangered Galapagos sea lion (Zalophus wollebaeki (GSL whose population is declining. To determine their response to environmental change, we studied and compared their diving behavior using time-depth recorders and satellite location tags and their diet by measuring C and N isotope ratios during a warm and a cold season. Based on latitudinal differences in oceanographic productivity, we hypothesized that the seasonal variation in foraging behavior would differ for these two species. CSL exhibited greater seasonal variability in their foraging behavior as seen in changes to their diving behavior, foraging areas and diet between seasons. Conversely, GSL did not change their diving behavior between seasons, presenting three foraging strategies (shallow, deep and bottom divers during both. GSL exhibited greater dive and foraging effort than CSL. We suggest that during the warm and less productive season a greater range of foraging behaviors in CSL was associated with greater competition for prey, which relaxed during the cold season when resource availability was greater. GSL foraging specialization suggests that resources are limited throughout the year due to lower primary production and lower seasonal variation in productivity compared to CSL. These latitudinal differences influence their foraging success, pup survival and population growth reflected in

Avian predator buffers against variability in marine habitats with flexible foraging behavior

Science.gov (United States)

Schoen, Sarah K.; Piatt, John F.; Arimitsu, Mayumi L.; Heflin, Brielle; Madison, Erica N.; Drew, Gary S.; Renner, Martin; Rojek, Nora A.; Douglas, David C.; DeGange, Anthony R.

2018-01-01

How well seabirds compensate for variability in prey abundance and composition near their breeding colonies influences their distribution and reproductive success. We used tufted puffins (Fratercula cirrhata) as forage fish samplers to study marine food webs from the western Aleutian Islands (53°N, 173°E) to Kodiak Island (57°N, 153°W), Alaska, during August 2012–2014. Around each colony we obtained data on: environmental characteristics (sea surface temperature and salinity, seafloor depth and slope, tidal range, and chlorophyll-a), relative forage fish biomass (hydroacoustic backscatter), and seabird community composition and density at-sea. On colonies, we collected puffin chick-meals to characterize forage communities and determine meal energy density, and measured chicks to obtain a body condition index. There were distinct environmental gradients from west to east, and environmental variables differed by ecoregions: the (1) Western-Central Aleutians, (2) Eastern Aleutians, and, (3) Alaska Peninsula. Forage fish biomass, species richness, and community composition all differed markedly between ecoregions. Forage biomass was strongly correlated with environmental gradients, and environmental gradients and forage biomass accounted for ~ 50% of the variability in at-sea density of tufted puffins and all seabird taxa combined. Despite the local and regional variability in marine environments and forage, the mean biomass of prey delivered to puffin chicks did not differ significantly between ecoregions, nor did chick condition or puffin density at-sea. We conclude that puffins can adjust their foraging behavior to produce healthy chicks across a wide range of environmental conditions. This extraordinary flexibility enables their overall success and wide distribution across the North Pacific Ocean.

Loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta use vision to forage on gelatinous prey in mid-water.

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Tomoko Narazaki

Full Text Available Identifying characteristics of foraging activity is fundamental to understanding an animals' lifestyle and foraging ecology. Despite its importance, monitoring the foraging activities of marine animals is difficult because direct observation is rarely possible. In this study, we use an animal-borne imaging system and three-dimensional data logger simultaneously to observe the foraging behaviour of large juvenile and adult sized loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta in their natural environment. Video recordings showed that the turtles foraged on gelatinous prey while swimming in mid-water (i.e., defined as epipelagic water column deeper than 1 m in this study. By linking video and 3D data, we found that mid-water foraging events share the common feature of a marked deceleration phase associated with the capture and handling of the sluggish prey. Analysis of high-resolution 3D movements during mid-water foraging events, including presumptive events extracted from 3D data using deceleration in swim speed as a proxy for foraging (detection rate = 0.67, showed that turtles swam straight toward prey in 171 events (i.e., turning point absent but made a single turn toward the prey an average of 5.7±6.0 m before reaching the prey in 229 events (i.e., turning point present. Foraging events with a turning point tended to occur during the daytime, suggesting that turtles primarily used visual cues to locate prey. In addition, an incident of a turtle encountering a plastic bag while swimming in mid-water was recorded. The fact that the turtle's movements while approaching the plastic bag were analogous to those of a true foraging event, having a turning point and deceleration phase, also support the use of vision in mid-water foraging. Our study shows that integrated video and high-resolution 3D data analysis provides unique opportunities to understand foraging behaviours in the context of the sensory ecology involved in prey location.

Field margins, foraging distances and their impacts on nesting pollinator success.

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Sean A Rands

Full Text Available The areas of wild land around the edges of agricultural fields are a vital resource for many species. These include insect pollinators, to whom field margins provide both nest sites and important resources (especially when adjacent crops are not in flower. Nesting pollinators travel relatively short distances from the nest to forage: most species of bee are known to travel less than two kilometres away. In order to ensure that these pollinators have sufficient areas of wild land within reach of their nests, agricultural landscapes need to be designed to accommodate the limited travelling distances of nesting pollinators. We used a spatially-explicit modelling approach to consider whether increasing the width of wild strips of land within the agricultural landscape will enhance the amount of wild resources available to a nesting pollinator, and if it would impact differently on pollinators with differing foraging strategies. This was done both by creating field structures with a randomised geography, and by using landscape data based upon the British agricultural landscape. These models demonstrate that enhancing field margins should lead to an increase in the availability of forage to pollinators that nest within the landscape. With the exception of species that only forage within a very short range of their nest (less than 125 m, a given amount of field margin manipulation should enhance the proportion of land available to a pollinator for foraging regardless of the distance over which it normally travels to find food. A fixed amount of field edge manipulation should therefore be equally beneficial for both longer-distance nesting foragers such as honeybees, and short-distance foragers such as solitary bees.

Levy Foraging in a Dynamic Environment – Extending the Levy Search

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Vincenzo Fioriti

2015-07-01

Full Text Available A common task for robots is the patrolling of an unknown area with inadequate information about target locations. Under these circumstances it has been suggested that animal foraging could provide an optimal or at least sub-optimal search methodology, namely the Levy flight search. Although still in debate, it seems that predators somehow follow this search pattern when foraging, because it avoids being trapped in a local search if the food is beyond the sensory range. A Levy flight is a particular case of the random walk. Its displacements on a 2-D surface are drawn from the Pareto-Levy probability distribution, characterized by power law tails. The Levy flight search has many applications in optical material, ladars, optics, large database search, earthquake data analysis, location of DNA sites, human mobility, stock return analysis, online auctions, astronomy, ecology and biology. Almost all studies and simulations concerning the Levy flight foraging examine static or slowly moving (with respect to the forager uniformly distributed resources. Moreover, in recent works a small swarm of underwater autonomous vehicles has been used to test the standard Levy search in the underwater environment, with good results. In this paper we extend the classical Levy foraging framework taking into consideration a moving target allocated on a 2-D surface according to a radial probability distribution and comparing its performance with the random walk search. The metric used in the numerical simulations is the detection rate. Simulations include the sensor resolution, intended as the maximum detection distance of the forager from the target. Furthermore, contrarily to the usual Levy foraging framework, we use only one target. Results show that Levy flight outperforms the random walk if the sensor detection radius is not too small or too large. We also find the Levy flight in the velocity of the center of mass model of a fish school according the Kuramoto

Remote Sensing Forage Quality for Browsing Herbivores: A Case Study of Cutting Edge Koala Conservation

Science.gov (United States)

Youngentob, K. N.; Au, J.; Held, A. A.; Foley, W. J.; Possingham, H. P.

2014-12-01

Managing landscapes for conservation requires a capacity to measure habitat quality. Although multiple factors are often responsible for the distribution and abundance of herbivores, spatial variations in the quality and quantity of plant forage are known to be important for many species. While we cannot see the chemical complexity of landscapes with our naked-eye, advances in imaging spectroscopy are making it possible to assess the quality of forage on a landscape-scale. Much research in this area has focused on the ability to estimate foliar nitrogen (N), because N is believed to be a limiting nutrient for many leaf eating animals. However, the total quantity of foliar N does not necessarily reflect the amount of N that can be utilized by herbivores. Available nitrogen (AvailN) is an invitro measure of forage quality that integrates the influence of tannins and fibre on the amount of foliar N that is available for digestion by herbivores. This may be a more meaningful measure of forage quality than total N for the many herbivorous species that are sensitive to the effects of tannins. Our previous research has demonstrated that it is possible to estimate this integrated measure of foliar nutritional quality at an individual tree crown level across multiple tree species using imaging spectroscopy (HyMap). Here we present a case study of how this remote sensing data is being used to help inform landscape management and conservation decisions for an iconic Australian species, the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus). We review the methods involved in developing maps of integrated measures of foliar nutritional quality for browsing herbivores with airborne imaging spectroscopy data and discuss their applications for wildlife management.

A molecular phylogeny of Dorylus army ants provides evidence for multiple evolutionary transitions in foraging niche

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vilhelmsen Lars B

2007-04-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Army ants are the prime arthropod predators in tropical forests, with huge colonies and an evolutionary derived nomadic life style. Five of the six recognized subgenera of Old World Dorylus army ants forage in the soil, whereas some species of the sixth subgenus (Anomma forage in the leaf-litter and some as conspicuous swarm raiders on the forest floor and in the lower vegetation (the infamous driver ants. Here we use a combination of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences to reconstruct the phylogeny of the Dorylus s.l. army ants and to infer the evolutionary transitions in foraging niche and associated morphological adaptations. Results Underground foraging is basal and gave rise to leaf-litter foraging. Leaf-litter foraging in turn gave rise to two derived conditions: true surface foraging (the driver ants and a reversal to subterranean foraging (a clade with most of the extant Dorylus s.s. species. This means that neither the subgenus Anomma nor Dorylus s.s. is monophyletic, and that one of the Dorylus s.s. lineages adopted subterranean foraging secondarily. We show that this latter group evolved a series of morphological adaptations to underground foraging that are remarkably convergent to the basal state. Conclusion The evolutionary transitions in foraging niche were more complex than previously thought, but our comparative analysis of worker morphology lends strong support to the contention that particular foraging niches have selected for very specific worker morphologies. The surprising reversal to underground foraging is therefore a striking example of convergent morphological evolution.

Foraging strategy of little auks during chick rearing in northwest Greenland

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mosbech, Anders; Møller, Eva Friis; Johansen, Kasper Lambert

of the ongoing warming of the Arctic. Here we present the first results from GPS tracking of breeding little auks in northwest Greenland, involving data from four different breeding colonies. We examine time budgets, foraging trip patterns and habitat preferences at foraging areas, including comparison......Foraging strategy of little auks during chick rearing in northwest Greenland Anders Mosbech, Kasper Johansen, Eva Friis Møller & Peter Lyngs Department of Biology and Arctic Center, Aarhus University, Denmark An estimated 80 % of the global little auk population breeds in the coastal landscape...... bordering the north water polynya in high Arctic northwest Greenland, and from this main breeding area very little is known on foraging behavior. Little auks are feeding on lipid-rich copepods associated with cold artic waters, and are potentially important for monitoring and assessing the impact...

Forage pétrolier assisté par jet Jet-Assisted Oil Drilling

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Bardin C.

2006-11-01

Full Text Available La destruction des roches par jet est une technique qui présente un réel intérêt dans le domaine du forage pétrolier comme en témoignent les études déjà réalisées sur le sujet depuis une vingtaine d'années. Des essais sur chantier ont fait apparaître des améliorations substantielles en vitesse d'avancement grâce aux outils combinés mécaniques et jets haute pression. Cet article explique, après une courte bibliographie sur le sujet, les motivations d'une nouvelle étude menée par l'institut Français du Pétrole (IFP au sein de l'Association de Recherche sur les Techniques d'Exploitation du Pétrole (ARTEP. L'objectif de cette étude est d'utiliser le pouvoir destructeur de la cavitation dans le cas des forages profonds en utilisant les capacités de pompage actuellement disponibles sur chantier. Cet objectif nécessite le développement d'une technique capable de créer une cavitation érosive à sigma = 2. 5 ; sigma étant défini par le rapport de la pression à l'aval du dispositif cavitant sur la chute de pression dans ce même dispositif. L'érosion de cavitation étant très dépendante des conditions de pression et de température, il a été nécessaire de concevoir des moyens d'essai permettant de simuler les conditions de fond de forage dans le cas de forage par grande profondeur. Le banc d'essai (70 MPa, 120 °C est présenté dans ce papier, ainsi que quelques essais relatifs à la destruction des roches par jet. The destruction of rocks by jetting is an important technique in the field of cil drilling, as shown by research done on this subject for some 20 years now. Fields tests have revealed substantial improvements in rates of penetration with the use of combined mechanical and high-pressure jet bits. After a brief bibliography on the subject, this paper explains the motives for a new research project being car-ried out by Institut Français du Pétrole (IFP within the ARTEP association (Association de Recherche

Effects of feeding level and the presence of a foraging substrate on the behaviour and stress physiological response of individually housed gilts

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Leeuw, de J.A.; Ekkel, E.D.

2004-01-01

The effects of feeding level (unrestricted, UR and restricted, R) and the presence of a foraging substrate (no substrate, NS and substrate, S; wood chips on the floor) on both the behaviour and stress physiological response were studied in a 2 x 2 factorial design. In three batches and two rooms, 96

Shearwater foraging in the Southern Ocean: the roles of prey availability and winds.

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Ben Raymond

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Sooty (Puffinus griseus and short-tailed (P. tenuirostris shearwaters are abundant seabirds that range widely across global oceans. Understanding the foraging ecology of these species in the Southern Ocean is important for monitoring and ecosystem conservation and management. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Tracking data from sooty and short-tailed shearwaters from three regions of New Zealand and Australia were combined with at-sea observations of shearwaters in the Southern Ocean, physical oceanography, near-surface copepod distributions, pelagic trawl data, and synoptic near-surface winds. Shearwaters from all three regions foraged in the Polar Front zone, and showed particular overlap in the region around 140 degrees E. Short-tailed shearwaters from South Australia also foraged in Antarctic waters south of the Polar Front. The spatial distribution of shearwater foraging effort in the Polar Front zone was matched by patterns in large-scale upwelling, primary production, and abundances of copepods and myctophid fish. Oceanic winds were found to be broad determinants of foraging distribution, and of the flight paths taken by the birds on long foraging trips to Antarctic waters. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The shearwaters displayed foraging site fidelity and overlap of foraging habitat between species and populations that may enhance their utility as indicators of Southern Ocean ecosystems. The results highlight the importance of upwellings due to interactions of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current with large-scale bottom topography, and the corresponding localised increases in the productivity of the Polar Front ecosystem.

Children's Play and Culture Learning in an Egalitarian Foraging Society

Science.gov (United States)

Boyette, Adam H.

2016-01-01

Few systematic studies of play in foragers exist despite their significance for understanding the breadth of contexts for human development and the ontogeny of cultural learning. Forager societies lack complex social hierarchies, avenues for prestige or wealth accumulation, and formal educational institutions, and thereby represent a contrast to…

Feeding-Related Traits Are Affected by Dosage of the foraging Gene in Drosophila melanogaster.

Science.gov (United States)

Allen, Aaron M; Anreiter, Ina; Neville, Megan C; Sokolowski, Marla B

2017-02-01

Nutrient acquisition and energy storage are critical parts of achieving metabolic homeostasis. The foraging gene in Drosophila melanogaster has previously been implicated in multiple feeding-related and metabolic traits. Before foraging's functions can be further dissected, we need a precise genetic null mutant to definitively map its amorphic phenotypes. We used homologous recombination to precisely delete foraging, generating the for 0 null allele, and used recombineering to reintegrate a full copy of the gene, generating the {for BAC } rescue allele. We show that a total loss of foraging expression in larvae results in reduced larval path length and food intake behavior, while conversely showing an increase in triglyceride levels. Furthermore, varying foraging gene dosage demonstrates a linear dose-response on these phenotypes in relation to foraging gene expression levels. These experiments have unequivocally proven a causal, dose-dependent relationship between the foraging gene and its pleiotropic influence on these feeding-related traits. Our analysis of foraging's transcription start sites, termination sites, and splicing patterns using rapid amplification of cDNA ends (RACE) and full-length cDNA sequencing, revealed four independent promoters, pr1-4, that produce 21 transcripts with nine distinct open reading frames (ORFs). The use of alternative promoters and alternative splicing at the foraging locus creates diversity and flexibility in the regulation of gene expression, and ultimately function. Future studies will exploit these genetic tools to precisely dissect the isoform- and tissue-specific requirements of foraging's functions and shed light on the genetic control of feeding-related traits involved in energy homeostasis. Copyright © 2017 by the Genetics Society of America.

A molecular phylogeny of Dorylus army ants provides evidence for multiple evolutionary transitions in foraging niche

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kronauer, Daniel J C; Schöning, Caspar; Vilhelmsen, Lars

2007-01-01

in the leaf-litter and some as conspicuous swarm raiders on the forest floor and in the lower vegetation (the infamous driver ants). Here we use a combination of nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences to reconstruct the phylogeny of the Dorylus s.l. army ants and to infer the evolutionary transitions...... in foraging niche and associated morphological adaptations. RESULTS: Underground foraging is basal and gave rise to leaf-litter foraging. Leaf-litter foraging in turn gave rise to two derived conditions: true surface foraging (the driver ants) and a reversal to subterranean foraging (a clade with most......BACKGROUND: Army ants are the prime arthropod predators in tropical forests, with huge colonies and an evolutionary derived nomadic life style. Five of the six recognized subgenera of Old World Dorylus army ants forage in the soil, whereas some species of the sixth subgenus (Anomma) forage...

Food availability and foraging near human developments by black bears

Science.gov (United States)

Merkle, Jerod A.; Robinson, Hugh S.; Krausman, Paul R.; Alaback, Paul B.

2013-01-01

Understanding the relationship between foraging ecology and the presence of human-dominated landscapes is important, particularly for American black bears (Ursus americanus), which sometimes move between wildlands and urban areas to forage. The food-related factors influencing this movement have not been explored, but can be important for understanding the benefits and costs to black bear foraging behavior and the fundamental origins of bear conflicts. We tested whether the scarcity of wildland foods or the availability of urban foods can explain when black bears forage near houses, examined the extent to which male bears use urban areas in comparison to females, and identified the most important food items influencing bear movement into urban areas. We monitored 16 collared black bears in and around Missoula, Montana, during 2009 and 2010, while quantifying the rate of change in green vegetation and the availability of 5 native berry-producing species outside the urban area, the rate of change in green vegetation, and the availability of apples and garbage inside the urban area. We used parametric time-to-event models in which an event was a bear location collected within 100 m of a house. We also visited feeding sites located near houses and quantified food items bears had eaten. The probability of a bear being located near a house was 1.6 times higher for males, and increased during apple season and the urban green-up. Fruit trees accounted for most of the forage items at urban feeding sites (49%), whereas wildland foods composed fruit trees, appear to be more important than the availability of garbage in influencing when bears forage near houses.

Information Foraging in E-Voting

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Vatrapu, Ravi; Robertson, Scott

2009-01-01

with others. Interaction analysis of the case study data consisted of applying Information Foraging Theory to understand participant specific behaviors in searching and browsing. Case study results show skewed time allocation to activities, a tradeoff between enrichment vs. exploitation of search results...

Emergence of leadership in a robotic fish group under diverging individual personality traits.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Chen; Chen, Xiaojie; Xie, Guangming; Cao, Ming

2017-05-01

Variations of individual's personality traits have been identified before as one of the possible mechanisms for the emergence of leadership in an interactive collective, which may lead to benefits for the group as a whole. Complementing the large number of existing literatures on using simulation models to study leadership, we use biomimetic robotic fish to gain insight into how the fish's behaviours evolve under the influence of the physical hydrodynamics. In particular, we focus in this paper on understanding how robotic fish's personality traits affect the emergence of an effective leading fish in repeated robotic foraging tasks when the robotic fish's strategies, to push or not to push the obstacle in its foraging path, are updated over time following an evolutionary game set-up. We further show that the robotic fish's personality traits diverge when the group carries out difficult foraging tasks in our experiments, and self-organization takes place to help the group to adapt to the level of difficulties of the tasks without inter-individual communication.

Multidimensional differentiation in foraging resource use during breeding of two sympatric top predators

Science.gov (United States)

Friedemann, Guilad; Leshem, Yossi; Kerem, Lior; Shacham, Boaz; Bar-Massada, Avi; McClain, Krystaal M.; Bohrer, Gil; Izhaki, Ido

2016-10-01

Ecologically-similar species were found to develop specific strategies to partition their resources, leading to niche differentiation and divergence, in order to avoid interspecific competition. Our study determines multi-dimensional differentiation of two sympatric top-predators, long-legged buzzards (LLB) and short-toed eagles (STE), which recently became sympatric during their breeding season in the Judean Foothills, Israel. By combining information from comprehensive diet and movement analyses we found four dimensions of differentiation: (1) Geographic foraging area: LLB tended to forage relatively close to their nests (2.35 ± 0.62 km), while STE forage far from their nest (13.03 ± 2.20 km) (2) Foraging-habitat type: LLBs forage at low natural vegetation, avoiding cultivated fields, whereas STEs forage in cultivated fields, avoiding low natural vegetation; (3) Diurnal dynamics of foraging: LLBs are uniformly active during daytime, whereas STEs activity peaks in the early afternoon; and (4) Food-niche: while both species largely rely on reptiles (47.8% and 76.3% for LLB and STE, respectively), LLB had a more diverse diet and consumed significantly higher percentages of lizards, while STE consumed significantly higher percentages of snakes. Our results suggest that this multidimensional differentiation allows the spatial coexistence of these two dense populations in the study area.

Urban Foraging: A Ubiquitous Human Practice Overlooked by Urban Planners, Policy, and Research

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Charlie M. Shackleton

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Although hardly noticed or formally recognised, urban foraging by humans probably occurs in all urban settings around the world. We draw from research in India, South Africa, Sweden, and the United States to demonstrate the ubiquity and varied nature of urban foraging in different contexts. Across these different contexts, we distil seven themes that characterise and thereby advance thinking about research and the understanding of urban foraging. We show that it is widespread and occurs across a variety of urban spaces and places. The species used and the local practices vary between contexts, and are in constant flux as urban ecological and social settings change. This requires that urban foragers are knowledgeable about diverse species, harvest locations, and rights of access, and that their practices are adaptable to changing contexts. Despite its ubiquity, most cities have some forms of regulations that prohibit or discourage urban foraging. We highlight a few important exceptions that can provide prototypes and lessons for other cities regarding supportive policy frameworks and initiatives. The formulation of dynamic policy, design, and management strategies in support of urban foraging will benefit from understanding the common characteristics of foraging in cities worldwide, but also will require comprehension of the specific and dynamic contexts in which they would be implemented.

Effects of Grazing Management in Brachiaria grass-forage Peanut Pastures on Canopy Structure and Forage Intake.

Science.gov (United States)

Gomes, F K; Oliveira, M D B L; Homem, B G C; Boddey, R M; Bernardes, T F; Gionbelli, M P; Lara, M A S; Casagrande, D R

2018-06-13

Maintenance of mixed grass-legume pastures for stand longevity and improved animal utilization is a challenge in warm-season climates. The goal of this study was to assess grazing management on stand persistence, forage intake, and N balance of beef heifers grazing mixed pastures of Brachiaria brizantha and Arachis pintoi. A two-year experiment was carried out in Brazil, where four grazing management were assessed: rest period interrupted at 90%, 95%, and 100% of light interception (LI) and a fixed rest period of 42 days (90LI, 95LI, 100LI, and 42D, respectively). The LI were taken at 50 points at ground level and at five points above the canopy for each paddock using a canopy analyzer. For all treatments, the post-grazing stubble height was 15 cm. Botanical composition and canopy structure characteristics such as canopy height, forage mass, and vertical distribution of the morphological composition were evaluated pre-and post-grazing. Forage chemical composition, intake, and microbial synthesis were also determined. A randomized complete block design was used, considering the season of the year as a repeated measure over time. Grazing management and season were considered fixed, while block and year were considered random effects. In the summer, legume mass accounted for 19% of the canopy at 100LI, which was less than other treatments (a mean of 30%). The 100LI treatment had a greater grass stem mass compared with other treatments. In terms of vertical distribution for 100LI, 38.6% of the stem mass was above the stubble height, greater than the 5.7% for other treatments. The canopy structure limited neutral detergent fiber intake (P = 0.007) at 100LI (1.02% of BW/d), whereas 42D, 90LI, and 95LI treatments had NDF intake close to 1.2% of BW/d. The intake of digestible organic matter (OM; P = 0.007) and the ratio of crude protein/digestible OM (P < 0.001) were less at 100LI in relation to the other treatments. The production of microbial N (P < 0.001) and efficiency

90Sr and 137Cs migration in food chain: soil-forage-cattle

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Korneev, N.A.; Sirotkin, A.N.

1982-01-01

It is established that the coefficients of biological absorption (CBA) of radionuclides by osteal and muscle tissue change with the age of animals. The CBA of strontium-90 and cesium-137 of the grown animals is 3.0 and 2.8 times respectively higher, than of young animals in the migration chain soil-forage, and in the chain forage-bone, and forage-muscles-3.4 and 1.5 times lower

Ruminal fermentation of Anti-methanogenic Nitrate- and Nitro-Containing Forages In Vitro

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Robin C. Anderson

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Nitrate, 3-nitro-1-propionic acid (NPA and 3-nitro-1-propanol (NPOH can accumulate in forages and be poisonous to animals if consumed in high enough amounts. These chemicals are also recognized as potent anti-methanogenic compounds, but plants naturally containing these chemicals have been studied little in this regard. Presently, we found that nitrate-, NPA- or NPOH-containing forages effectively decreased methane production, by 35 to 87%, during in vitro fermentation by mixed cultures of ruminal microbes compared to fermentation by cultures incubated similarly with alfalfa. Methane production was further decreased during incubation of mixed cultures also inoculated with Denitrobacterium detoxificans, a ruminal bacterium known to metabolize nitrate, NPA and NPOH. Inhibition of methanogens within the mixed cultures was greatest with the NPA- and NPOH-containing forages. Hydrogen accumulated in all the mixed cultures incubated with forages containing nitrate, NPA or NPOH but was dramatically higher, exceeding 40 µmol hydrogen/mL, in mixed cultures incubated with NPA-containing forage but not inoculated with D. detoxificans. This possibly reflects the inhibition of hydrogenase-catalyzed uptake of hydrogen produced via conversion of 50 µmol added formate per mL to hydrogen. Accumulations of volatile fatty acids revealed compensatory changes in fermentation in mixed cultures incubated with the nitrate-, NPA- and NPOH-containing forages as evidenced by lower accumulations of acetate, and in some cases higher accumulations of butyrate and lower accumulations of ammonia, iso-buytrate and iso-valerate compared to cultures incubated with alfalfa. Results reveal that nitrate, NPA and NPOH that accumulate naturally in forages can be made available within ruminal incubations to inhibit methanogenesis. Further research is warranted to determine if diets can be formulated with nitrate-, NPA- and NPOH-containing forages to achieve efficacious mitigation in

Influence of forage inclusion in the diet on ileal and total tract digestibility

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jørgensen, Henry; Carlson, Dorthe; Lærke, Helle Nygaard

2012-01-01

The present investigation aimed to study the ileal and total tract digestibility of 3 forages (clover–grass, clover–grass silage, and fi eld pea (Pisum sativum)–barley (Hordeum vulgare) silage) supplemented to a basal diet. A total of 24 pigs, adapted to eating forages by supplementing a basal feed...... throughout the whole experiment. The intake of forages was low and quite variable and on average accounted for only 10 to 12% of the DMI. Ileal digestibility of protein estimated by collection from the T-cannula was higher (P = 0.031) than the digestibility estimated by the slaughter technique indicating...... in the diet as forage reduced (P pea– barley silage. In organic slaughter pig production, the overall energy supply from these forages is limited, but they may play an important role in satiety...

75 FR 68321 - Forage Genetics International; Supplemental Request for Partial Deregulation of Roundup Ready...

Science.gov (United States)

2010-11-05

...] Forage Genetics International; Supplemental Request for Partial Deregulation of Roundup Ready Alfalfa... Inspection Service has received a supplemental request for ``partial deregulation'' from Forage Genetics... affected persons of the availability of the documents submitted to the Agency from Forage Genetics...

Seasonal Variation in Parental Care Drives Sex-Specific Foraging by a Monomorphic Seabird.

Science.gov (United States)

Burke, Chantelle M; Montevecchi, William A; Regular, Paul M

2015-01-01

Evidence of sex-specific foraging in monomorphic seabirds is increasing though the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. We investigate differential parental care as a mechanism for sex-specific foraging in monomorphic Common Murres (Uria aalge), where the male parent alone provisions the chick after colony departure. Using a combination of geolocation-immersion loggers and stable isotopes, we assess two hypotheses: the reproductive role specialization hypothesis and the energetic constraint hypothesis. We compare the foraging behavior of females (n = 15) and males (n = 9) during bi-parental at the colony, post-fledging male-only parental care and winter when parental care is absent. As predicted by the reproductive role specialization hypothesis, we found evidence of sex-specific foraging during post-fledging only, the stage with the greatest divergence in parental care roles. Single-parenting males spent almost twice as much time diving per day and foraged at lower quality prey patches relative to independent females. This implies a potential energetic constraint for males during the estimated 62.8 ± 8.9 days of offspring dependence at sea. Contrary to the predictions of the energetic constraint hypothesis, we found no evidence of sex-specific foraging during biparental care, suggesting that male parents did not forage for their own benefit before colony departure in anticipation of post-fledging energy constraints. We hypothesize that unpredictable prey conditions at Newfoundland colonies in recent years may limit male parental ability to allocate additional time and energy to self-feeding during biparental care, without compromising chick survival. Our findings support differential parental care as a mechanism for sex-specific foraging in monomorphic murres, and highlight the need to consider ecological context in the interpretation of sex-specific foraging behavior.

Seasonal Variation in Parental Care Drives Sex-Specific Foraging by a Monomorphic Seabird.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chantelle M Burke

Full Text Available Evidence of sex-specific foraging in monomorphic seabirds is increasing though the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. We investigate differential parental care as a mechanism for sex-specific foraging in monomorphic Common Murres (Uria aalge, where the male parent alone provisions the chick after colony departure. Using a combination of geolocation-immersion loggers and stable isotopes, we assess two hypotheses: the reproductive role specialization hypothesis and the energetic constraint hypothesis. We compare the foraging behavior of females (n = 15 and males (n = 9 during bi-parental at the colony, post-fledging male-only parental care and winter when parental care is absent. As predicted by the reproductive role specialization hypothesis, we found evidence of sex-specific foraging during post-fledging only, the stage with the greatest divergence in parental care roles. Single-parenting males spent almost twice as much time diving per day and foraged at lower quality prey patches relative to independent females. This implies a potential energetic constraint for males during the estimated 62.8 ± 8.9 days of offspring dependence at sea. Contrary to the predictions of the energetic constraint hypothesis, we found no evidence of sex-specific foraging during biparental care, suggesting that male parents did not forage for their own benefit before colony departure in anticipation of post-fledging energy constraints. We hypothesize that unpredictable prey conditions at Newfoundland colonies in recent years may limit male parental ability to allocate additional time and energy to self-feeding during biparental care, without compromising chick survival. Our findings support differential parental care as a mechanism for sex-specific foraging in monomorphic murres, and highlight the need to consider ecological context in the interpretation of sex-specific foraging behavior.

Foraging strategy switch of a top marine predator according to seasonal resource differences

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Malcolm Daniel O'Toole

2015-04-01

Full Text Available The spatio-temporal variability in marine resources influences the foraging behaviour and success of top marine predators. However, little is known about the links between these animals and ocean productivity, specifically, how plankton density influences their foraging behaviour. Southern elephant seals (Mirounga leonina have two annual at-sea foraging trips: a two month post-breeding foraging trip (Nov – Jan that coincides with elevated summer productivity; and an eight month post-moulting foraging trip (Feb – Oct over winter, when productivity is low. Physical parameters are often used to describe seal habitat, whereas information about important biological parameters is lacking. We used electronic tags deployed on elephant seals during both trips to determine their movement and foraging behaviour. The tags also recorded light, which measured the bio-optical properties of the water column, the bulk of which is presumably influenced by phytoplankton. We investigated the relationship between plankton density and seal foraging behaviour; comparing trends between summer and winter trips. We found a positive relationship between plankton density and foraging behaviour, which did not vary seasonally. We propose that profitable concentrations of seal prey are more likely to coincide with planktonic aggregations, but we also acknowledge that trophic dynamics may shift in response to seasonal trends in productivity. Seal prey (mid-trophic level and plankton (lower-trophic level are expected to overlap in space and time during summer trips when peak phytoplankton blooms occur. In contrast, aggregated patches of lower trophic levels are likely to be more dispersed during winter trips when plankton density is considerably lower and heterogeneous. These results show that southern elephant seals are able to exploit prey resources in different ways throughout the year as demonstrated by the variation observed between seal foraging behaviour and trophic

Evaluation some Forage Legumes in Limited Irrigation Condition

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Hassan Moniri Far

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Forage legumes respond differently to limited irrigation regimes. Their evaluation may, thus, help to select drought tolerant types for limited irrigation conditions. In this study four type of forage legume were studied for two years in Tikma-Dash Research Station of East Azarbaijan Agricultural and Natural Research Center, Tabriz, Iran, in a randomized complete block design using split-plot experiment in 2011-2013 years. Irrigation regimes (without irrigation, one irrigation and two irrigations were assigned to main plots and four forage types (hairy vetch, grass pea, Pannonica sativa and lathyrus were assigned to subplots. The results of analysis of variance showed that the effect of irrigation on plant height, number of shoots, leaf area and plant fresh and dry weights were not significant. Howere, legume types affected these traits significantly (P≤0.01. The effect of irrigation levels and legume types on protein content of hay were significant (P

SOCIAL COMPLEXITY AND LEARNING FORAGING TASKS IN BEES

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AMAYA-MÁRQUEZ MARISOL

2008-12-01

Full Text Available Social complexity and models concerning central place foraging were tested with respect to learning predictions using the social honey bee (Apis mellifera and solitary blue orchard bee (Osmia lignaria when given foraging problems. Both species were presented the same foraging problems, where 1 only reward molarity varied between flower morphs, and 2 only reward volume varied between flower morphs. Experiments utilized blue vs. white flower patches to standardize rewards in each experimental situation. Although honey bees learned faster than blue orchard bees when given a molarity difference reward problem, there was no significant difference in learning rate when presented a volume difference reward problem. Further, the rate at which blue orchard bees learned the volume difference problem was not significantly different from that with which honey bees learned about reward molarity differences. The results do not support the predictions of the social complexity theory, but do support those of the central place model

Individual and population-level impacts of an emerging poxvirus disease in a wild population of great tits.

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Shelly Lachish

Full Text Available Emerging infectious diseases of wildlife can have severe effects on host populations and constitute a pressing problem for biodiversity conservation. Paridae pox is an unusually severe form of avipoxvirus infection that has recently been identified as an emerging infectious disease particularly affecting an abundant songbird, the great tit (Parus major, in Great Britain. In this study, we study the invasion and establishment of Paridae pox in a long-term monitored population of wild great tits to (i quantify the impact of this novel pathogen on host fitness and (ii determine the potential threat it poses to population persistence. We show that Paridae pox significantly reduces the reproductive output of great tits by reducing the ability of parents to fledge young successfully and rear those young to independence. Our results also suggested that pathogen transmission from diseased parents to their offspring was possible, and that disease entails severe mortality costs for affected chicks. Application of multistate mark-recapture modelling showed that Paridae pox causes significant reductions to host survival, with particularly large effects observed for juvenile survival. Using an age-structured population model, we demonstrate that Paridae pox has the potential to reduce population growth rate, primarily through negative impacts on host survival rates. However, at currently observed prevalence, significant disease-induced population decline seems unlikely, although pox prevalence may be underestimated if capture probability of diseased individuals is low. Despite this, because pox-affected model populations exhibited lower average growth rates, this emerging infectious disease has the potential to reduce the resilience of populations to other environmental factors that reduce population size.

The invasion, provenance and diversity of Vespa velutina Lepeletier (Hymenoptera: Vespidae in Great Britain.

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Giles E Budge

Full Text Available The yellow-legged or Asian hornet (Vespa velutina colour form nigrithorax was introduced into France from China over a decade ago. Vespa velutina has since spread rapidly across Europe, facilitated by suitable climatic conditions and the ability of a single nest to disperse many mated queens over a large area. Yellow-legged hornets are a major concern because of the potential impact they have on populations of many beneficial pollinators, most notably the western honey bee (Apis mellifera, which shows no effective defensive behaviours against this exotic predator. Here, we present the first report of this species in Great Britain. Actively foraging hornets were detected at two locations, the first around a single nest in Gloucestershire, and the second a single hornet trapped 54 km away in Somerset. The foraging activity observed in Gloucestershire was largely restricted to within 700 m of a single nest, suggesting highly localised movements. Genetic analyses of individuals from the Gloucestershire nest and the single hornet from Somerset suggest that these incursions represent an expansion of the European population, rather than a second incursion from Asia. The founding queen of the Gloucestershire nest mated with a single male, suggesting that sexual reproduction may have occurred in an area of low nest density. Whilst the nest contained diploid adult males, haploid 'true' males were only present at the egg stage, indicating that the nest was detected and removed before the production of queens. Members of the public reported additional dead hornets associated with camping equipment recently returned from France and imported timber products, highlighting possible pathways of incursion. The utility of microsatellites to inform surveillance during an incursion and the challenge of achieving eradication of this damaging pest are discussed.

Honeybees learn floral odors while receiving nectar from foragers within the hive

Science.gov (United States)

Farina, Walter M.; Grüter, Christoph; Acosta, Luis; Mc Cabe, Sofía

2007-01-01

Recent studies showed that nectar odors brought back by honeybee foragers can be learned associatively inside the hive. In the present study, we focused on the learning abilities of bees, which directly interact via trophallaxis with the incoming nectar foragers: the workers that perform nectar-receiving tasks inside the hive. Workers that have received food directly from foragers coming back from a feeder offering either unscented or scented sugar solution [phenylacetaldehyde (PHE) or nonanal diluted] were captured from two observational hives, and their olfactory memories were tested using the proboscis extension response paradigm. Bees that have received scented solution from incoming foragers showed significantly increased response frequencies for the corresponding solution odor in comparison with those that have received unscented solution. No differences in the response frequencies were found between food odors and colonies. The results indicate that first-order receivers learn via trophallaxis the association between the scent and the sugar solution transferred by incoming foragers. The implications of these results should be considered at three levels: the operational cohesion of bees involved in foraging-related tasks, the information propagation inside the hive related to the floral type exploited, and the putative effect of these memories on future preferences for resources.