Remote monitoring of the behaviour and activity of captive southern hairy-nosed wombats (Lasiorhinus latifrons)

2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lindsay A. Hogan ◽  
Clive J. C. Phillips ◽  
Allan Lisle ◽  
Alan B. Horsup ◽  
Tina Janssen ◽  
...  

The nocturnal nature of wombats makes it difficult to learn about their behavioural ecology and activity rhythms in the wild. A facility was established at Rockhampton Zoo to house 12 adult southern hairy-nosed wombats in order to monitor their behaviour by means of video surveillance and provide detailed information on their activity patterns using movement-sensitive radio-transmitters. After one year of monitoring it was established that the wombats spent, on average, as a proportion of total time 69.9% sleeping, 8.8% lying resting, 5.2% feeding, 5.2% exploring, 4.3% performing stereotyped behaviour, 2.5% sitting resting and 4.1% in other activities. Feeding, lying resting and sleeping varied with season by ~5%. Temporal patterns were bimodal for 8 of the 12 behaviours described, with most ‘active’ behaviours being expressed between 1800 and 2000 hours and 0200 and 0500 hours. The activity pattern was characterised by a strong circadian rhythm, with most activity occurring nocturnally. Within active periods there was an alternating rhythm of active and rest periods and activity peaks at the beginning and end of each night. Comprehensive and reliable information on the behavioural ecology, as well as captive management, of southern hairy-nosed wombats was obtained from the remote video and radio-transmitter recordings.

1995 ◽  
Vol 31 (10) ◽  
pp. 29-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. E. Thorpe ◽  
C. Young Cho

Most species in aquaculture are new to cultivation and so behave like wild animals. They are products of evolution, with adaptations to specific habitat conditions. In the wild, food is not available uniformly throughout the day or the year, or in space, and rarely exceeds the fishes needs. Competition is energetically expensive, reducing growth efficiency. Consequently, feeding activity patterns have evolved, implying internal appetite rhythms, which optimise food intake under these various constraints. Salmonids can adapt quickly to short term variation in food availability, but show seasonal genetically determined anorexia. Rational feeding regimes in culture should take all such features into account. When appetite is high naturally, food should be presented so that it is economically indefensible - where every individual can eat, and where fighting does not pay. At periods of anorexia it will be prudent to offer no food. Manufacturers' feed tables are usually regimes devised to meet the bioenergetic needs of fishes, as they are understood in a physico-chemical sense. While useful first approximations, they do not take into account these evolutionary features of the fishes, and can lead to waste. Methods of presentation are described which allow the fish to determine when food shall be available, and in ways which, by diminishing the advantages of social dominance, ensure relatively even opportunities to feed for all individuals in the population. Allowing the fish to set the time-table reduces the likelihood of waste.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Niall M. McGowan ◽  
Kate E. A. Saunders

Abstract Purpose of Review We review the recent evidence suggesting that circadian rhythm disturbance is a common unaddressed feature of borderline personality disorder (BPD); amelioration of which may confer substantial clinical benefit. We assess chronobiological BPD studies from a mechanistic and translational perspective and highlight opportunities for the future development of this hypothesis. Recent Findings The emerging circadian phenotype of BPD is characterised by a preponderance of comorbid circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorders, phase delayed and misaligned rest-activity patterns and attenuated amplitudes of usually well-characterised circadian rhythms. Such disturbances may exacerbate symptom severity, and specific maladaptive personality dimensions may produce a liability towards extremes in chronotype. Pilot studies suggest intervention may be beneficial, but development is limited. Summary Endogenous and exogenous circadian rhythm disturbances appear to be common in BPD. The interface between psychiatry and chronobiology has led previously to novel efficacious strategies for the treatment of psychiatric disorders. We believe that better characterisation of the circadian phenotype in BPD will lead to a directed biological target for treatment in a condition where there is a regrettable paucity of accessible therapies.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (12) ◽  
pp. 2535
Author(s):  
Di Fan ◽  
Hyunwoo Kim ◽  
Jummo Kim ◽  
Yunhui Liu ◽  
Qiang Huang

Face attributes prediction has an increasing amount of applications in human–computer interaction, face verification and video surveillance. Various studies show that dependencies exist in face attributes. Multi-task learning architecture can build a synergy among the correlated tasks by parameter sharing in the shared layers. However, the dependencies between the tasks have been ignored in the task-specific layers of most multi-task learning architectures. Thus, how to further boost the performance of individual tasks by using task dependencies among face attributes is quite challenging. In this paper, we propose a multi-task learning using task dependencies architecture for face attributes prediction and evaluate the performance with the tasks of smile and gender prediction. The designed attention modules in task-specific layers of our proposed architecture are used for learning task-dependent disentangled representations. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed network by comparing with the traditional multi-task learning architecture and the state-of-the-art methods on Faces of the world (FotW) and Labeled faces in the wild-a (LFWA) datasets.


2000 ◽  
Vol 78 (10) ◽  
pp. 1831-1839 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Sound ◽  
M Veith

Daily activity patterns of male western green lizards, Lacerta bilineata (Daudin, 1802), at the edge of their northern distribution range in western Germany after the breeding season from June to October were recorded using implanted radio transmitters. Different activity indices discriminating between stimulation, duration, and length of movement were correlated with actual weather conditions (d0) and with weather conditions on the 2 previous days (d-1 and d-2). The lizards' dependence on weather showed two different phases throughout the study period. During the first period and in the period preceding a drastic change of weather in midsummer, weather had no significant influence on movement parameters. After that event, temperatures dropped and a strong dependence on weather of all movement parameters except those indicating displacements became apparent. Thresholds for 50% activity during this second phase were a maximum temperature of 17°C and a minimum humidity of 35%. Two days after periods of bad weather, the influence of weather conditions increased again. This can be explained by physiological deficits that require compensation during the period of marginal weather conditions prior to hibernation. Displacement movements were significantly longer than home-range movements and were neither triggered nor modulated by the weather. They must therefore represent activities such as patrolling territory boundaries.


2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (7) ◽  
pp. 484 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Groenewegen ◽  
Dan Harley ◽  
Richard Hill ◽  
Graeme Coulson

Context Assisted colonisation has the potential to protect species from intractable threats within their historical ranges. The Australian mainland subspecies of the eastern barred bandicoot (Perameles gunnii) is extinct in the wild, with surviving populations restricted to small sites protected by predator–barrier fences. PVA modelling shows that a self-sustaining bandicoot population would require an area free of the introduced red fox (Vulpes vulpes) of at least 2500ha. French Island is outside the historic range of the species, but is fox-free and contains around 9000ha of potentially suitable habitat. Aims This study will assess the suitability of French Island as a potential site for a self-sustaining eastern barred bandicoot population by conducting a 1-year assisted colonisation trial to assess habitat use, body condition and survival. Methods Between July and September 2012, 18 adult bandicoots were released. We radio-tracked bandicoots using intraperitoneal radio-transmitters for up to 122 days and trapped fortnightly. Key results The release group met the three measures of success: (1) appropriate habitat use; (2) recovery of post-release bodyweight; and (3) founder survival exceeding 100 days. Habitat use and body condition throughout the trial reflected that of mainland populations, and seven bandicoots survived longer than 100 days. Mortality was greatest in the first month, with veterinary investigations confirming two deaths due to cat predation, two deaths from toxoplasmosis and one unknown cause of death. Bandicoots that survived longer than 100 days occupied higher, drier ground than those that did not. Toxoplasmosis cases were associated with lower topographic position on the site. Conclusions Our results suggest that French Island provides suitable habitat for the establishment of a population of eastern barred bandicoots. On French Island, toxoplasmosis was identified as an important source of mortality in addition to cat predation, and warrants further investigation. Implications Given the costs and challenges of predator control and the maintenance of predator exclusion fences, assisted colonisation to one or more fox-free islands remains the most viable option to establish self-sustaining bandicoot populations. Our results highlight the value in conducting trial releases ahead of major translocations.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Coulby ◽  
Adrian K Clear ◽  
Oliver Jones ◽  
Alan Godfrey

Koedoe ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
D.J. Pienaar ◽  
A.J. Hall-Martin

The procedure for implanting radio transmitters into the horns of white and black rhinoceroses is described. Mean transmitter life in the white rhinoceros was 13,9 months which is significantly longer than the 9,7 months in black rhinoceros. In the white rhinoceros a significant sex-related difference in transmitter life was found with the transmitters in males lasting a mean of 12,1 months compared to the 15,3 months in females.


2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 591-595 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vanessa L. Hale ◽  
Brian MacGowan ◽  
Lorraine Corriveau ◽  
David C. Huse ◽  
Andrea F. T. Currylow ◽  
...  

1995 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 71
Author(s):  
J.L. Gardner ◽  
M. Serena

The Water Rat Hydromys chrysogaster is Australia's largest amphibious rodent, occupying freshwater rivers, lakes, and coastal and estuarine habitats throughout the continent (Watts and Aslin 1981). Little is known of the species' social organisation or use of space in the wild although Harris (1978) suggested that adults might be intrasexually aggressive. The home ranges of all sex and age classes overlap to some extent but home ranges of adults of the same sex appear to overlap less (Harris 1978). Adult males occupy the largest home ranges which overlap those of one or more females. In captivity individuals kept in groups form hierarchies in which only the dominant females usually breed successfully (Olsen 1982). Fighting occurs primarily among males, with the highest incidence of injuries observed at the beginning of the main September-March breeding season (Olsen 1980, 1982). The results of trapping studies indicate that population density may vary considerably, with the greatest numbers of animals typically occupying man-modified habitats such as irrigation channels or fish farms (McNally 1960, Watts and Aslin 1981, Smales 1984). Aggressive behaviour appears to be related to pelage colour (phenotype) and population density; the higher the density the greater the number of injured individuals (Olsen 1980).


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