scholarly journals Habituation responses in wild reindeer exposed to recreational activities

Rangifer ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eigil Reimers ◽  
Knut H. Røed ◽  
Øystein Flaget ◽  
Eivind Lurås

Displacement is the effect most often predicted when recreational activities in wild reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus) areas are discussed. Wild reindeer in Blefjell (225 km2) are exposed to humans more frequently than in Hardangervidda (8200 km2), from which the Blefjell herd originate. We recorded fright and flight response distances of groups of reindeer in both herds to a person directly approaching them on foot or skis during winter, summer, and autumn post-hunting and rutting season in 2004-2006. The response distances sight, alert, flight initiation and escape were shorter in Blefjell than in Hardangervidda while the probability of assessing the observer before flight tended to be greater in Blefjell. To test whether these results could be due to habituation or genetic influence of semi-domestic reindeer previously released in the Blefjell region, we compared the genetic variation of the Blefjell reindeer with previously reported variation in semi-domestic reindeer and in the wild reindeer from Hardangervidda. Microsatellite analyses revealed closer genetic ancestry of the Blefjell reindeer to the wild Hardangervidda reindeer and not to the semi-domestic reindeer at both the herd and the individual level. We conclude that the decreased flight responses in Blefjell reindeer appear to be a habituation response to frequent human encounters rather than traits inherited from a semi-domestic origin.

2011 ◽  
Vol 89 (8) ◽  
pp. 753-764 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eigil Reimers ◽  
Steinar Lund ◽  
Torbjørn Ergon

The insular Svalbard reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus Vrolik, 1829) provide an opportunity to study vigilance behaviour in the absence of predators and parasitizing insects. We measured vigilance and fright and flight response during summer 2006 in the Svalbard archipelago; in four areas on Nordenskiöld Land on the island Spitzbergen and in one area on the island Edgeøya. Vigilance was higher in reindeer on Edgeøya than in the four Spitzbergen areas. Males were less vigilant than lactating and barren females and vigilance decreased with increasing group size. The relaxed vigilance behaviour in Svalbard reindeer compared with wild reindeer in southern Norway demonstrates a vigilance threshold in the absence of traditional predators of Rangifer Hamilton Smith, 1827. Alert, flight initiation, and escape distances were all shorter in Adventdalen, with Longyearbyen and its considerably higher amounts of human activities and infrastructure than in the other study areas, supporting evidence of habituation towards humans. There were no systematic vigilance or differences in fright and flight responses between reindeer in Colesdalen, Reindalen, and Sassendalen, indicating that a combination of low level of human activities including hunting, recreation, and scientific activities affected the animals differently. Lower probability of assessing before fleeing in Edgeøya (63% vs. 94% in the Nordenskiöld Land areas), along with their higher vigilance, may indicate more frequent interactions with polar bears ( Ursus maritimus Phipps, 1774) in Edgeøya.


2012 ◽  
Vol 367 (1596) ◽  
pp. 1746-1756 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. D. Metcalfe ◽  
W. J. F. Le Quesne ◽  
W. W. L. Cheung ◽  
D. A. Righton

Physiological studies focus on the responses of cells, tissues and individuals to stressors, usually in laboratory situations. Conservation and management, on the other hand, focus on populations. The field of conservation physiology addresses the question of how abiotic drivers of physiological responses at the level of the individual alter requirements for successful conservation and management of populations. To achieve this, impacts of physiological effects at the individual level need to be scaled to impacts on population dynamics, which requires consideration of ecology. Successfully realizing the potential of conservation physiology requires interdisciplinary studies incorporating physiology and ecology, and requires that a constructive dialogue develops between these traditionally disparate fields. To encourage this dialogue, we consider the increasingly explicit incorporation of physiology into ecological models applied to marine fish conservation and management. Conservation physiology is further challenged as the physiology of an individual revealed under laboratory conditions is unlikely to reflect realized responses to the complex variable stressors to which it is exposed in the wild. Telemetry technology offers the capability to record an animal's behaviour while simultaneously recording environmental variables to which it is exposed. We consider how the emerging insights from telemetry can strengthen the incorporation of physiology into ecology.


2020 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 183-198
Author(s):  
Wiktor Soral ◽  
Mirosław Kofta

Abstract. The importance of various trait dimensions explaining positive global self-esteem has been the subject of numerous studies. While some have provided support for the importance of agency, others have highlighted the importance of communion. This discrepancy can be explained, if one takes into account that people define and value their self both in individual and in collective terms. Two studies ( N = 367 and N = 263) examined the extent to which competence (an aspect of agency), morality, and sociability (the aspects of communion) promote high self-esteem at the individual and the collective level. In both studies, competence was the strongest predictor of self-esteem at the individual level, whereas morality was the strongest predictor of self-esteem at the collective level.


2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-34
Author(s):  
Edward C. Warburton

This essay considers metonymy in dance from the perspective of cognitive science. My goal is to unpack the roles of metaphor and metonymy in dance thought and action: how do they arise, how are they understood, how are they to be explained, and in what ways do they determine a person's doing of dance? The premise of this essay is that language matters at the cultural level and can be determinative at the individual level. I contend that some figures of speech, especially metonymic labels like ‘bunhead’, can not only discourage but dehumanize young dancers, treating them not as subjects who dance but as objects to be danced. The use of metonymy to sort young dancers may undermine the development of healthy self-image, impede strong identity formation, and retard creative-artistic development. The paper concludes with a discussion of the influence of metonymy in dance and implications for dance educators.


Author(s):  
Pauline Oustric ◽  
Kristine Beaulieu ◽  
Nuno Casanova ◽  
Francois Husson ◽  
Catherine Gibbons ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher James Hopwood ◽  
Ted Schwaba ◽  
Wiebke Bleidorn

Personal concerns about climate change and the environment are a powerful motivator of sustainable behavior. People’s level of concern varies as a function of a variety of social and individual factors. Using data from 58,748 participants from a nationally representative German sample, we tested preregistered hypotheses about factors that impact concerns about the environment over time. We found that environmental concerns increased modestly from 2009-2017 in the German population. However, individuals in middle adulthood tended to be more concerned and showed more consistent increases in concern over time than younger or older people. Consistent with previous research, Big Five personality traits were correlated with environmental concerns. We present novel evidence that increases in concern were related to increases in the personality traits neuroticism and openness to experience. Indeed, changes in openness explained roughly 50% of the variance in changes in environmental concerns. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the individual level factors associated with changes in environmental concerns over time, towards the promotion of more sustainable behavior at the individual level.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keith Payne ◽  
Heidi A. Vuletich ◽  
Kristjen B. Lundberg

The Bias of Crowds model (Payne, Vuletich, & Lundberg, 2017) argues that implicit bias varies across individuals and across contexts. It is unreliable and weakly associated with behavior at the individual level. But when aggregated to measure context-level effects, the scores become stable and predictive of group-level outcomes. We concluded that the statistical benefits of aggregation are so powerful that researchers should reconceptualize implicit bias as a feature of contexts, and ask new questions about how implicit biases relate to systemic racism. Connor and Evers (2020) critiqued the model, but their critique simply restates the core claims of the model. They agreed that implicit bias varies across individuals and across contexts; that it is unreliable and weakly associated with behavior at the individual level; and that aggregating scores to measure context-level effects makes them more stable and predictive of group-level outcomes. Connor and Evers concluded that implicit bias should be considered to really be noisily measured individual construct because the effects of aggregation are merely statistical. We respond to their specific arguments and then discuss what it means to really be a feature of persons versus situations, and multilevel measurement and theory in psychological science more broadly.


2019 ◽  
pp. 78-106
Author(s):  
Aruna Dayanatha ◽  
J A S K Jayakody

Information system (IS) projects have been seen to be failing at an alarmingly high rate. The prevailing explanations of IS failure have had only a limited success. Thus, the time may be right to look at the reasons for IS failure through an alternative perspective. This paper proposes that IS success should be explained in terms of managerial leadership intervention, from the sensemaking perspective. Managers are responsible for workplace outcomes; thus, it may be appropriate to explain their role in IS success as well. The sensemaking perspective can explain IS success through holistic user involvement, a concept which critiques of existing explanations have stated to be a requirement for explaining IS failure. This paper proposes a framework combining the theory of enactment and leadership enactment to theorize managerial leadership intervention for “IS success.” The proposed explanation postulates that the managerial leader’s envisioning of the future transaction set influences the liberation of the follower and cast enactment, while liberating followers and cast enactment constitute manager sensegiving. The managerial leader’s sense-giving influences follower sensemaking. Follower sensemaking, under the influence of managerial sensegiving, will lead to followers’ IS acceptance, and that constitutes IS success at the individual level. Further, collective level IS acceptance constitutes IS adaption/success, and this will influence the leader’s sensegiving, for the next round of sensemaking.


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