Academic literature on the topic 'Ecology|Zoology'

DR PETER COTGREAVE completed a PhD in ecology at the Zoology Department of the University of Oxford. Irwin Forseth is a plant physiological ecologist, teaching plant ecology and introductory biology at the University of Maryland since 1982. Cotgreave and Forseth have come together to write their first text: Introductory Ecology. The authors believe that many students attain qualifications in science without a basic understanding of the importance of ecology. The authors' aim is to provide a straightforward text that can be used by students receiving only minimal exposure to ecology.

Soil zoology and soil ecology have become very active fields of research since the early 1990s. A search in the ISI Web of Science databases showed a steady increase in publications about that theme over the last two decades, and 3,612 bibliographic references were found for that theme for the period of 2004 to 2008. The researches covered mostly soil environmental issues, toxicology and ecology. The issue of theoretical development in soil ecology is discussed, and arguments are presented against the idea that the soil ecology theory is deficient. Finally, the need for a general model of soil function and soil management is discussed and some options are presented to reach this goal.

<span>Arnfried Antonius studied Zoology, Paleontology and Ethnology at the University of Vienna, Austria, gradually focusing his attention on the ecology and graphic microanatomical reconstructions of marine invertebrates</span>

The historical rewiev of Biology, Ecology and Medicine Faculty is presented. The Faculty of Biology, Ecology and Medicine has 7 Departments, Aquarium complex, Zoological Museum, Vivarium and Herbarium. It works in cooperation with the Research Institute of Biology, Botanical Garden, O. L. Bel’gard International Biosphere Station, and Biological Station of DNU and forms the regional Centre of Science, Education and Culture in the field of Biology, Ecology and Nature Conservation in Central Ukraine. The Faculty proposes courses in the following specialities: Biology, Zoology, Botany, Microbiology and Virology, Biochemistry, Physiology, Ecology, Environmental Protection and Balanced Nature Management. All of them have the highest IV level of accreditation. Students get a pedagogical education.

According to the situation of Shao-Gan expressway slope project, the strategy of expressway slope ecology protection was put forward, including life-span ecology protection, zoology comeback and environment amalgamation, thorough environment protection. Then the slope ecology protection method by using coconut fibre nets and local frutex was brought forward. The validity of the reducing scour ability by using coconut fibre nets and local frutex mix-seminating or herbage and frutex mix-seminating was confirmed by the indoor model test and spot test. The slope ecology protection method which put forward in this paper was applied in the Shao-Gan Expressway and proved effective, which provide a new method and way to the slope ecology protection method of expressway in northern region of Guangdong province.

The paper includes the fauna and ecology of ladybugs (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) from various natural and agricultural ecosystems of the Republic of Moldova collected during 2008–2021 years and the specimens from the Museum of Entomology, Institute of Zoology collected between 1954–1979 years. In total, 23 species from 16 genera of Coccinellidae family were recorded.

Habitat loss and fragmentation (hereafter fragmentation) are some of the largest conservation threats today and will increasingly put pressure on species in the future. Maintaining population connectivity helps mitigate the negative effects fragmentation has on vulnerable species, especially those of conservation concern. In this dissertation, I elucidated the movement ecology of black-capped vireos by 1) estimating and characterizing patterns of gene flow, 2) examining the relationships between land cover and connectivity, and 3) simulating how future populations respond to climatic landscape change. I additionally characterized potential biases in family-wise error rate correction across population genetic studies, a correction important for evaluating the genetic structure of a species. I genotyped 343 individuals at 12 microsatellite loci in and around Fort Hood, Texas, which houses the largest and most stable breeding population. To characterize patterns of gene flow among black-capped vireo populations, I analyzed genetic differentiation, migration rates, number of migrants and parentage. Across these independent analyses, I found evidence for asymmetrical movements from Fort Hood to the other central Texas sites consistent with source-sink dynamics and findings from demographic studies. I used gravity models to test the relationships among Euclidean distance, land cover types (water, developed, forest, scrub, open, agriculture and wetlands), brown-headed cowbird control, and genetic similarity. My findings indicate that wetlands, likely via riparian areas, may be acting as corridors among populations. Better understanding of what factors influence connectivity will be crucial for maintaining connectivity when species of conservation concern are threatened by fragmentation.

Understanding the conditions that favour the evolution and maintenance of spiteful bacteriocin production combines two important questions from the fields of social evolution and microbiology. Spiteful behaviours, though, initially thought to be rare represent an important class of interactions between bacteria through the production of bacteriocins. Bacteriocins can be considered spiteful as they are costly to produce (in many cases requiring lysis) and are costly to sensitive bacteria (i.e. they are lethal). However, much about the ecology of spiteful behaviours and bacteriocin production remains unclear. Mathematical models have given us important insights into some conditions that should favour bacteriocin production, but few empirical studies exist supporting these results. In this thesis I use the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa (a prolific producer of bacteriocins), to examine conditions that favour bacteriocin production. I also investigate more specific elements about this system and toxin production in general. I find that bacteriocin production in P. aeruginosa closely follows predictions made from mathematical models under a range of different conditions (e.g. frequency, scale of competition, multiple social traits). I also find that resistance can evolve to bacteriocins and biological mechanisms such as the neutralisation of one’s own toxin can have important consequences. Finally, I consider bacteriocin as a policing trait testing predictions about the role that linkage plays in policing. This work represents a comprehensive study into the importance of bacteriocin production in bacteria.

A crucial question in the debate about reintroducing elephant culling is whether the long-term effects of elephants and mesobrowsers on woodlands are similar. Sufficiently high biomass-densities of mesobrowsers may, following reduction or removal of elephants, continue to heavily impact earlier life-history stages of a similar suite of woody plants that elephant impacted, preventing these species from maturing. Thus a similar end-point for woodland structure and composition is achieved. No study exists in the literature where woody plant and habitat utilisation of the savanna browser guild has been determined in the same locality over the same period. A review of 49 years of literature implied that the two groups impact the same core woody-species in the same habitats. Dietary and habitat utilisation of guild members was determined in Hluhluwe-iMfolozi Park, South Africa. A small suite (n = 8) of woody species formed the core diet of all guild members. Herbivores’ densities were determined using a novel GIS approach; all members of the guild showed extensive overlap in habitat use. GPS collars and a GIS were then used to detect zones of different density of impala in the landscape, thus defining, for the first time, a natural fine-grain browsing gradient. Densities of woody seedlings were significantly less (average 48% reduction) in areas of high versus low impala density. A simple browse-browser model, incorporating, in a novel approach, functional groups of plant species, was parameterised from these results and an extensive review of the literature. Outputs suggest that over the long-term (100 years), impala will have a similar impact on woodland structure as elephant. An apparently strong synergistic effect between impala and elephant impact, suggests that reduction or removal of either impala or elephant will radically reduce long-term destruction of woodlands. In smaller or medium sized reserves, where control of mesobrowser populations is practical, profitable and more acceptable than elephant culling, these findings imply a re-direction of management efforts. Management should consider the biomass-density of both groups, rather than just focus on the system’s perceived ‘keystone’ species. Such principles may also apply to temperate and other systems.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Biology, 2007.
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-09, Section: B, page: 5787. Adviser: Edmund D. Brodie, III. Title from dissertation home page (viewed May 9, 2008).

Like many imperiled fishes, the endangered Pahrump Poolfish ( Empetrichthys latos latos) is managed in ex situ refuges. I investigated life history characteristics of females from two such populations at Lake Harriet and Shoshone Stock Pond. Lake Harriet is a relatively large lake with low fish densities located at relatively low elevation and low latitude, while Shoshone Stock is a small pond with high fish densities at a higher elevation and latitude. Females from the Lake Harriet population were larger, and had greater fat content, reproductive allocation, and ‘clutch’ size than females from the Shoshone Pond population. This divergence, which occurred in three decades, may result in a phenotypic mismatch if the fish are used as a source for restocking their native habitat or stocking new refuges.

Poolfish conservation may require establishing new populations; however, many sites are inhabited by non-native fish and/or other protected fish species. Thus, managers may wish to consider establishing multi-species refuges that may even already include undesirable species. I established experimental communities that included allopatric and sympatric communities of Poolfish, Amargosa Pupfish (Cyprinodon nevadensis), and invasive Western Mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis). Pupfish persisted in sympatry with both poolfish and mosquitofish, but had higher juvenile production when maintained in allopatry. By contrast, poolfish juvenile production was high in allopatry, but virtually absent in the presence of other species.

To evaluate the generality of these findings, I established experimental allopatric and sympatric communities of poolfish or pupfish with mosquitofish from two populations that differed in body size: Garrett mosquitofish were approximately twice the mass of Wabuska mosquitofish. Poolfish juveniles had high survival in allopatry, but produced virtually no juveniles when sympatric with either of the two mosquitofish populations. Pupfish juvenile survival was higher in allopatry than sympatric with Garrett mosquitofish, which in turn was higher than sympatric with Wabuska mosquitofish. These results were consistent with the earlier experiment suggesting that poolfish were functionally extirpated but pupfish maintained substantial production in the presence of mosquitofish. These findings suggest that poolfish should be maintained in single species refuges, but that multi-species refuges may protect imperiled pupfish species.

The white shrimp Litopenaeus setiferus is harvested throughout its range in the western Atlantic Ocean and is particularly important in supporting a commercial fishery in the northern Gulf of Mexico (nGoM) concentrated in Texas and Louisiana. Mortality rates of young (juvenile) white shrimp in estuarine nursery areas may have a large effect on the adult population. Understanding the temporal and spatial variation in mortality rates and other population parameters (i.e., density, growth rate, and secondary production) is important for the management of white shrimp in determining how estuaries function as nursery areas and can also be useful in identifying coastal habitats that best support white shrimp populations. My objective was to examine and describe the population dynamics, with a focus on mortality, of juvenile white shrimp populations in Sabine Lake, an estuary of the nGoM. I estimated density, growth, mortality, and secondary production in three areas along the estuarine salinity gradient. Most of these metrics were generally higher in areas of high salinity and total secondary production was relatively high in all three areas. Approximately half of the potential fish predators collected in my study area had preyed upon juvenile penaeid shrimps based on an examination of fish gut contents. Given their abundance within estuaries of the nGoM, these fish predators may have a large impact on populations of juvenile white shrimp. Mortality rates of juvenile white shrimp estimated with mark-recapture and length-frequency data were relatively similar to each other and within the range of the few values previously reported. Two commonly used age-based mortality estimators originally developed for fishes provided reasonably unbiased mortality rates for juvenile penaeid shrimps, although both estimators provided relatively high biased estimates at the lowest mortality rates considered.

Animals that live in groups face a dual challenge of effectively exploiting their environment while at the same time maintaining cohesion with other group members. Maintaining cohesion requires group members to come to consensus about when and where to move, despite the fact that they may not always agree. In this thesis, I investigate how individuals in groups make movement decisions, and how these individual decisions scale up to group-level properties. Using a laboratory experiment with golden shiners (Notemigonus crysoleucas ), I first investigate the interaction network over which information spreads, finding that decisions are better predicted by whom individuals can see rather than whom they are close to, with potential consequences for the global spread of information (Chapter 2). I then investigate collective movement behavior in the wild using high-resolution GPS data from members of a troop of olive baboons (Papio anubis). I first show that baboons are consistent in the spatial positions they occupy within the group, and that the observed patterns may be understood based on a very simple mechanism by which individuals maintain cohesion with different numbers of their neighbors (Chapter 3). By quantifying how group members move relative to one another, I then show that baboon movement decisions are consistent with a shared decision-making process, rather than despotic leadership by dominant individuals, and that the patterns of decision-making are consistent with simple models of collective motion (Chapter 4). Finally, by incorporating a fine-scale, three-dimensional reconstruction of the habitat through which the baboons move, I show that habitat structure, in addition to social factors, also exerts an important influence on individual movement decisions, resulting in changes in the emergent structure and movement of the group (Chapter 5). Taken together, these results highlight that by combining high-resolution animal tracking, remote sensing, and analytical methods, we can begin to extend our understanding of collective animal movement from laboratory studies to complex animal societies living in the wild.

Community ecology investigates questions related to the density, growth/decline and movements of species over time in given geographical regions. This study investigated similar questions regarding communities of endemic bat species in Connecticut. White-nose syndrome (WNS) has recently killed millions of bats in New England, yet few large-scale conservation efforts have occurred in Connecticut and few data have been published on the status of Connecticut bats post-WNS. This study aimed to: 1) survey bats persisting in WNS regions to document whether changes have occurred in species biodiversity, richness, distribution and habitat use; and 2) measure seasonality effects from summer through pre-hibernal months. Bat presence and activity were recorded using bat detectors set in grassland and forested habitats, near bodies of water and near anthropormorphic and geologic structures across Connecticut. Bioacoustics data have been analyzed by using Sonobat^© software. Combined, these data show that bat activity varies significantly across habitat type (p = 0.02) and over seasons (p = 0.05). Additionally, these data provide insight regarding relationships between individual species, and clumped species groups, with habitat types and across seasons. Ultimately, these data show how bat communities have changed over time in a post-WNS environment. Combined, these data can help drive future wildlife conservation, outreach, education and management practices.

During the past half century, ecology has emerged from its roots in biology to become a stand-alone discipline that interfaces organisms, the physical environment and human affairs. This is in line with the root meaning of the word ecology which is ‘the study of the household’ or the total environment in which we live. When I first came to the University of Georgia in 1940 as an instructor in the Department of Zoology, ecology was considered a rather unimportant sub-division of biology. At the end of World War II, we had a staff meeting to discuss ‘core curriculum’, or what courses every biology major should be required to take. My suggestion that ecology should be part of this core was rejected by all other members of the staff; they said ecology was just descriptive natural history with no basic principles. It was this ‘put down’, as it were, that started me thinking about a textbook that would emphasize basic principles, which eventually became the first edition of my Fundamentals of Ecology, published in 1953. In those early days ‘ecology’ was often defined as the ‘study of organisms in relation to environment’. The environment was considered a sort of inert stage in which the actors, that is the organisms, played the game of natural selection. Now we recognize that the ‘stage’ and the ‘actors’ interact with each other constantly so that not only do organisms relate to the physical environment, but they also change the environment. Thus, when the first green microbes, the cynobacteria, began putting oxygen into the atmosphere, the environment was greatly changed, making way for a whole new set of aerobic organisms. Also, when one goes from the study of structure to the study of function, then the physical sciences (including energetics, biogeochemical cycling and earth sciences in general) have to be included. And, of course, now more than ever, we have to consider humans and the social sciences as part of the environment. So we now have essentially a new discipline of ‘ecology’ that is a three-way interface.

Müsilaj (deniz salyası) hemen hemen tüm bitkilerin ve bazı mikroorganizmaların ürettiği kalın, yapışkan bir maddedir (Mecozzi vd., 2005). Biyolojik ve kimyasal birçok koşulun bir araya gelmesiyle oluşmaktadır. Bitkilerde su ve gıdanın depolanması, tohumların çimlenmesi ve zar kalınlaşması benzeri işlemlerde çeşitli roller üstlenir (Danovaro vd., 2009). Son dönemde Marmara Denizi’nde yaşanan durumla ülkemizin gündemine oturan deniz salyasının oluşumunda çok farklı sebepler gündeme gelse de üç temel etmenden bahsetmek mümkündür: Deniz sıcaklıklarının ortalama sıcaklıkların üzerine çıkması, denizlerdeki kirlilik oranının artması ve denizin durağan olması (Keleş vd., 2020). Bahsi geçen bu üç durumun gerçekleşmesi durumunda bazı plankton türlerinin hızla çoğalmaya başlamasıyla deniz salyasının artış gösterdiği bilinmektedir. Bu çalışmada deniz salyası üzerine yapılan bilimsel araştırmaların genel özellikleri üzerine odaklanılmıştır. Çalışmada deniz salyasına yönelik araştırmaların disiplinler arası yapısı veriye dayalı bir analizle gözler önüne serilmiştir. İş birliği örüntüsünün yüksek olduğu bu çalışmalarda Zoology, Plant Sciences, Oceanography, Marine & Freshwater Biology, Limnology, Fisheries, Environmental Sciences ve Ecology disiplinlerinin ortaklaşa çalışmalar yürüttüğü gözlemlenirken, İtalya, Fransa, Çin, Hırvatistan ve ABD yayın sayısı bakımından dikkat çeken ülkeler arasında yer almıştır. Coğrafi alan olarak kuzey Adriyatik denizi üzerine yapılan çalışmaların sıklığı dikkat çekerken, Univ Bologna, Univ Gottingen, Univ Melbourne, Univ Genoa ve İstanbul Üniversitesi kurumsal olarak yayın sayıları dikkat çeken üniversiteler arasında yer almıştır.

In laboratory classes on invertebrate zoology for first-year students of the Biology and Ecology Faculty of the Y. Kupala Grodno State University current control of knowledge in a test form is carried out. The number of questions in the task is 11–20, 5– 10 minutes for execution are allotted, one, two or more correct answers are selected from the proposed options. For each correct answer, a point is set; for erroneous answers, penalty points are entered. The regular use of test control increased the level of students' assimilation of educational material and optimized the current control of knowledge.