Ram sexual preferences and estrous behavior expression in ewes with different reproductive status

Marine wildlife tourism attractions often use food rewards to ensure close-up encounters with freeranging animals. In Bunbury, Western Australia, the Dolphin Discovery Centre (DDC) conducts a foodprovision program where bottlenose dolphins (N = 22; between 2000 and 2018) are offered food rewards to encourage their visitation at a beach in front of the DDC. We used historical records on individual beach visits by adult female dolphins collected by the DDC from 2000 to 2018 to develop generalized mixed effects models (GLMM) to test whether the frequency of beach visitation was influenced by their reproductive status (pregnant, lactating, nonreproductive) or climatic events (El Niño-Southern Oscillation phases) that could affect prey availability. We also quantified the behavioral budget of dolphins during food-provisioning sessions and documented intra- and interspecific aggressive behaviors using individual focal follows collected in 2017–2018. Provisioned females spend most of the time resting within the interaction area (66.3%) and aggressive interactions arise as a consequence of dominance behavior over food access. Visitation rates were most influenced by reproductive status with pregnant and lactating females visiting the provisioning area more frequently (z = 2.085, p = 0.037 and z = 2.437, p = 0.014, respectively). Females that frequently visit the provisioning area expose their dependent calves to regular human interactions at an early age when they are more susceptible to behavioral conditioning. Such experiences could cause the loss of awareness towards humans and promote maladaptive behaviors such as begging that increase risk of entanglement in fishing gear, boat strikes, and propeller injuries.

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Reproductive Status Modulates Mortality Rate, Lifespan and Egg Production, but Do Not the Physiological Aging in the Field Cricket Gryllus assimilis (Fabricius, 1775) (Orthoptera: Gryllidae)

Neotropical Entomology ◽

10.1007/s13744-020-00839-x ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 50 (2) ◽

pp. 237-246

Author(s):

Guilherme Martins Limberger ◽

Luiz Eduardo Maia Nery ◽

Duane Barros da Fonseca

Keyword(s):

Mortality Rate ◽

Egg Production ◽

Reproductive Status ◽

Field Cricket ◽

Physiological Aging

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Benzylisoquinoline alkaloid content in goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis L.) is influenced by phenological stage, reproductive status, and time-of-day

Phytochemistry Letters ◽

10.1016/j.phytol.2021.02.006 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 42 ◽

pp. 61-67

Author(s):

Grady H. Zuiderveen ◽

Eric P. Burkhart ◽

Joshua D. Lambert

Keyword(s):

Time Of Day ◽

Alkaloid Content ◽

Reproductive Status ◽

Phenological Stage ◽

Hydrastis Canadensis ◽

Benzylisoquinoline Alkaloid

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The evolution of Darwinian sexualities

BJHS Themes ◽

10.1017/bjt.2021.7 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-23

Author(s):

Erika Lorraine Milam

Keyword(s):

Gay Rights ◽

First Century ◽

Sexual Practices ◽

Past Century ◽

Sexual Preferences ◽

The Past ◽

Sexual Behaviours ◽

Late Twentieth ◽

New Generation ◽

Descent Of Man

Abstract Charles Darwin's Descent of Man was suffused with questions of courtship, mating and sex. Following in his footsteps, biologists throughout the twentieth century interrogated the sexual behaviour of humans and animals. This paper charts the fate of evolutionary theories of sexuality to argue that – despite legal and social gains of the past century – when biologists used sexual selection as a tool for theorizing the evolution of homosexual behaviour (which happened only rarely), the effect of their theories was to continuously reinscribe normative heterosexuality. If, at the end of the nineteenth century, certain sex theorists viewed homosexuality as a marker of intermediate sex, by the late twentieth a new generation of evolutionary theorists idealized gay men as hyper-masculine biological males whose sexual behaviours were uncompromised by the necessity of accommodating women's sexual preferences. In both cases, normative assumptions about gender were interwoven with those about sexuality. By the twenty-first century, animal exemplars were again mobilized alongside data gathered about human sexual practices in defence of gay rights, but this time by creating the opportunity for naturalization without recourse to biological determinism.

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