scholarly journals Quantitative abilities in a reptile ( Podarcis sicula )

2017 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 20160899 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Elena Miletto Petrazzini ◽  
Isabel Fraccaroli ◽  
Francesco Gariboldi ◽  
Christian Agrillo ◽  
Angelo Bisazza ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Food Item ◽  
Foraging Behaviour ◽  
Numerical Cognition ◽  
Cognitive Skill ◽  
Podarcis Sicula ◽  
Food Items ◽  
Two Alternatives

The ability to identify the largest amount of prey available is fundamental for optimizing foraging behaviour in several species. To date, this cognitive skill has been observed in all vertebrate groups except reptiles. In this study we investigated the spontaneous ability of ruin lizards to select the larger amount of food items. In Experiment 1, lizards proved able to select the larger food item when presented with two alternatives differing in size (0.25, 0.50, 0.67 and 0.75 ratio). In Experiment 2 lizards presented with two groups of food items (1 versus 4, 2 versus 4, 2 versus 3 and 3 versus 4 items) were unable to select the larger group in any contrast. The lack of discrimination in the presence of multiple items represents an exception in numerical cognition studies, raising the question as to whether reptiles' quantitative abilities are different from those of other vertebrate groups.

An extensive study of the foraging ecology of beavers (Castor canadensis) in relation to habitat quality

2004 ◽  
Vol 82 (6) ◽  
pp. 922-933 ◽  
Author(s):  
D Gallant ◽  
C H Bérubé ◽  
E Tremblay ◽  
L Vasseur
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Quality ◽  
Foraging Behaviour ◽  
Foraging Ecology ◽  
Castor Canadensis ◽  
Central Place ◽  
Foraging Theory ◽  
Extensive Study ◽  
Food Items ◽  
Partial View ◽  
Selection Of

The objective of this study was to examine the foraging behaviour of the beaver (Castor canadensis Kuhl, 1820) and to explain its selection of terrestrial woody plant species according to central place foraging theory. Limitations in variety of food items in most studies with regard to size and (or) distance from the central place and information on availability of forage choices give a partial view of the subject. In this study, the theory is tested in a natural environment with high variability in food items with regard to these factors. Foraging choices by beavers were inspected by measuring variables on cut and uncut trees of every species encountered within 1 m of trail systems made by 25 beaver colonies in Kouchibouguac National Park in New Brunswick, Canada, thereby quantifying the availability of the different food items. The effect of habitat quality (food availability) on the foraging behaviour of beavers was also tested. The results of this study suggest that with increasing distance from the pond, beavers in high-quality habitats selected fewer, but larger, trees and are more species selective. This selectivity was diminished in habitats of lower quality. The results of this study are consistent with the predictions of the central foraging theory.

scholarly journals Food Habits of Dabbling Ducks During Fall Migration in a Prairie Pothole System, Heron Lake, Minnesota

2005 ◽  
Vol 119 (4) ◽  
pp. 546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan M. Wersal ◽  
Brock R. McMillan ◽  
John D. Madsen
Keyword(s):  
Food Habits ◽  
Food Item ◽  
Dabbling Ducks ◽  
Prairie Pothole ◽  
Plant Parts ◽  
Food Items ◽  
Dabbling Duck ◽  
Stuckenia Pectinata ◽  
Polygonum Lapathifolium ◽  
Volume Method

We conducted an analysis of dabbling duck food habits in the fall of 2002 and 2003 in the Heron Lake system. Gizzard contents of hunter-harvested birds were analyzed using the percent aggregate volume method to determine what food items were consumed and in what quantity. Curltop Ladysthumb (Polygonum lapathifolium) was the food item consumed most often (82.2%) and in the greatest volume (34.2 ml). Sago Pondweed (Stuckenia pectinata) was the only food item of which multiple plant parts were consumed. However, the seeds and tubers only comprised 1.27 and 0.07 of the total aggregate percent.

Maternal Knowledge of Oral Health of Children Aged 1–4 Years

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 116-120
Author(s):  
Nurit Dagon ◽  
Tal Ratson ◽  
Benjamin Peretz ◽  
Sigalit Blumer
Keyword(s):  
Oral Health ◽  
Early Childhood Caries ◽  
Food Item ◽  
Fluoride Concentration ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
Academic Education ◽  
Health Issues ◽  
Maternal Knowledge ◽  
Demographic Information ◽  
Food Items

Introduction. Knowledge of oral health (KOH) among mothers has an important influence on their children's oral habits and routines. Lack of maternal KOH had been related to the development of early childhood caries among preschool children. Aim. To assess KOH among mothers of 1–4 year-olds. Study design. Participating mothers completed a 3-part questionnaire on general demographic information, KOH of their children, and ranking of six food items according to their cariogenic potential. Results. Most of the 285 participating mothers had an academic education. Only 47% of the mothers correctly answered seven questions on KOH. The dentist was the main source for KOH. Most of the mothers (94.39%) were aware of the need to brush their children's teeth twice daily. Most of them (72.29%) did not know the correct fluoride concentration in their child's toothpaste. They ranked salty snacks as the least cariogenic food item. Most of the mothers were not aware that snacks and sweetened drinks should be consumed during meals, and two-thirds reported tasting food from their child's spoon. Conclusion. Overall, mothers of toddlers lacked basic knowledge of oral health issues and practices to follow for the prevention of their children's caries.

scholarly journals Possums in the park: efficient foraging under the risk of predation or of competition?

2000 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eve McDonald-Madden ◽  
Lian K. Akers ◽  
Deena J. Brenner ◽  
Sarah Howell ◽  
Blair W. Patullo ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Population ◽  
Foraging Behaviour ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Foraging Efficiency ◽  
Trichosurus Vulpecula ◽  
Initial Amount ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Food Items ◽  
Risk Of Predation

Many eutherian mammals adjust their foraging behaviour according to the presence or threat of predators. Here, we examine experimentally whether an urban population of brushtail possums, Trichosurus vulpecula, similarly adjust their foraging behaviour. Our field experiments manipulated the quantity of food items in artificial feeders placed at different distances from trees. These experiments showed that the possums remained longer at feeders placed far from the trees, but their foraging behaviour did not change with the initial amount of food. The scanning behaviour of possums did not simply increase with distance from the trees, as predicted from studies of other vertebrates. Nevertheless, the number of physical conflicts between individuals increased as the amount of available food decreased. These data suggest that the changes in the foraging behaviour of the possums in this population do not reflect a simple trade-off between foraging efficiency and the risk of predation or competition.

scholarly journals Habitat complexity and food item size modify the foraging behaviour of a freshwater fish

Hydrobiologia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 766 (1) ◽  
pp. 321-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory P. D. Murray ◽  
Richard A. Stillman ◽  
J. Robert Britton
Keyword(s):  
Freshwater Fish ◽  
Habitat Complexity ◽  
Food Item ◽  
Foraging Behaviour ◽  
Item Size

scholarly journals Continuous and discrete quantity discrimination in tortoises

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Gazzola ◽  
Giorgio Vallortigara ◽  
Daniele Pellitteri-Rosa
Keyword(s):  
Food Item ◽  
Animal Behaviour ◽  
Quantity Discrimination ◽  
Weber's Law ◽  
Food Items ◽  
Numerical Abilities ◽  
Numerical Magnitudes ◽  
Testudo Hermanni ◽  
Numerousness Discrimination ◽  
Discrete Quantity

AbstractThe ability to estimate quantity, which is crucially important in several aspects of animal behaviour (e.g., foraging), has been extensively investigated in most taxa, with the exception of reptiles. The few studies available, in lizards, report lack of spontaneous discrimination of quantity, which may suggest that reptiles could represent an exception in numerical abilities among vertebrates. We investigated the spontaneous ability of Hermann’s tortoises (Testudo hermanni) to select the larger quantity of food items. Tortoises showed able to choose the larger food item when exposed with two options differing in size (0.25, 0.50, 0.67 and 0.75 ratio) and when presented with two groups differing in numerousness (1 versus 4, 2 versus 4, 2 versus 3 and 3 versus 4 items). The tortoises succeeded in both size and numerousness discrimination, and their performance appeared to depend on the ratio of items to be discriminated (thus following Weber’s Law). These findings in chelonians provide evidence of an ancient system for the extrapolation of numerical magnitudes from given sets of elements, shared among vertebrates.

scholarly journals Alerting Spoilage of Food in Refrigerator

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 1720-1725
Keyword(s):  
Image Processing ◽  
Food Item ◽  
Working Women ◽  
Smart Homes ◽  
End Users ◽  
Prediction Methods ◽  
Food Items ◽  
Fungal Attack

The era of smart homes wouldn’t be complete without intelligent refrigerators. Thus we have proposed an idea for detecting the food kept in the refrigerator and alerting the user on their spoilage which involves all the processes of ML and IoT. In places where large stocks of food are stored, manual maintenance is very hard and also when they are transported to long distant places from the cultivated lands to the end-users, they get spoiled due to lack of governance. The existing systems have provided a solution forthis and we decided to give thisfacility forthe working women who have very little time to do their household. This system helps in preventing other items in the refrigerator from the fungal attack caused by the affected ones. The solutions provided by the existing systems recommend sensors to detect the food items. Each food item might need a different sensor and hence this might lead to a lot of hardware components to be added to the refrigerator. Thus our system uses ML prediction methods like image processing. Finally, the notification of the spoiled food is intimated to the user by displaying the message in the refrigerator door.

scholarly journals Training Choices Toward Low Value Options

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Zoltak ◽  
Rob Holland ◽  
Niels Kukken ◽  
Harm Veling
Keyword(s):  
Eye Tracking ◽  
Food Item ◽  
Underlying Mechanism ◽  
Choice Making ◽  
Food Items ◽  
Auditory Cue ◽  
Food Decisions

Food decisions are driven by the differences in value such that high value items are preferred over low value items. However, recent research has demonstrated that by implementing the Cue- Approach Task (CAT) the odds of choosing low value items over high value items can be increased. This effect was explained by increased attention to the low value items induced by CAT. Our goal was replicate original findings and to address the question of the underlying mechanism by employing eye-tracking during participants’ choice making. Within the CAT participants were presented with images of food items and were instructed to quickly respond to some of them when an auditory cue was presented (cued items), and not without this cue (uncued items). Next, participants made choices between two food items that differed on whether they were cued in the CAT (cued versus uncued) and value (high versus low). Results showed participants were more likely to select a low value food item over a high value food item for consumption when the low value food item had been cued compared to when the low value item had not been cued. Important, and against our expectation, there was no significant increase in gaze time for low cued items compared to low uncued items. Participants did spend more time fixating on the chosen item compared to the unchosen alternative, thus replicating previous work in this domain. The present research thus establishes the robustness of CAT as means of facilitating choices for low value over high value food but could not demonstrate that this increased preference was due to increased attention for cued low value items. The present research thus raises the question how CAT may increase choices for low value options.

scholarly journals Some Biological and Morphological Aspects for Coptodon Zillii(Gervais, 1848) Inhabiting at Al- Tharthar Arm-Tigris River North of Baghdad,Iraq

2021 ◽  
Vol 910 (1) ◽  
pp. 012070
Author(s):  
Nehad K. Wahab
Keyword(s):  
Food Item ◽  
Condition Factor ◽  
Regression Equations ◽  
Important Food ◽  
Morphometric Measurements ◽  
Food Items ◽  
Tigris River ◽  
Morphological Aspects ◽  
Highly Correlated ◽  
Important Food Item

Abstract Somebiological aspects and morphological for Coptodon zillii inhabiting at Al-Tharthar Arm-Tigris River were studied during the period from April to September 2016. The growth pattern was positive allometric with (b) values for males 3.392, females 3.192, and for combined sexes 3.30. Condition factor values were lower than one and increased with size rangesbetween1.265and1.984 with an average of 1.665for combined sexes.Fish considered as herbivorous, six food items found in the diet, filament algae was the most important food item that occupied 57.84% of the diet, followed by plants particles' and their seeds 27.08% and organic materials 12.38%. The percentage of food items by both methods differed between sexes. The research cover, the ratios of each of twenty morphometric measurements to total length, and each of four morphometric measurements to head length and their linear regression equations. All the length-length relationships between standard length and the others measurements were highly correlated.

scholarly journals Evidence of terrestrial feeding in the arboreal lizard Enyalius bilineatus (Sauria, Polychrotidae) of south-eastern Brazil

2001 ◽  
Vol 61 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. ZAMPROGNO ◽  
M. das G. F. ZAMPROGNO ◽  
R. L. TEIXEIRA
Keyword(s):  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Food Item ◽  
Prey Type ◽  
Foraging Strategy ◽  
Gut Contents ◽  
Important Food ◽  
Food Items ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
Eastern Brazil ◽  
Important Food Item

The diet of the arboreal lizard E. bilineatus was assessed based on analysis of gut contents of specimens collected in the remnants of the Atlantic rainforest in Espírito Santo State, south-eastern Brazil. Stomachs of the lizards examined (SVL = 57.0-85.0 mm) contained nine arthropod orders. E. bilineatus utilizes a broad range of arthopodan prey type and sizes, and can be considered an arthropod generalist, which uses a sit-and-wait foraging strategy. Orthoptera represented the most important food item, followed by Dictyoptera and Hymenoptera. Hemiptera, Homoptera, Lepidoptera (larvae), Coleoptera, Araneae, and Diplopoda constituted the remainder of food items. The presence of Diplopoda, which are not generally found on tree trunks, provides particularly strong evidence the E. bilineatus forages in leaf litter on the ground.

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