tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/animals-3165/articlesAnimals – The Conversation2024-03-27T21:16:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2261122024-03-27T21:16:32Z2024-03-27T21:16:32ZTo manage chronic wasting disease, some animals die so more can live<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583970/original/file-20240325-26-fc30f1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C44%2C4928%2C3209&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Managing the spread of chronic wasting disease in British Columbia means assessing and responding to the threat.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Things are moving quickly, and they need to. On March 13, the Government of British Columbia <a href="https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2024WLRS0012-000342">announced that it would be harvesting 25 deer in the Kootenays</a>. This announcement came six weeks after chronic wasting disease (CWD) — <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/cwd-animals.html">a 100 per cent fatal disease of cervids</a> (deer, elk, moose, caribou) — was first detected in the province. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, for a disease like this, in efforts to protect many animals, some will die. </p>
<p>CWD is <a href="https://theconversation.com/chronic-wasting-disease-has-been-detected-in-british-columbia-deer-and-we-need-to-act-now-222812">incredibly difficult to manage</a> and nearly impossible to eradicate. Infected animals don’t <a href="https://doi.org/10.2147/VMRR.S197404">show symptoms for about 18 months</a>, which means that an animal’s appearance or behaviour doesn’t necessarily reflect whether it has CWD or not.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/chronic-wasting-disease-has-been-detected-in-british-columbia-deer-and-we-need-to-act-now-222812">Chronic wasting disease has been detected in British Columbia deer, and we need to act now</a>
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<p>An infected animal continuously sheds the infectious agent — <a href="https://doi.org/10.1212/CON.0000000000000251">a protein called a prion</a> — into the environment in their <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cwd/transmission.html">saliva, feces and urine, and through their bodies when they die and decompose</a>. </p>
<p>These <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/brv.12568">prions stay infectious for years</a>, although researchers still don’t know for how long. To make matters worse, there is no way to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1053/tvjl.1999.0406">disinfect or burn these prions away</a>. And so, reducing disease spread is still the best approach to minimizing impacts on cervids and the people who rely on them. </p>
<h2>Removing animals</h2>
<p>Preventing CWD spread often involves removing animals from the environment, among other regulatory measures such as <a href="https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2024WLRS0007-000192">restricting the transport and disposal of road-killed cervids in affected areas</a>. This is partly because the samples tested for CWD (tonsils, lymph nodes) cannot be collected from live animals.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584386/original/file-20240326-20-2j1osi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a poster directing hunters to submit parts of their prey for monitoring" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584386/original/file-20240326-20-2j1osi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/584386/original/file-20240326-20-2j1osi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584386/original/file-20240326-20-2j1osi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584386/original/file-20240326-20-2j1osi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=777&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584386/original/file-20240326-20-2j1osi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584386/original/file-20240326-20-2j1osi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/584386/original/file-20240326-20-2j1osi.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=976&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Hunters are requested to provide samples in an effort to monitor for chronic wasting disease.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://bcwf.bc.ca/initiatives/chronic-wasting-disease/">(BC Wildlife Federation)</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p>Managing the spread means removing the animals most likely to be infected. The B.C. provincial government is planning to remove 20 mule deer (mostly male) and five male white-tailed deer, which have been found to be more likely to be infected in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2011.10.016">other provinces</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1890/09-0052.1">U.S. states</a>. </p>
<p>While removing infected animals decreases potential spread, even removing and testing uninfected animals can provide valuable information about who is most likely to be affected (cervid species, sex and their location) which in turn can inform management. </p>
<p>Even in instances where there is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186%2Fs12917-016-0804-7">agreement about removing animals to mitigate CWD</a>, how many, where, when and how they are removed is contentious. </p>
<p>That’s because the number of animals removed depends on management goals, as well as ecological and ethical considerations. For example, determining the percentage of animals infected with CWD <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-77134-0_10">would require sampling many animals (in the hundreds)</a> to ensure infected individuals are captured <a href="https://bioone.org/journals/wildlife-society-bulletin/volume-32/issue-1/0091-7648(2004)32%5b267%3aFTFEOD%5d2.0.CO%3b2/Efficacy-of-detecting-Chronic-Wasting-Disease-via-sampling-hunter-killed/10.2193/0091-7648(2004)32%5B267:FTFEOD%5D2.0.CO;2.short">while prevalence is low, such as when only one per cent of animals are infected</a>. </p>
<p>However, large-scale removals understandably cause concern for the future of cervid populations. These approaches are also challenging to sustain, and can be ineffective in the long term when they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-019-1260-z">lose community support</a>. </p>
<p>Management programs might sample fewer animals in efforts to gain more information surrounding where infected animals are found. This is the case in B.C., where <a href="https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2024WLRS0012-000342">only 25 animals are being harvested</a>.</p>
<h2>Planning and preparation</h2>
<p>Deciding where to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2013.09.011">remove animals requires careful planning</a> based on where CWD has been found, how likely it is to spread, and the cultural, ecological and economic importance of cervids for local communities. Managers focus on areas close to confirmed cases — in the case of B.C., a 10-kilometre radius — and areas where there are large or dense populations of cervids like in cities. </p>
<p>Given that an infected deer was found <a href="https://www.cranbrooktownsman.com/news/testing-key-to-identifying-slowing-spread-of-fatal-wildlife-disease-detected-near-cranbrook-7324744">just south of Cranbrook, B.C.</a>, there is growing concern about <a href="https://www.cranbrooktownsman.com/news/province-city-keeping-close-eye-on-urban-deer-amid-fatal-disease-spread-mayor-7330917">the potential spread of CWD to the city</a>.</p>
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<p>According to our research, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10871209.2022.2075492">community involvement is essential for effective CWD management</a>. Management plans can involve government removal through <a href="https://doi.org/10.1186/s12917-016-0804-7">sharpshooting, hunter-harvest and special hunts</a> which allow for limited harvest outside of the hunting season.</p>
<p>In B.C., members of Yaq̓it ʔa·knuqⱡiʾit (Tobacco Plains Indian Band) are leading the removal of deer, and <a href="https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2024WLRS0012-000342">all animals that test negative for CWD will be used by the community or donated to food banks</a>. </p>
<h2>Sustainable management</h2>
<p>Hunter-harvest is a critical component of sustainable CWD management. Beyond removing infected animals and providing samples for testing, <a href="https://doi.org/10.7589/JWD-D-20-00226">local hunters</a>, trappers, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10871209.2015.1046095">community members</a> bring valuable knowledge and support, helping to implement sustainable strategies that reflect communities’ values and needs.</p>
<p>CWD management programs that prioritize listening to those most affected help to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10871209.2020.1808915">build trust and make better decisions</a> about where to focus efforts. </p>
<p>In wildlife management, there will be disagreements. Management is complex and contains uncertainties: what works in one region <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-animal-022114-111001">might not work in another</a>. </p>
<p>We must acknowledge these uncertainties, while recognizing the need to act quickly. The experiences of other jurisdictions in managing CWD contain valuable lessons about the potential impacts of CWD on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0161127">conservation</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10871200490479963">economic stability</a> and <a href="https://www.nationalobserver.com/2024/02/15/news/first-nations-uneasy-chronic-wasting-disease-deer-food-security">food security</a>.
Early action is the best chance we have to minimize the impacts of this disease on cervids, the people who rely on them and the ecosystem.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226112/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kaylee Byers is the Regional Deputy Director of the British Columbia Node of the Canadian Wildlife Health Cooperative and collaborates with the Wildlife Health Program, which leads Chronic Wasting Disease surveillance in British Columbia.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Robinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A government program in British Columbia discovered the presence of chronic wasting disease in deer. Now, managing the spread of the disease is a priority.Kaylee Byers, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Health Sciences; Senior Scientist, Pacific Institute on Pathogens, Pandemics and Society, Simon Fraser UniversitySarah Robinson, Postdoctoral Fellow, Pacific Institute on Pathogens, Pandemics and Society, Simon Fraser UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2246822024-03-20T22:41:06Z2024-03-20T22:41:06ZHow do halibut migrate? Clues are in their ear bones<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/578657/original/file-20240220-18-5yndy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C18%2C3953%2C2999&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The habitats used throughout the halibut's life and the movements between them are difficult to characterize.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Charlotte Gauthier)</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rising temperatures, changes in major currents, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-st-lawrence-estuary-is-running-out-of-breath-184626">oxygen depletion at great depths</a>: the Gulf of St. Lawrence has undergone major changes in its environmental conditions in recent decades. That has put many species in danger and, as a consequence, made them more sensitive to the effects of fishing.</p>
<p>However, these changes are benefiting other species such as Atlantic halibut, which is beating records for its abundance and is presently seeing the highest stock in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in <a href="https://waves-vagues.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/library-bibliotheque/41206708.pdf">the last 60 years</a>.</p>
<p>As a biology researcher, I’d like to shed some light on some of the mysteries that still surround this unusual species.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469058/original/file-20220615-9549-jj1phn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/469058/original/file-20220615-9549-jj1phn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469058/original/file-20220615-9549-jj1phn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469058/original/file-20220615-9549-jj1phn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469058/original/file-20220615-9549-jj1phn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469058/original/file-20220615-9549-jj1phn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/469058/original/file-20220615-9549-jj1phn.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em>This article is part of our series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca-fr/topics/fleuve-saint-laurent-116908">The St. Lawrence River: In depth</a>.
Don’t miss new articles on this mythical river of remarkable beauty. Our experts look at its fauna, flora and history, and the issues it faces. This series is brought to you by <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca-fr">La Conversation</a>.</em></p>
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<h2>Atlantic halibut: champion of the Gulf of St. Lawrence</h2>
<p>Atlantic halibut is a flatfish that lives at the bottom of the estuary and gulf of the St. Lawrence. It is prized for its fine, firm white flesh, which is highly appreciated by consumers.</p>
<p>Halibut can grow to impressive sizes of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23308249.2021.1948502">more than two metres</a>. Because of the quality of its flesh and its popularity on dinner plates, it is currently the most commercially valuable fish in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.</p>
<p>But this has not always been the case. In the 1950s, the adult, harvestable portion of halibut populations, known as the stock, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/article/73/4/1104/2458915?login=false">suffered a major decline due to overfishing</a>.</p>
<p>If we want to continue to exploit this resource over the long term, we must not repeat the same mistakes we made in the past. To avoid these mistakes, it is vital to have a good understanding of the life cycle of halibut and the effects that fishing can have on the stock. So far, this has not been done to the fullest.</p>
<h2>The challenges for sustainable fishing</h2>
<p>The basic biology of Atlantic halibut is fairly well known. However, both the habitats they use throughout their lives and their movement between these places are more difficult to characterize.</p>
<p><a href="https://academic.oup.com/icesjms/article/77/7-8/2890/5923787?login=false">Recent studies</a> have placed satellite tags on halibut to record data on the depth and temperature of the water in which they are found, making it possible to accurately calculate their movement. By using this method, the researchers were able to identify the trajectories of adult halibut over a one-year period and discover that they reproduce in winter in the deep channels of the Gulf.</p>
<p>In the halibut’s different annual trajectories, the researchers observed that, in summer, some remain in the deep channels while others migrate to shallower areas.</p>
<p>Even with this new information, a number of questions remain, specifically about the youngest life stages, which are caught only anecdotally in the Gulf. Satellite tags also provide accurate information, but only over a one-year period, which doesn’t tell the whole story for a fish that can live up to 50 years.</p>
<p>With this in mind, the use of a new tool to study the entire life of fish becomes highly relevant.</p>
<h2>Ear bones to the rescue</h2>
<p>All bony fish have small calcareous structures in their inner ear called otoliths, or ear bones, which perform balance and hearing functions.</p>
<p>Otoliths develop at the very beginning of a fish’s life and grow at the same rate as the fish. Otoliths form annual growth rings that are comparable to those visible in tree trunks.</p>
<p>To grow, otoliths accumulate chemical elements that are found in the environment in which the fish swim. So, when the fish moves, the chemical elements accumulated in the otoliths will be different from one place to another. Each location is characterized by a unique combination of different concentrations of chemical elements. This is known as an elemental fingerprint. Identifying these fingerprints can provide us with crucial information about the movement of fish in different places throughout their lives.</p>
<p>I used this method of characterizing the chemical elements in otoliths to study the migratory patterns of Atlantic halibut in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.</p>
<h2>A wide range of migratory strategies</h2>
<p>To find out what concentrations of a chemical element correspond to the place where the fish was caught, we use the fingerprint of the otolith margin, i.e. the material at the end of the outermost ring of the otolith, which was accumulated last.</p>
<p>The concentrations of the elements found there are considered to be characteristic of the place where the fish was caught. By analyzing the margins of nearly 200 halibut otoliths from all over the Gulf, I was able to distinguish two basic fingerprints: one representative of surface waters (less than 100 metres deep) and one characteristic of deeper waters (more than 100 metres deep).</p>
<p>Once these fingerprints had been identified, I observed the concentration of chemical elements throughout the life of the fish so that I could associate each moment of life with either the surface water fingerprint or the deep-water fingerprint.</p>
<p>By separating the life of each individual into time spent in surface and deep waters, I was able to identify recurring patterns and group them into three different migratory strategies: residents, annual migrants and irregular migrants.</p>
<p>In this way, I was able to observe that halibut caught in the southern part of the Gulf were mainly annual migrants, and therefore undertake migrations between deep and shallow waters every year. However, in the northern part of the Gulf the majority are residents. Residents are fish that may have migrated early in their lives, but have settled permanently in deep waters before reaching maturity. Irregular migrants, on the other hand, show migrations on a more sporadic frequency, and are found in similar proportions throughout the study area.</p>
<h2>On the right track to optimal management</h2>
<p>My study is the first to offer a global view of the movements made by halibut over their entire lifetime.</p>
<p>This new information provides a better understanding of the structure of the stock and the diversity of migratory strategies that can be found within it.</p>
<p>Given that these strategies are distributed differently in different areas of the Gulf, we can ensure that we do not disproportionately target halibut using the same migratory strategy and avoid overfishing a single component of the stock.</p>
<p>In this way, it is possible to conserve this diversity, which helps the stock’s resilience in the face of the various changes that can occur.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224682/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlotte Gauthier has received funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Fondation de l'Université du Québec à Chicoutimi.
</span></em></p>Atlantic halibut are making a strong comeback in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. But how do we know where the fish move throughout their lives?Charlotte Gauthier, Étudiante au doctorat, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi (UQAC)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2188002024-03-14T19:24:53Z2024-03-14T19:24:53ZFriday essay: from political bees to talking pigs – how ancient thinkers saw the human-animal divide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581424/original/file-20240312-18-f7g0up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C8%2C5467%2C3655&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>What makes us human? What (if anything) sets us apart from all other creatures? Ever since Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, the answer to these questions has pointed us back to our own animal nature.</p>
<p>Yet the idea that, in one way or another, our humanity is entangled with the non-human has a much longer and more venerable history. In the West, it goes all the way back to Classical antiquity – to Greek and Roman views about humans and animals. </p>
<p>The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322) first argued the human stands out from all other animals through the presence of <em>logos</em> (“speech” but also “reason”). Numerous Greek and Roman thinkers engaged in similar attempts to name what, exactly, sets humans apart. </p>
<p>Who or what is man? The arguments these philosophers came up with verged from the obscure to the outright bizarre: The human alone has the capacity to have sex at all seasons and well into old age; the human alone can sit comfortably on his hip bones; the human alone has hands that can build altars to the gods and craft divine statues. No observation seemed too far-fetched or outlandish. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a bearded man, Aristotle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581448/original/file-20240312-28-9lkgw1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1070&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Aristotle, as painted by Raphael.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>And yet, above all, the argument that animals lack logos continued to resonate. In classical antiquity it became powerful enough to coin the very word for animals in ancient Greek: <em>ta aloga</em> – “those without logos”. </p>
<p>This position was taken up by the philosophical school of the Stoics and from there came to influence Christianity, with its view of man made in the image of God. </p>
<p>The idea of an insurmountable gap between humans and other animals soon became the dominant paradigm, informing, for instance, the 18th century naturalist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Carolus-Linnaeus">Carl Linnaeus’s</a> influential classification of the human as <em>homo sapiens</em> (literally: the “wise”, or “rational man”). </p>
<p>The practical implications of this idea cannot be underestimated. What has been termed “<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-animal/">the moral status of animals</a>” – the question of whether they should be included in considerations of justice – has traditionally been linked to the question of whether they have logos. Because animals differ from humans in lacking both speech and reason (so this line of argument goes) they cannot themselves formulate moral positions. Therefore, they do not warrant inclusion in our moral considerations, or at least not in the same way as humans. </p>
<p>Increasingly, of course, as many contemporary philosophers have pointed out, this idea seems too simple. </p>
<p>New research in the behavioural sciences illustrates the at times astonishing capacities of certain animals: crows and otters using tools to crack open nuts or shells to make their contents available for consumption; octopuses lifting the lids to their tanks and successfully escaping to the ocean through pipes; bees optimising their flight path on repeated trips to a food source.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A pink octopus in a tank." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581188/original/file-20240312-24-3u7e8f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Octopus have lifted the lids of their tanks and escaped.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dofleins-octopus-latin-enteroctopus-dofleini-tentacles-2278086727">Victor1153/shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there is, in fact, a considerable body of evidence from the ancient Greek and Roman worlds showcasing the complex behaviours of different kinds of animals.</p>
<p>Ancient authors like <a href="https://www.livius.org/articles/person/pliny-the-elder/">Pliny</a>, <a href="https://www.livius.org/sources/content/plutarch/">Plutarch</a>, <a href="https://oxfordre.com/classics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-4570">Oppian</a>, <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095353490">Aelian</a>,<a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/porphyry/"> Porphyry</a>, <a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095431452">Athenaeus </a>and others have dedicated whole books or treatises to this topic, pushing back on the notion of animals as merely “dumb beasts”. </p>
<p>Their views anticipated the modern debate by attributing animals not only with forms of reason; they also highlighted their capacity to suffer, to feel pain and to feel empathy towards each other and, occasionally, even towards members of the human species. </p>
<p>Then there are the human-animal hybrid creatures of the Greek and Roman myths (more on this later) – the Sirens, the Sphinx, the Minotaur. All combine the body parts of human and animal. Individually and collectively they thus raise a fundamental yet potentially disturbing question: what if we are really, in part at least, animal?</p>
<h2>Ancient animal-smarts</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=860&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581189/original/file-20240312-26-17ijsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1080&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/11879565">On the Nature of Animals</a> (late second/early third century CE), Aelian, a Roman author writing in Greek, described fish that helped their unfortunate mates when caught at sea, setting their backs against the trapped creature and “pushing with all their might to try to stop him from being hauled in”. </p>
<p>He wrote, too, of dolphins that helped fisher-folk, pressing the fish in “on all sides” so they couldn’t escape. In return, they were rewarded for their labours by a share of the catch.</p>
<p>He celebrated the clever design of beehives, observing:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The first thing that they construct are the chambers of their kings, and they are spacious and above all the rest. Round them they put a barrier, as it were a wall or fence, thereby also enhancing their importance of the royal dwelling. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>By parading animal-smarts in action these examples – of which there are hundreds - astonish, inform, and entertain at the same time – similar perhaps to the ubiquitous reels showing animals doing amazing things circulating in modern social media.</p>
<p>Modern ethological studies variously observe animal behaviours which reverberate with Aelian’s examples.</p>
<p>Pairs of <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150925085344.htm">rabbit fish</a> have been shown to cooperate, with one partner standing on guard protecting the other one while feeding. Honeybees indeed build bigger cells for their queen that are set apart at the bottom of the hive separated by thicker walls. And <a href="https://www.pnas.org/post/podcast/cooperative-fishing-between-humans-and-dolphins">bottlenose dolphins</a> have been found to cooperate with humans in their efforts to capture fish. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Dolphins swimming over seagrass." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581193/original/file-20240312-16-rsj49.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bottlenose dolphins have been seen cooperating with humans while fishing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anita Kainrath/shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While not all of the ancient anecdotal evidence is confirmed by modern research, the overall thrust is clear: it deserves to be taken seriously and is part of the ancient conversation of what makes us human. </p>
<h2>The power of storytelling</h2>
<p>Some Greek and Roman thinkers resorted to the medium of storytelling to articulate views that are essentially philosophical in nature. The Greek philosopher Plutarch’s treatise <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Gryllus*.html">Beasts are Rational</a> draws on the famous story from Homer’s Odyssey in which some of Odysseus’ comrades are turned into pigs by the sorceress Circe. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-homers-odyssey-82911">Guide to the Classics: Homer's Odyssey</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Odysseus is eventually able to convince the sorceress to turn them back into human beings. In Plutarch’s rendering of the story he returns to Circe’s island to check whether there are any other Greeks turned animal – and finds a pig named Gryllus (“Grunter”).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of men with animal heads." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581192/original/file-20240312-26-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail of a wine cup (kylix) depicting scenes from The Odyssey including men turned into animals, circa 560-550 BCE.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Detail_view_-_Odysseus_men_turned_into_animals_by_Circe_receive_antidote_photo_by_Lucas_ancientartpodcast_flickr_cca2.0_8705662763_02d64d713e_o.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Things take a turn for the unexpected when Grunter declines Odysseus’ offer of help. The reason? He prefers his animal to his human existence.</p>
<p>Grunter sets out to make an impassioned, highly rational case, arguing all animals in one form or another, have reason. Individual species differ from each other merely in the extent of and kind of reason. And, yes, this includes even those animals that have come to serve as the epitome of dumbness: sheep and the ass. </p>
<p>“Please note,” he adds, “that cases of dullness and stupidity in some animals are demonstrated by the cleverness and sharpness of others – as when you compare an ass and a sheep with a fox or a wolf or a bee.”</p>
<p>Grunter is not afraid to push things even further: Don’t individual humans, too, differ from each other in cleverness and wit? Long before the arrival of evolutionary theory, the pig here points towards a gradual view of how certain features, skills, and capacities map onto a continuum of all living creatures (the human included). The implied conclusion: there is no insurmountable gap between the human and other animals.</p>
<p>Grunter’s views are supported by others such as the speaking rooster of Lucian’s <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/11879565">The Dream or the Cock</a> (second century CE). Claiming to be the latest in a long line of previous incarnations that include (brace yourself) – the philosopher Pythagoras, the Cynic philosopher Crates, the Trojan hero Euphorbus, the Greek courtesan Aspasia, and several animals – this rooster-philosopher, too, prefers his animal to his human existence. </p>
<p>Animals, the rooster argues, are content with the basics; humans, by contrast, over-complicate things because they can’t get enough and greedily strive for ever more. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-darwins-the-descent-of-man-150-years-on-sex-race-and-our-lowly-ape-ancestry-155305">Guide to the classics: Darwin's The Descent of Man 150 years on — sex, race and our 'lowly' ape ancestry</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Myths and hybrid monsters</h2>
<p>Myth is arguably the most influential genre of ancient storytelling. A set of malleable tales of great age and importance, myth constitutes a world apart, a medium just far enough removed from the intricacies (and banalities) of everyday life to allow for the exploration of fundamental questions concerning the human condition. And Greek myths often explore human entanglements with non-human animals in ways that reference the philosophical debate.</p>
<p>The mythical figure of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Minotaur">the Minotaur</a> for example – a hybrid creature sporting the head of a bull and the body of a human male – does not seem to adhere to the norms and conventions applying to either of his composite identities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a minotaur." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580856/original/file-20240310-28-ykqvft.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tondo of a Minotaur, circa 515 BC.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tondo_Minotaur_London_E4_MAN.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His insatiable appetite for young humans sets him apart from accepted behaviour for both humans and cattle alike, identifying him as monstrous. </p>
<p>But what are monsters for?</p>
<p>This question also applies to another famous hybrid beast of the ancient world: the Theban sphinx. Perched high outside the gates of the city of Thebes, in the region of Boeotia in central Greece, this creature (half woman, half lion, often endowed with an extra set of wings) challenges all wishing to enter with the following riddle: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>What is that which has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many try and fail to name the right answer, paying for it with their lives. Until Oedipus comes along. He gives the correct answer and thus busts the beast, which dutifully throws itself to death. </p>
<p>The creature in the riddle is, of course, the human: man first crawls on four legs, then walks on two, until in old age when a walking stick may serve as a third “leg”. And yet despite his clever wit, Oedipus is ultimately unable to use reason to his and the city’s advantage (a situation explored in depth in <a href="https://classics.mit.edu/Sophocles/oedipus.html">Sophocles’ famous tragedy Oedipus the King</a>).</p>
<p>What is the point of the riddle of the Sphinx? This story poses the human as a question but also illustrates the limits of logos in gaining self-understanding. Oedipus can solve the beast’s riddle; yet the riddle of his own humanity remains unresolved until it is too late. Here, the monstrous figure holds up a mirror for the human to recognise himself. </p>
<h2>Speaking animals</h2>
<p>Logos (in the sense of speech) also features prominently in the intervention of another iconic creature from classical antiquity: Xanthus, Achilles’ speaking horse. </p>
<p>On the battlefields of Troy (featured in Homer’s Iliad) Xanthus reminds Achilles of his imminent death. In this way the horse seems to tease all those thinkers (ancient and modern) who have argued the human stands out from all other animals in his capacity to speak in complex sentences.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-homers-iliad-80968">Guide to the classics: Homer's Iliad</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A painting of a Greek god with two horses." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=570&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581226/original/file-20240312-30-tn9od0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=716&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Automedon with the Horses of Achilles, painting by Henri Regnault, 1868.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Xanthus’s voice resonates with that of numerous other speaking animals populating Greek and Roman literature, including the gnat of <a href="http://virgil.org/appendix/culex.htm">Pseudo-Virgil’s Culex</a>, the speaking eel in Oppian’s didactic poem <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/oppian-halieutica_fishing/1928/pb_LCL219.279.xml">On Fishing</a>, and the whole chorus of animals speaking to us in ancient fables. </p>
<p>Individually and as a group they raise a question: what if animals could speak to us in human language? What would they have to say to those humans prepared to listen? </p>
<p>As it turns out in these stories, often nothing too flattering. In classical antiquity, speaking animals often use their special position to question or examine the human condition.</p>
<p>Xanthus is a case in point. By reminding Achilles he is fated to die at Troy, the speaking horse reminds the Greek hero of an important aspect of the human condition: his own mortality and the fact that he, too, is ultimately subject to powers beyond human control.</p>
<h2>The political bee</h2>
<p>In Greek and Roman accounts of honeybee politics we find a peculiar human habit with a surprisingly long history: the attribution of political qualities to honeybees. </p>
<p>When we distinguish a “queen bee” from “workers” we are continuing a tradition that goes back to the ancient world (and possibly beyond). Aristotle names honeybees among the <em>zoa politika</em> (the “political animals”) – a category that includes wasps, ants, cranes, and, above all, the human.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581201/original/file-20240312-24-r54i0o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Day_85_-_Sweat_Bee_-_Lasioglossum_species,_Leesylvania_State_Park,_Woodbridge,_Virginia.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/">CC BY-NC-SA</a></span>
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<p>He and others then set out to explore the intricacies of honeybee society. The ancient Greeks and Romans traditionally considered honeybees to inhabit a monarchy. In line with the gender realities of the ancient world, they imagined this monarchy to be led by a king or male leader. </p>
<p>Does the bee monarch have a stinger? If not, how does he assert his power and leadership? And what does the presence of the obviously unproductive drones in the hive say about the distribution of labour in a community? These are the kind of questions that resonated among Greek and Roman thinkers.</p>
<p>Honeybee society thus provided a perfect microcosm to study a set of questions that concerned human politics and society. The Roman philosopher Seneca, for instance, asserted that the bee monarch leads by <em>clementia</em> (mercy or mildness) - a form of leadership he found woefully lacking in contemporary Roman society. </p>
<h2>Meat and man</h2>
<p>So far we have seen animals mostly playing a symbolic role in Graeco-Roman storytelling. There is also a very real way in which human and animal bodies come to merge: through the human consumption of meat.</p>
<p>The ancient Greeks and Romans were ardent meat-eaters. Indeed meat-eating became a status symbol closely linked to the articulation of masculine identities. </p>
<p>In classical Greece the male citizen received his equal share of meat after communal religious sacrifices carried out by the <em>polis</em> (“city-state”). Meat eating also features prominently in several anecdotes about successful ancient Greek athletes who toned their extraordinary bodies through the consumption of ridiculous amounts of meat.</p>
<p>One of them – a boxer named Theagenes – even claimed to have gobbled up an entire oxen in one sitting. Another one – Milo of Croton – apparently gained his extraordinary strength by carrying a heifer on his back as a young man until both he and the heifer had grown up. </p>
<p>Meanwhile at Rome, the elites sought to outdo each other by hosting ever more lavish dinner parties typically featuring one or several meat dishes. More often than not this involved attempts to serve a bigger or larger quantity of boar than their peers. <a href="https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Sumtuariae_Leges.html">Roman sumptuary laws</a> eventually sought to control the worst excesses – albeit with limited success. </p>
<h2>The shearwaters of Diomedea</h2>
<p>The real also blends into the imaginary in the story of a special kind of bird. The Scopoli Shearwater (<em>Calonectris Diomedea</em>) is a species common to the Adriatic and other parts of the Mediterranean Sea. One of its outstanding features is that its cries resemble that of a wailing baby. These birds feed on small fish, crustaceans, squid, and zooplankton and are both migratory and pelagic. </p>
<p>The stories told about these birds by several ancient authors bring us to what is perhaps the most momentous way of exploring the human-animal boundary: the idea that in the realm of myth, at least, some humans, under certain conditions, could turn into animals and back again (metamorphosis). </p>
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<p>According to <a href="https://www.loebclassics.com/view/aelian-characteristics_animals/1958/pb_LCL446.15.xml">Aelian</a>, some shearwaters residing on a rocky, otherwise uninhabited island in the Mediterranean Sea showed puzzling behaviour. They duly ignored all non-Greeks arriving on their island. Yet if Greek people reached their shores they welcomed them with stretched wings, even settling down on their laps as if for a joint meal. </p>
<p>What motivated this curious behaviour? </p>
<p>The backstory explains that the birds were once human. They were the comrades of Diomedes, king of Argos, one of the Greeks fighting at Troy, who is said to have died on the same island now inhabited by the birds. Apparently, upon his death, his friends grieved so heavily the goddess Aphrodite turned them into birds – their cries forever bemoaning the passing of their comrade. </p>
<p>On the face of it this story is merely another example of a myth explaining an outstanding feature in nature (the birds’ endearing <a href="https://www.birdlife.org/news/2021/05/31/seabird-month-corys-shearwater-calonectris-borealis/">human-like cry</a>). Yet there is more to the birds’ curious behaviour than meets the eye. In discriminating between Greeks and non-Greeks the birds seem to recall not only their former humanity but specifically their Greekness; they even seem to engage in the central Greek practice of extending friendship to guests (<em>xenia</em>) and the sharing of food. </p>
<p>In doing so they illustrate a central point of ancient (and many modern) tales of metamorphosis: even though the body may turn animal, the mind remains human. As the seat of logos it contains our humanity while the body adds little, if anything, of substance.</p>
<p>As such, rather than imagining what the world looks like from the point of view of a non-human creature, tales of metamorphosis ultimately come to reaffirm the view that the human stands apart from all other animals. </p>
<h2>And so?</h2>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The Trojan Horse and other stories: book cover" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=908&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581186/original/file-20240312-26-wyc3p2.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1141&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cambridge University Press</span></span>
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<p>In the myth of the Minotaur, the Greek hero Theseus eventually enters the labyrinth in which the Minotaur is confined, tracking him down, and slaying him. With the help of a thread given to him by Ariadne, he finds his way back out to tell the tale.</p>
<p>But trying to make sense of the Minotaur and other iconic creatures from the ancient world leads us down a rabbit hole into a place of blurred boundaries: where the human emerges as a contested figure somewhere in the space between mind and body, human and animal parts.</p>
<p>In the end, then, there is no hard and fast boundary separating us from all other creatures – notwithstanding all efforts to dress ourselves up as different.
Rather, it is the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/trojan-horse-and-other-stories/6DD8408FDBA4C5C6604536F6EC7406D5">negotiations between different facets of our identity</a> which make us human</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218800/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Kindt received funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and is a member of the Sydney Environment Institute.</span></em></p>What makes us human? Greek and Roman thinkers were preoccupied with this question. And some of their observations of animals foreshadowed recent findings in the behavioural sciences.Julia Kindt, Professor, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2223312024-03-13T20:37:18Z2024-03-13T20:37:18ZDespite positive steps in British Columbia, animal welfare in disaster management remains overlooked<p>Disasters serve as focusing events, providing a “<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Brent-Doberstein/publication/372308431_The_post-disaster_window_The_2021_British_Columbia_atmospheric_rivers_phenomenon_as_a_focusing_event_for_policy_change/links/64aecdc995bbbe0c6e2f0a85/The-post-disaster-window-The-2021-British-Columbia-atmospheric-rivers-phenomenon-as-a-focusing-event-for-policy-change.pdf">window of opportunity</a>” to reassess practices, propose new policies and animate the human decisions that make communities vulnerable to <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-change/news/2019/04/canadas-climate-is-warming-twice-as-fast-as-global-average.html">climate-related</a> disasters. </p>
<p>Elisabeth Stoddard, associate professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and I set out to understand the relationship between <a href="https://www.worldanimalprotection.ca/news/understanding-2021-abbotsford-floods">animal agriculture and climate change</a>. To do so, we focused on the impacts of disasters, alongside examining the common disaster management practices deployed in Canada, using the example of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-an-atmospheric-river-drenched-british-columbia-and-led-to-floods-and-mudslides-172021">Abbotsford Floods</a>.</p>
<p>On Nov. 17, 2021, the Lower Mainland of British Columbia was inundated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wace.2022.100441">atmospheric floodwaters</a> resulting in the deaths of at least 500 cows, thousands of pigs and over a hundred thousand birds. The Abbotsford flood was the <a href="https://theconversation.com/farm-animals-suffered-in-b-c-floods-despite-existing-disaster-management-guidelines-172353">largest-ever agricultural and animal welfare disaster in B.C. history</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-canada-needs-to-dramatically-update-how-it-prepares-for-and-manages-emergencies-221959">Why Canada needs to dramatically update how it prepares for and manages emergencies</a>
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<p>In 2023, the province announced the <a href="https://www.leg.bc.ca/Pages/BCLASS-Legacy.aspx#%2Fcontent%2Fdata%2520-%2520ldp%2Fpages%2F42nd4th%2F3rd_read%2Fgov31-3.htm">Emergency and Disaster Management Act</a> that pivoted away from a response-based approach to one centred around four distinct phases: mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery. Despite updating the legislation, our research shows animal disaster management remains overlooked. </p>
<p>This research highlights the need for sustained civil engagement and legislative interventions on two key issues: 1) the nuances of animal rescue and welfare; and 2) the strained resiliency of agricultural communities. </p>
<h2>Animal rescue and welfare</h2>
<p>B.C. emergency management protocols give producers four options regarding farmed animals during disasters. Farmers can either a) shelter-in-place, b) relocate on-farm, c) evacuate off-farm or d) release their livestock. We also found that options were further restricted depending on the farmed species.</p>
<p>For example, to shelter-in-place often remains the only option for pigs, chickens and turkeys due to biosecurity concerns, logistical challenges and simple cost-benefit analysis from an agricultural perspective. Indeed, we found — through a <a href="https://www2.gov.bc.ca/enSearch/detail?id=7AFDBC16F15F42E289E9F7DDB0F80C40&recorduid=AGR-2022-21591">Freedom of Information request</a> — that most of the reimbursements for relocation distributed by the <a href="https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/agriculture-seafood/business-market-development/emergency-management/livestock-relocation">Livestock Relocation Policy</a> went to dairy and beef producers. </p>
<p>Of those producers, many opted to evacuate their animals directly to an auction yard or abattoir due to the loss of rangeland or destroyed farm infrastructure.</p>
<p>These considerations are further complicated by the different production lifespans of various species. Long-term welfare impacts are mostly only relevant within dairy and beef production since on average, chickens only live around 40 days before slaughter — and pigs only around six months. By comparison, cows can live upwards of five years in production before slaughter — a fact which helps to partly explain the extreme disparity in <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food">water, land and energy costs in beef production</a> as opposed to other animal products. </p>
<p>Studies show that cows rescued from floods have compromised immune systems, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/w14243984">slower rates of growth</a>, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33045630/">higher rates of miscarriages</a>, and even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2020.08.012">increased methane emissions</a>. These long-term impacts can lead to the eventual decision by producers to euthanize animals.</p>
<p>In fact, the 2021 <a href="https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/agriculture-seafood/programs/agriculture-insurance-and-income-protection-programs/flood-recovery">Canada-British Columbia Flood Recovery Program for Food Security</a> anticipated these continued losses and extended coverage for costs associated with post-disaster welfare and losses for an additional year.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-we-must-address-the-interconnected-harms-to-people-animals-and-ecosystems-in-train-derailments-210357">Why we must address the interconnected harms to people, animals and ecosystems in train derailments</a>
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<p>This flags the need for transparency, and a mandatory reporting mechanism concerning post-disaster animal welfare to accurately represent the <a href="https://doi.org/10.4000/irpp.1868">long-term</a> repercussions of disasters. </p>
<h2>Strained resiliency</h2>
<p>Increasingly, disaster relief is becoming the <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745339542/disasters-and-social-reproduction/">responsibility of individual communities and civil society</a>. However, these communities are often under-resourced, untrained and not integrated formally into emergency response. </p>
<p>Our research pointed to the oversized role agricultural communities have in responding to disasters, often leading to <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-related-disasters-leave-behind-trauma-and-worse-mental-health-housing-uncertainty-is-a-major-reason-why-206861">post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological harms</a>. There are also instances where producers will even decide to leave agricultural production entirely.</p>
<p>Many members of the Abbotsford community felt abandoned and exploited by the government after the floods, leading to resentment, frustration and mistrust towards formal emergency management. </p>
<p>While communities took pride in their ability to support each other with the limited resources they had, interviews and post-disaster research revealed the immediate and long-term impacts of this approach should be taken seriously, including acknowledging the barrier it creates for future collaboration between communities and emergency management.</p>
<p>It is essential that we build capacity in communities by supporting, resourcing, and legitimizing <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/DPM-05-2018-">community-first responder models</a>. In doing so, we can help communities and farmers gradually become integral aspects of formal emergency management systems as <a href="https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/emergency-management/local-emergency-programs/volunteers">public safety volunteers</a>. </p>
<h2>Real change has yet to come</h2>
<p>Following the floods, the Abbotsford municipal government focused on returning producers to production by restocking barns and drafting plans to improve <a href="https://letstalkabbotsford.ca/abbotsfordfloodresponse">flood-mitigation infrastructure</a>. On the provincial side, the government has begun to update emergency legislation with its Emergency and Disaster Management Act. </p>
<p>These are important steps, but they fail to engage with the more thorny issues related to animal disaster management. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/canada-must-stop-treating-climate-disasters-like-unexpected-humanitarian-crises-216153">Canada must stop treating climate disasters like unexpected humanitarian crises</a>
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<p>Our research shows the need for transparency regarding animal rescue and welfare issues, as well as mobilization around community-based solutions, such as by formalizing the community first-responder model and integrating it into official emergency management. </p>
<p>Without these critical interventions at the social and political level, we can continue to expect the same outcomes for communities living on the front lines of climate-fuelled disasters.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222331/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Eccles receives funding from World Animal Protection (Canada), FRQSC, NSERC-CREATE, and Concordia University.</span></em></p>Despite improvements in disaster response management since the Abbotsford floods of 2021, long-term animal welfare remains woefully underappreciated in B.C.Stephanie Eccles, PhD Candidate, Department of Geography, Planning, and Environment, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2255962024-03-13T15:03:15Z2024-03-13T15:03:15ZIt’s a myth that male animals are usually larger than females – new study<p>Males are bigger than females, right? Generally, this is true of humans – imagine the extremes of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and singer Kylie Minogue. It is also true of other familiar mammals including pets, such as cats and dogs, and livestock such as sheep and cows.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-45739-5">a new study</a> by US scientist Kaia Tombak and colleagues found that, in many mammal species, males are not larger than females. In fact, in a comparison of 429 species in the wild, 50% of species including rodents and some bats – which make up <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/of-rats-and-bats-hundreds-of-mammal-species-still-unidentified-study-says/">a large proportion</a> of all mammal species – showed no difference in body size between the sexes. Male-biased size dimorphism (where males are larger than females) was found in only 28% of mammal species.</p>
<p>So, why do a lot of people have a misconception that males are normally larger than females? </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/scitable/students-page/160/">Anisogamy</a> is the term used to describe the difference in sex cells – small, numerous, sperm, compared to relatively large eggs. Males can produce sperm throughout most of their lifespan, whereas females are born with a finite number of eggs. Therefore, females (or rather, their eggs), are a scare resource for which males compete for access. Generally, in species where females are a limited resource that males need to fight over, males are larger than females.</p>
<p>In terms of evolution, most males have been shaped to be larger, bolder, heavier, more adorned and have more weaponry than females. This is due to males fighting to acquire females – a larger stag with bigger antlers would do much better in a fight, <a href="https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-%20facts/mammals/understand-the-british-deer-rut">known as a rut</a>, than a small stag with tiny antlers. So, bigger usually wins.</p>
<p>This includes species such as lions and baboons, where size is an advantage when competing physically for mates. Male northern elephant seals, who fight for access to harems of females, show the largest male-biased size dimorphism, being over 3.2 times heavier than females. These are the animals that tend to attract research</p>
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<h2>The strange world of fish</h2>
<p>But, what happens in species where males don’t fight for access to females? Generally, females are larger than males. This is because larger females usually produce more offspring. Indeed, Tombak’s study noted that larger female rabbits usually have multiple litters each mating season. Being a larger female is much more advantageous in terms of reproductive success. But more so when offspring do not need extended parental care and when gestation periods are short.</p>
<p>The most extreme sexual size dimorphism is found outside of mammals. Cichlid fish (<em>Lamprologus callipterus</em>) males are up to 60 times larger than females. The males protect empty snail shells for the females to breed in. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12038-010-0030-6">Larger females</a> can produce more offspring but they need larger shells and therefore a larger male to defend those shells.</p>
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<p>In mammals, the largest female-biased size dimorphism is found in peninsular tube-nosed bats, where females are 1.4 times the size of males. However, more dimorphism in body size is seen in fish, reptiles and insects. For example, the female orb-weaving spider (<em>Nephila plumipes</em>) has a much larger body size than the male, reaching up to ten times his size. Size dimorphism also shows a correlation with cannibalism, where larger females are more likely to eat their male partner.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581306/original/file-20240312-22-e1nldo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Large spider and small one in a web" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581306/original/file-20240312-22-e1nldo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581306/original/file-20240312-22-e1nldo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581306/original/file-20240312-22-e1nldo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581306/original/file-20240312-22-e1nldo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581306/original/file-20240312-22-e1nldo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581306/original/file-20240312-22-e1nldo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/581306/original/file-20240312-22-e1nldo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A female golden orb weaving spider and the smaller male.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/close-photograph-female-golden-orb-weaving-1692871246">Cassandra Madsen/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Anglerfish that typically live at the bottom of oceans, are an example of extreme sexual dimorphism in body size. While the females look like typical fish, the males are tiny, basic organisms. In order to survive, the male needs to fuse with a female, tapping into her nutrients to produce enough sperm to fertilise her. Female deep-sea anglerfish (<em>Ceratias
holboelli</em>) are <a href="https://www.livescience.com/49330-animal-sex-anglerfish.html">60 times longer</a> and half a million times heavier than males.</p>
<p>But, the most extreme sexual size dimorphism is found in rhizocephala, types of barnacle where the male looks like a larvae. Once a male finds a mate, he <a href="https://www.wired.com/2015/07/absurd-creature-of-the-week-rhizocephalan/">inserts himself into the females</a>, transforming into nothing more than a mass of cells.</p>
<h2>What about mammals?</h2>
<p>So, why isn’t sexual size dimorphism seen in more mammals? Mammals tend to have fewer offspring than other species such as fish or spiders. They only have a few offspring at a time, and often have long gestation periods or extended periods of parental care. In addition, the majority of mammals are monogamous, so there is less need for males to fight over females. That’s why species such as lemurs, golden moles, horses, zebra and tenrecs, usually have similar sized males and females.</p>
<p>It is thought that biases in the scientific literature may have led to the misconception that males are normally bigger as research historically focused on <a href="https://wwf.panda.org/discover/our_focus/wildlife_practice/flagship_keystone_indicator_definition/">species considered “charismatic”</a>, such as primates and carnivores, that attract funding. These are some of the few mammalian species where males compete for mates, and so gain an evolutionary advantage if they are larger. </p>
<p>There was also a bias of <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/science-and-technology/2019/10/once-most-famous-scientists-were-men-thats-changing">male scientists</a> conducting research. And, although a study in 1977 <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/283223">by a female scientist</a> found that species with little sexual size dimorphism were frequent in mammals, the research was drowned out by studies on charismatic species with a bias towards large males. Perhaps if there had been more female scientists at the time, we might have had a different preconception about body size in the animal kingdom.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225596/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Gentle works for Nottingham Trent University. </span></em></p>Does size matter? In the animal kingdom, yes.Louise Gentle, Principal Lecturer in Wildlife Conservation, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2252862024-03-11T13:10:38Z2024-03-11T13:10:38ZA brief guide to birdwatching in the age of dinosaurs<p>Have you ever wondered what it would be like travel back in time to the age of dinosaurs? If you stumble upon a time machine, remember to bring your binoculars. Birdwatching is a popular hobby today, with an around <a href="https://www.wwt.org.uk/news-and-stories/blog/get-into-birdwatching/#:%7E:text=Bird%20watching%20in%20the%20UK,that%20we%20look%20after%20them.">3 million participants</a> in the UK alone, and in our modern world there are a staggering <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/pc/pdf/PCv27_BR4">11,000 species</a> of birds to spot. </p>
<p>Despite the popularity of their modern-day descendants, we often forget about ancient birds because of their more famous dinosaur cousins.</p>
<p>Birds are actually <a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/how-dinosaurs-evolved-into-birds.html">a type of dinosaur</a>. They are closely related to smaller, agile meat-eating dinosaurs such as the <em>Velociraptor</em>. Ancient birds came in a variety of forms, from ones with teeth and claws to species barely distinguishable from farmyard <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00766-2">chickens</a>. </p>
<p>So, if you were to point your binoculars over the heads of <em>Triceratops</em> and <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/five-things-you-probably-have-wrong-about-the-t-rex-220011">Tyrannosaurus rex</a></em>, what could you spot? Here is a quick introduction to six of the most interesting ancient bird species. </p>
<h2><em>Archaeopteryx</em></h2>
<p><em>Archaeopteryx</em> is <a href="https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/dino-directory/archaeopteryx.html">the iconic “dino-bird”</a> from the Jurassic period. The discovery of <em>Archaeopteryx</em> fossils in Germany over 150 years ago provided scientists with the first clues about the link between dinosaurs and modern birds. </p>
<p>At first glance, the skeleton of <em>Archaeopteryx</em> is just like any other meat-eating dinosaur – sharp teeth, clawed hands and a long bony tail. Surrounding the skeleton of specimens such as the <a href="https://www.museumfuernaturkunde.berlin/en/about/news/archaeopteryx-named-fossil-year">Berlin <em>Archaeopteryx</em></a> (discovered between <a href="https://artsandculture.google.com/story/archaeopteryx-lithographica-%E2%80%93-the-berlin-specimen-museum-fuer-naturkunde-berlin/1AVxj85ySOZ4JQ?hl=en">1874 and 1876</a>) however, are imprints of feathers which form a pair of distinctly bird-like wings.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="3D rendering of black bird-like dinosaur flying through the sky" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580391/original/file-20240307-21-8fm1ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580391/original/file-20240307-21-8fm1ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580391/original/file-20240307-21-8fm1ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580391/original/file-20240307-21-8fm1ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580391/original/file-20240307-21-8fm1ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580391/original/file-20240307-21-8fm1ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580391/original/file-20240307-21-8fm1ve.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Archaeopteryx</em> looked half way between a dinosaur and a modern bird.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/archaeopteryx-birdlike-dinosaur-flying-through-sky-1722734977">Dotted Yeti/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But for many years, palaeontologists debated whether <em>Archaeopteryx</em> could have used these wings to fly. Scientists now think it is likely that <em>Archaeopteryx</em> could have flown, but only <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-03296-8">in short bursts </a>, like a pheasant. Recent technological advances have given us our first insights into dinosaur colour and studies of fossilised, pigmented cells have shown that <em>Archaeopteryx</em> had <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65336-y">matt black</a> wing feathers.</p>
<h2><em>Confuciusornis</em></h2>
<p>This crow-sized bird had a beak like that of modern-day birds, but still had large, <a href="https://digitallibrary.amnh.org/items/fc74de43-ec0e-497f-a199-7f89b6b658b9">dinosaur-like claws</a> on its hands. It is thought that they lived in flocks, large numbers of which were killed by ash or gas in <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4151">volcanic eruptions</a> and preserved as fossils. Known from over <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326059155_A_taxonomical_revision_of_the_Confuciusornithiformes_Aves_Pygostylia">1,000 fossil specimens</a> from China, <em>Confuciusornis</em> is one of the most common fossil bird species.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580395/original/file-20240307-30-nefob5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Outline of dinosaur clearly preserved in rock" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580395/original/file-20240307-30-nefob5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580395/original/file-20240307-30-nefob5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580395/original/file-20240307-30-nefob5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580395/original/file-20240307-30-nefob5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580395/original/file-20240307-30-nefob5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580395/original/file-20240307-30-nefob5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580395/original/file-20240307-30-nefob5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Confuciusornis sanctus</em> fossil, encased in rock.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/dinosaur-fossil-confuciusornis-sanctus-rock-1232355214">Chawalit Chankhantha/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of these birds had a <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsbl.2008.0409?casa_token=dLetzDz5OIUAAAAA%3AKUyu-cMBlflBhPXtC6xu-PxSc6wFebScqXzE3LBa33EmqsrzLISDWi08ToliVPfTfyuuDI_psxm7fBY">pair of tail feathers</a> longer than their body, while others lacked these long feathers and would have looked comparatively stumpy. Scientists think these long-tailed birds were the males of the species and those with <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms2377">short tails were females</a>. Like modern peacocks and peahens, the males probably used their extravagant tail feathers to woo the females.</p>
<h2><em>Falcatakely</em></h2>
<p>Discovered in 2020, <em><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2945-x">Falcatakely</a></em>, from Madagascar, would have resembled a small, buck-toothed toucan. Its oversized, banana-shaped bill only had teeth <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03260-x">at the very tip</a>. Although we don’t know what this buck-toothed bird would have eaten, its close relatives ate a <a href="https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.18.549506v2.abstract">variety of food</a>, including fruit, fish and even larger prey. </p>
<p>Scientists think that birds such as <em>Falcatakely</em> could fly the same day they <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.1100000">hatched from their egg</a>, unlike birds today which spend their first weeks or months helpless in the nest.</p>
<h2><em>Hesperornis</em></h2>
<p>One of the weirdest birds from the age of dinosaurs, <em>Hesperornis</em> would have looked something like a six-foot-tall penguin with a beak full of <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12862-016-0753-6#Sec27">sharp teeth</a>. Its <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1424-2818/14/4/267">tiny arms</a> would have made T rex look like a weightlifter, so it definitely couldn’t have used them to fly. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Illustration of bird with tiny wings perched on a rock" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580394/original/file-20240307-18-16mtuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/580394/original/file-20240307-18-16mtuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580394/original/file-20240307-18-16mtuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580394/original/file-20240307-18-16mtuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580394/original/file-20240307-18-16mtuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580394/original/file-20240307-18-16mtuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/580394/original/file-20240307-18-16mtuh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"><em>Hesperornis</em> was an aquatic bird that lived at the time of the dinosaurs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/hesperornis-aquatic-bird-that-lived-time-1118302547">Daniel Eskridge/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Instead, <em>Hesperornis</em> used its oversized <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018217307149">feet to propel</a> itself through the water like a modern cormorant. Out of the water, <em>Hesperornis</em> walked <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018217307149">awkwardly upright</a> and probably couldn’t travel far overland.</p>
<h2><em>Vegavis and Asteriornis</em></h2>
<p>Towards the end of the dinosaurs’ reign, the earliest groups of modern birds began to appear. The first of these birds to be discovered was <em><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature03150">Vegavis</a></em> from Antarctica, which in the time of dinosaurs would have been <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0031018201004527">covered in trees</a> rather than ice. </p>
<p>It was probably an ancestor of ducks and geese and one exceptional fossil of <em>Vegavis</em> even has a rare <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature19852">preserved vocal organ</a>. Analysis of this fossil suggested that <em>Vegavis</em> couldn’t make a songbird melody but could have made simple noises such as goose-like honks.</p>
<p>Sixty-six million years ago, not long before the <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2006087117">asteroid impact</a>, which caused the extinction of the non-bird dinosaurs, lived <em><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2096-0">Asteriornis</a></em>. This quail-sized bird from Belgium was an ancestor of modern ducks and chickens. Although it would have looked unremarkable compared to the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/netherlands-journal-of-geosciences/article/stratigraphic-ranges-of-mosasaurs-in-belgium-and-the-netherlands-late-cretaceous-and-cephalopodbased-correlations-with-north-america/2601C3D2DD398B92DFEDA122E82F9991">giant swimming lizards</a> and <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05445-y">huge, toothed seagulls</a> it lived alongside, this may have been to its advantage.</p>
<p>Scientists think that the small size of birds such as <em>Asteriornis</em> helped them to survive the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/sysbio/article/67/1/1/3960267">mass extinction</a>. Because smaller animals need less food and take less time to reproduce, these humble birds were able to survive and evolve into the birds you can see through your binoculars today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225286/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abi Crane does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If you love learning about dinosaurs don’t let crowdpleasers like the T Rex distract you from the fascinating birdlife that once roamed the Earth.Abi Crane, Postgraduate Researcher in Palaeontology, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2191402024-02-27T12:41:39Z2024-02-27T12:41:39ZCould a couple of Thai otters have helped the UK’s otter population recover? Our study provides a hint<p>Otter populations crashed in Britain around the 1960s from the lethal effects of chemical pollution in rivers and lakes – or so we thought. <a href="https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/40/11/msad207/7275014">Our research</a> has looked more closely at what happened to otters in Britain over the last 800 years and has revealed a more complex picture. </p>
<p>Since Eurasian otters (<em>Lutra lutra</em>) are at the top of the aquatic food chain in Britain, any contamination consumed by their prey, and by the prey of their prey, <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c05410">accumulates in otters</a>. So otters are particularly susceptible to any toxic chemicals in their environment. </p>
<p>Following the banning of many chemical pollutants, otter populations began to recover, and we now have otters in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eva.13505">every county in Britain</a>. National otter surveys have been conducted in Wales, Scotland and England since 1977 and have helped to track population recovery. </p>
<p>However, we didn’t have a good grasp on what population sizes were like in the decades before this time. We only had anecdotal evidence that otter hunting was becoming less “successful” over time, and that both sightings and signs of otters were rarer. </p>
<h2>Otter population decline</h2>
<p>Our research shows that roughly between 1950 and 1970, an extreme population decline happened in the east of England, and a strong decline in south-west England. They were probably caused by chemical pollution. </p>
<p>In Scotland, otter populations showed a long-term, but smaller decline, which suggests less chemical pollution. There was a smaller population decline in Wales, which started around 1800, possibly linked to otter hunting and changes in how people shaped and used the landscape. </p>
<p>While both deal with DNA, genetics focuses on individual genes and their roles, while genomics examines the entire set of an organism’s DNA. Although there have been genetic studies of otters in Britain, our research was the first time genomics was used to study Eurasian otters anywhere in the world.</p>
<p>Working with scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Wellcome Sanger’s Darwin Tree of Life project, we looked at the entire otter genome. The upgrade from genetics to genomics threw up a few surprises. </p>
<p>First, there was a mitochondrial DNA sequence found in the east of England, which was very different to the sequences in the rest of Britain. Mitochondrial DNA is a sequence of DNA found in a cell’s mitochondria, which is what generates the energy. Mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from the mother, while the rest of the DNA is a mix of both the mother’s and the father’s DNA.</p>
<p>Another <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19768354.2023.2283763">recent study</a> by our research group, in collaboration with colleagues in South Korea, suggested a divergence between these two lineages at least 80,000 years ago. Finding this mitochondrial lineage (that, based on our data, is otherwise restricted to Asia) in the UK was surprising. </p>
<p>Second, we found high levels of genetic diversity in the east of England. Normally, after an extreme population decline such as the one we identified in this area, genetic diversity decreases. Yet we saw much greater diversity here than in the population in Scotland, where there was no clear evidence for such a decline. </p>
<h2>Thai otters</h2>
<p>With a little detective work, we discovered that a pair of Eurasian otters (the same species that we have in the UK), were brought to Britain from Thailand in the 1960s. Populations of Eurasian otters range right across Europe and Asia. Although they are the same species, there are several genetically distinct subspecies, particularly in Asia. </p>
<p>It seems possible that these genetically different otters from Thailand bred with otters in the east of England. At the time of the population decline, when native UK populations were at their smallest, even a few individuals introduced into the population may have made a big difference. And they left unexpected marks on the genome. </p>
<p>We don’t know for sure if this is what happened, and we need to do more work to find out what effect this may have had on otters in the east of England. High genetic diversity is usually good for a population or species. But on the other hand, conservation often strives to maintain genetic differences between populations, rather than mixing distinct populations.</p>
<p>One way to find out more would be to compare the genome of a Eurasian otter from Thailand to the otters we see in the east of England. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Since the 1960s, otters in Thailand and across Asia have become increasingly rare. This is due to habitat loss, pollution and the illegal otter trade. So getting samples for genome sequencing is very difficult. It highlights the importance of conserving the species in Asia, despite population recoveries in Europe.</p>
<p>Our work shows the value of using modern genomic tools to look at the genetic diversity of a threatened species. The application of such tools can uncover surprising facts, even in supposedly well-studied species.</p>
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<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frank Hailer receives funding from NERC and Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Chadwick receives funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council and from the Environment Agency</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah du Plessis receives funding from the UK Natural Environment Research Council and the Global Wales International Mobility Fund.</span></em></p>Research has revealed how British otters may have been able to recover from species loss in the 1950s with the help of otters from Asia.Frank Hailer, Senior Lecturer in Evolutionary Biology, Cardiff UniversityElizabeth Chadwick, Senior Lecturer at the School of Biosciences, Cardiff UniversitySarah du Plessis, PhD Candidate, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2232242024-02-21T13:04:38Z2024-02-21T13:04:38ZGut bacteria may explain why grey squirrels outcompete reds – new research<p>Across large parts of the UK, the native red squirrel has been replaced by the grey squirrel, a North American species. As well as endangering reds, grey squirrels pose a threat to our woodlands because of the damage they cause to trees. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/jmm/10.1099/jmm.0.001793">New research</a> from my colleagues and I compared the gut bacteria of red and grey squirrels. We found that differences between the two may explain their competition and red squirrel decline, as well as why grey squirrels are so destructive to woodland.</p>
<p>Grey squirrels were introduced to the UK between 1876 and 1929 and have displaced reds in most areas of the UK. Greys carry a virus called “squirrelpox”, which doesn’t affect them but leads to sickness and often death in red squirrels.</p>
<p>Grey squirrels are bigger than red squirrels and compete with them <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2023.1083008/full">for food and habitat</a>.
Acorns, a widespread food source, contain tannins, which are hard for red squirrels to digest. But greys can digest acorns easily, giving them an extra edge in competing for resources. </p>
<p>Grey squirrels frequently strip the bark from deciduous trees. In commercial plantations, the damage can lead to fungal infection and result in the tree producing low quality timber. The annual cost is an <a href="https://rfs.org.uk/insights-publications/rfs-reports/report-overview-the-cost-of-grey-squirrel-damage-to-woodland-in-england-and-wales/">estimated £37 million.</a> with sycamore, oak, birch and beech frequently targeted. </p>
<p>The grey squirrels select the strongest growing trees as these have bark containing the largest volume of sap. Intriguingly, grey squirrels do not select trees with the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230344319_Bark-stripping_by_Grey_squirrels_Sciurus_carolinensis">highest sugar content</a>. This observation has led scientists to posit that the squirrels consume bark to obtain <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716300421?via%3Dihub">certain micro-nutrients</a>. </p>
<h2>Gut bacteria</h2>
<p>All mammals have microorganisms living in their intestines. For example, the typical human colon is host to at least <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5847071/">160 bacterial species</a>, while in birds, research has found thousands of different bacterial species in <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33868800/">chicken intestines.</a></p>
<p>The bacteria break down foods and help synthesise vitamins, complementing the enzymes secreted by the body. The diversity of these microorganisms, known as the “microbiota”, can reflect the level of health and also the diet of an individual. But we don’t know enough about the microbiota living in squirrel intestines. </p>
<p>The types of microbes present vary between species, yet the extent to which they differ between grey and red squirrels is unclear. We explored this and investigated the potential for any differences to affect competition between the two squirrel species. We also examined whether gut bacteria might be playing a role in bark stripping behaviour.</p>
<p>We sampled bacterial DNA from red and grey squirrel intestinal contents and performed gene sequencing to identify the range of bacteria present in the samples. The results were analysed to compare any important differences between the two.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A cute red squirrels with a large bushy tail stands on the branch of a tree." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576545/original/file-20240219-20-ivfdqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576545/original/file-20240219-20-ivfdqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576545/original/file-20240219-20-ivfdqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576545/original/file-20240219-20-ivfdqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=430&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576545/original/file-20240219-20-ivfdqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576545/original/file-20240219-20-ivfdqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576545/original/file-20240219-20-ivfdqj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=541&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Ynys Môn off the north Wales coast is one of the few places in the UK where greys have been eradicated in favour of red squirrels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/red-squirrel-views-around-north-wales-2232607907">Gail Johnson/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Calcium</h2>
<p>Calcium is an important nutrient in the body and is required for healthy bones, muscles and nerves. It is especially needed by lactating animals and ones that are young and growing.</p>
<p>We found that grey squirrels may have the capacity to obtain the calcium that exists in tree bark thanks to the presence of a bacteria called “oxalobacter” in their gut. The calcium in tree bark comes in an insoluble form and is hard for an animal to digest. But oxalobacter would be able to change this into a form that could be more digestible. </p>
<p>Calcium levels <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716300421?via%3Dihub">increase in trees</a> as active growth resumes after winter dormancy. This happens immediately before the main squirrel bark-stripping season of May to July. Our research may therefore help to explain the destructive behaviour of grey squirrels and why red squirrels appear to strip bark much less frequently.</p>
<p>Our research also identified a significantly higher diversity of bacteria in the intestines of grey squirrels compared to red squirrels. This could hold the key to further understanding why grey squirrels outcompete red squirrels in the UK. </p>
<p>A more diverse range of bacteria being sustained in the gut means that grey squirrels potentially may be able to access a broader range of resources than red squirrels in addition to acorns.</p>
<h2>Adenovirus</h2>
<p>The grey squirrel harbours not just the squirrelpox virus, but also another potential threat – adenovirus. While this virus causes severe intestinal lesions in some red squirrels, curiously, grey squirrels never exhibit the same symptoms.</p>
<p>This discrepancy underscores the fascinating and complex potential role of gut microbiota. Research increasingly reveals their influence on everything from digestion to immune response, and even susceptibility to disease.</p>
<p>In the context of red squirrels, understanding how variations in their gut bacteria might predispose them to adenovirus becomes crucial. This is especially pertinent for captive breeding programs, where adenovirus infections pose a hurdle to successful reintroductions of red squirrels into the wild.</p>
<p>Given we only sampled red and grey squirrels from north Wales, we hope that future studies will map the gut microbiota of other European populations too. Such future research will continue to improve our knowledge of the competition between red and grey squirrels.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223224/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Craig Shuttleworth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>New research suggests the gut bacteria of red and grey squirrels differ significantly, potentially explaining the decline of the native red and the success of its grey counterpart.Craig Shuttleworth, Honorary Visiting Research Fellow, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2224752024-02-20T14:31:08Z2024-02-20T14:31:08ZDefying expectations, disabled Japanese macaques survive by adjusting their behaviours and receiving support<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576169/original/file-20240216-30-6btxw6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5184%2C3453&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A disabled young female macaque named Monmo at the Awajishima Monkey Center in Japan.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Sarah E. Turner)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Nina is a Japanese macaque, one of the red-faced monkeys famous for sitting in hot springs in Japan. Nina lives wild in the forest, but most days, along with her group, she visits the <a href="https://monkey-center.jp/english.php">Awajishima Monkey Center</a> to eat the food people provide for the monkeys. </p>
<p>Nina was born without hands, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10329-008-0083-4">an unusually common occurrence in this group of macaques</a>. While no one knows for sure why these malformations of the limbs and digits occur, many researchers have suggested a potential link to pesticides or <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/%20s10329-014-0405-7">other environmental contaminants</a>. </p>
<p>Nina survived because of a combination of factors: her ability to modify her behaviours to compensate for her physical impairments; the extra care provided by her mother when she was little; and living in a group of monkeys who treat her much <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2014.01.002">the same way they do non-disabled group members</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="an infant and older macaque in the middle of the road" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=657&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576171/original/file-20240216-18-i4irp6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=826&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nina, a juvenile disabled female Japanese macaque at the Awajishima Monkey Center, sitting with an older Juvenile.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Brogan M. Stewart)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over the years, we have spent many hours observing Nina and other disabled and non-disabled monkeys, as they live their lives — moving through the forest, socializing with others in their group and finding novel ways of adjusting their behaviours to compensate for physical impairments. </p>
<p>Disability is a <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/disabilities/resources/factsheet-on-persons-with-disabilities.html">normal part of human experience</a>, with at least <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/disability-and-health">16 per cent of people experiencing some form of disability</a>. However, while conducting research at Awajishima, we have noticed that many people expect that disabled animals would be unlikely to survive. However, Nina and other disabled macaques in her group can survive and reproduce, and are far from being alone among primates of the world. </p>
<h2>Primates and disability</h2>
<p>In a recently published review of the literature on non-human primates and disability in the <em>American Journal of Primatology</em>, we found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.23579">physical impairment is more common among wild and free-ranging primates than most people might think</a>. </p>
<p>We found 114 published papers on primates with disability, not including all the casual observations and field notes that were not published in the scientific literature. These papers included 37 species of non-human primates — monkeys, apes and lemurs — from 70 different study sites (38 of those with wild and free-ranging primates).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a group of monkeys in the middle of a path, three of them are grooming each other" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576172/original/file-20240216-16-wcme8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Disabled and non-disabled monkeys hanging out and socially grooming at the Awajshima Monkey Center in Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Sarah E. Turner)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>About 45 per cent of these disabilities, like Nina’s, were present from birth, while approximately 24 per cent came from injury, with similar frequency caused by a condition or illness. </p>
<p>Behavioural flexibility or plasticity (the ability to modify activities and actions in response to specific circumstances), the innovation of novel behaviours and extra maternal care stood out in the published research papers.</p>
<p>Seventy papers reported on ways that primates used behavioural flexibility and innovations to compensate for physical impairments, or provided examples of mothers who were able to support the needs of their physically impaired offspring. There were also some instances of other relatives and group members also providing support. </p>
<p>Overall, there was little evidence of social selection against disabled primates. There were also many examples of undifferentiated treatment for disabled individuals, and a few examples of disability-associated care behaviours.</p>
<h2>Human causes of primate disability</h2>
<p>Having studied disabled monkeys, we were not surprised to learn about the behavioural plasticity we found in this review. What was more surprising to us was just how many of these disabilities were linked to anthropogenic activities. </p>
<p>There are many ways that human activities can lead directly and indirectly to long-term disability in our closest animal relatives. Sixty per cent of the published examples of primate disability we surveyed were linked to human causes. </p>
<p>These included: injuries from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2028.2002.00356.x">hunting snares among chimpanzees and gorillas</a>; injuries sustained on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-014-9779-z">roads or from electrical wires in South African baboons</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1896/044.014.0206">South American howler monkeys</a>; and the effects of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1985.0020">diseases transmitted between human and non-human primates</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a monkey with a malformed hand in the foreground, other monkeys in the background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=713&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/576599/original/file-20240219-21-gxzmo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=896&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A disabled infant macaque with her mother in the background at the Awajishima Monkey Center in Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Sarah E. Turner)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Human pressure, increasing threats</h2>
<p>At a time when the majority of non-human primates are experiencing declining populations and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abn2927">are threatened with extinction</a>, this link between human activities and physical impairments in primates is a poignant reminder of how humans are impacting other life on Earth. </p>
<p>Wherever non-human primates are found in the world — throughout the tropics and as far north as Japan — they face compounding threats from human pressures. As humans increasingly convert forests and wild lands to agricultural and urban spaces, habitat loss is pushing many <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.1600946">primate species towards extinction</a>. </p>
<p>These pressures are exacerbated by resource extraction (often to meet market demand from the Global North), hunting, the exotic pet trade and disease. The threat of major impacts from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-020-02776-5">climate change is also looming on the horizon</a>. Even the most behaviourally flexible, smart, care-giving and innovative of individuals and species may not be able to navigate the scope and variety of these changes and pressures.</p>
<p>Physically impaired and disabled primates often find ways to behaviourally compensate for their impairments, survive and reproduce. </p>
<p>Nina and her friends show us an important side of non-human primate behaviour, giving us a model to examine the capacity for behavioural flexibility in nonhuman primates. Our research also underscores the critical role that humans have in shaping the futures of our closest animal relatives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah E. Turner receives funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada - Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS-CREATE), Fonds de recherche du Québec ‐ Nature et technologies, MITACS Globalink Research Awards, the Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, and Concordia University.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brogan M. Stewart receives funding from NSERC - Alexander Graham Bell and CREATE in the Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS), FRQNT, Concordia University, Kyoto University, Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, and MITACS Globalink.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jack Creeggan receives funding from MITACS Globalink, Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, Concordia University, and NSERC-CREATE in Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan M. Joyce receives funding from MITACS Globalink, Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Science, Concordia University, and NSERC-CREATE in Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mikaela Gerwing receives funding from Miriam Aaron Roland Graduate Fellowship, Concordia University, and NSERC - CGS M and CREATE in Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Eccles receives funding from FRQSC and NSERC‐CREATE in Leadership in Environmental and Digital innovation for Sustainability (LEADS).</span></em></p>A community of macaques in Japan has a high rate of disabled individuals who survive with behavioural flexibility and maternal care. Globally, primate disabilities are often related to human causes.Sarah E. Turner, Associate Professor, Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia UniversityBrogan M. Stewart, PhD Student in Environmental Science, Concordia UniversityJack Creeggan, Master's Student in Geography, Planning, and Environment, Concordia UniversityMegan M. Joyce, PhD Student in the Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, Concordia UniversityMikaela Gerwing, Wildlife Conservation Biologist and PhD Student, Concordia UniversityStephanie Eccles, PhD Candidate, Department of Geography, Planning, and Environment, Concordia UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2225332024-02-14T16:55:57Z2024-02-14T16:55:57ZMen become less fertile with age, but the same isn’t true for all animals – new study<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573049/original/file-20240202-27-wscv4y.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C34%2C5833%2C3938&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/colorful-balloons-spermatozoid-shape-on-blue-1100465771">olliulli/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We take it for granted that humans find it <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3109/09513590.2010.501889">more difficult to conceive</a> as they grow older. But <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44768-4">our recent study</a>, which analysed data from 157 animal species, found that male reproductive ageing seems to be a lot less common in other male animals. </p>
<p>With fertility in men <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/305/6854/609">declining worldwide</a>, understanding ageing of sperm in other animals could give new insights into our own fertility. </p>
<p>Human fertility declines with age because sperm and eggs of older people are <a href="https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/11/3/261/759255">more deteriorated</a> or fewer in number than those of young people. Reproducing at an older age not only affects your fertility, but can also <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nrurol.2013.18">reduce the fertility</a>, survival rate and physical and cognitive performance of the children you conceive.</p>
<h2>Humans versus other animals</h2>
<p>Humans <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00239-019-09896-2">live considerably longer</a> than we did just a century ago. This <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0909606106">recent, rapid extension</a> in our longevity might be one reason why humans reproductively age at faster rates than other animals. Our reproductive ageing rate hasn’t slowed down yet to match our longer lifespans. </p>
<p>Animals might also face greater evolutionary pressure to maximise their reproductive potential at all ages, because most animals reproduce throughout their lives. But this isn’t the case for humans. We rarely <a href="https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/29/6/1304/625687">reproduce</a> in our late life. </p>
<p>Additionally, we have <a href="https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/37/4/629/6515525">fewer offspring</a> compared to our ancestors. This makes it harder for natural selection to select genes that improve human reproduction due to less variation in the population’s fecundity. </p>
<h2>Females versus males</h2>
<p>Males and females in many species age reproductively at different rates. </p>
<p>For instance, in red wolves, male reproductive success declines with age but it <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00265-016-2241-9">does not</a> for females. Yet female killifish show stronger decline in fertility with age <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1365-2656.13382">than males</a>. Despite the fact human females live longer than males, they tend to become infertile <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.3755843">earlier than men</a>, and go through menopause. </p>
<p>In some species, including humans, where females help raise their grand-offspring (such as humans and whales), females live <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982218316828?via%3Dihub">much beyond the age</a> of reproduction. An <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsos.191972">evolutionary explanation</a> for this is that older females can better pass on their genes by helping their relatives survive and rear young than by reproducing themselves.</p>
<p>There are some hypotheses that try to explain these <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acel.13542">sex-specific differences</a> in reproductive ageing. </p>
<p>Sperm are continuously produced in males, but eggs in many species, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8769179/">including humans</a>, are produced early in the life of females. This might lead eggs to <a href="https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/6/6/532/616993">accumulate more damage</a> due to being stored for longer durations inside older females than sperm are stored in old males. </p>
<p>Another hypothesis suggests that males might age faster because sperm DNA <a href="https://elifesciences.org/articles/80008">accumulate more</a> mutations than egg DNA. Sperm have poorer DNA repair machinery than eggs, causing males to <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05752-y">pass on more mutations</a> to the next generation than females with advancing age, a pattern observed across vertebrate animals.</p>
<p>Sexes also face different environmental pressures. For instance, in many mammals, males, <a href="https://theconversation.com/of-mice-and-matriarchs-the-female-led-societies-of-the-animal-kingdom-186875">but not females</a>, disperse away from the family group when they mature. This sort of environmental pressure leads to differences in the strategies males and females use to pass on their genes, which can create differences in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/acel.13542">rates of reproductive ageing</a> between the sexes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Humpback whale mother with her calf" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573052/original/file-20240202-19-valjo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/573052/original/file-20240202-19-valjo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573052/original/file-20240202-19-valjo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573052/original/file-20240202-19-valjo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573052/original/file-20240202-19-valjo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573052/original/file-20240202-19-valjo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/573052/original/file-20240202-19-valjo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Female whales live long after their reproductive window.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/humpback-whale-mother-calf-on-tonga-1907017690">Tomas Kotouc/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Patterns of reproductive ageing in animals</h2>
<p>In our study, we showed that reproductive ageing rates in males <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-44768-4">vary vastly</a> across the animal kingdom. We found invertebrates such as crustacea and insects have some of the slowest rates of reproductive ageing, compared to lab rodents who had some of the fastest rates.
Generally though, male animals showed few signs of age-related declines in their ejaculate traits (such as sperm quality and quantity). </p>
<p>We also found that different ejaculate traits, such as sperm viability, number, motility or velocity, aged at different rates.</p>
<p>In species that grow throughout their lives, such as some fish and crustacea, old animals have a lower mortality risk and larger gonads than young males. This can cause old males <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2021.2146">in such species</a> to age at slower rates, with older males producing larger ejaculates than younger males.</p>
<p>In animals such as lab rodents, who have some genetic lines selected for accelerated ageing, reproductive ageing was universal across ejaculate traits. Lab rodents are generally kept in highly controlled environments where ageing is easier to detect – due to fewer confounding effects that could mask ageing. This suggests that a lot of the variation in male reproductive ageing between different species could be due to their environment. </p>
<p>We also discovered that closely related species showed similar rates of decline in ejaculates with age, suggested that ageing is also shaped by an animal’s evolutionary history. </p>
<p>Some of the patterns we mention above also reflected methodological differences between studies. For example, when studies kept male animals as virgins, old males can <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2009053117">accumulate more sperm</a> than young males, leading to old males producing larger ejaculates. </p>
<p>Additionally, studies that only sampled young to middle-aged males showed an increase in sperm quality and quantity with age, compared to studies that sampled middle-aged to old males, suggesting that fertility peaks around middle age in male animals generally.</p>
<h2>Reproductive ageing</h2>
<p>Reproductive ageing occurs because as individuals grow older, their sperm and eggs <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nrurol.2013.18">accumulate damage</a>. Organisms have evolved to reproduce earlier in life rather than when old, which leads to a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/genetics/article/156/3/927/6051413">weaker ability of natural selection</a> to weed out bad genes that are expressed in old but not young organisms, in turn promoting ageing.</p>
<p>There are however, opposing forces that determine whether old individuals will leave more copies of their genes to successive lineages compared to young animals, and reproductive ageing is only one process determining this. </p>
<p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bies.201100157">An alternative hypothesis</a> is that parents who conceive at an older age would have more gene variants for longer lifespans which could benefit their offspring. This could lead to longer lived offspring from older conceiving parents. However evidence for this hypothesis is still limited. </p>
<p>While most scientists accept that at least some reproductive traits decline with age, biologists are still uncovering what the exact mechanisms and evolutionary reasons for these declines are. But by looking at other species to investigate the drivers of reproductive ageing, we can understand and perhaps even seek to alleviate our own reproductive decline with age.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/222533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Krish Sanghvi receives funding from Society for the study of evolution (Rosemary grant award).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Irem Sepil receives funding from the Royal Society, BBSRC and Wellcome Trust. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Regina Vega-Trejo receives funding from Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.</span></em></p>Understanding how the ageing of sperm works in other animals is more important than ever as human male fertility is in decline.Krish Sanghvi, PhD student at the department of Biology, University of Oxford, University of OxfordIrem Sepil, Lecturer in Evolutionary Biology, University of OxfordRegina Vega-Trejo, Postdoctoral Research Assistant in Evolutionary Biology, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2213522024-02-05T13:34:48Z2024-02-05T13:34:48ZHow bats ‘leapfrog’ their way home at night – new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572171/original/file-20240130-27-o1vlrb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C10%2C3413%2C2539&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The greater horseshoe bat is one of the UK's 18 bat species. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/flying-bat-hunting-forest-greater-horseshoe-1494098204">Rudmer Zwerver/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A silent ballet takes place above our heads at night as Britain’s bat populations leave their roosts to forage for food. Although their initial movement away from roosts is fairly well understood, until recently little was known about how they returned home. </p>
<p>But our <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11538-023-01233-5">new research</a> shows how bats may use a “leap-frogging” motion to make their way home, something which could help conservationists in future.</p>
<p>As they flit through the darkness, bats play a crucial role in the health of our ecosystems. From keeping insect populations in check to dispersing seeds and pollinating plants, they provide a multitude of benefits. </p>
<p>In the UK alone, the 18 bat species devour agricultural pests such as cockchafers with impressive efficiency. So, it is imperative that we not only understand and appreciate bats, but also actively support and safeguard their populations for the wellbeing of our planet.</p>
<p>But bat populations are vulnerable to pollution, climate change and loss of roosting locations. Habitat fragmentation and light pollution can also interrupt how bats feed. This is particularly important during the maternity season <strong>in early summer</strong>, when bats gather together to have and raise their young.</p>
<p>An integral aspect of effective bat conservation lies in unravelling the mysteries of how bats move. This not only helps us understand how bats navigate and use their environment, but also helps in identifying and protecting their roosts. </p>
<h2>Radio-tracking</h2>
<p>Conventional methods for pinpointing bat roosts primarily hinge on radio-tracking surveys. This arduous process involves capturing bats, attaching small radio transmitters to them before releasing them and following the signals throughout the night. </p>
<p>Our team conducted a radio-tracking survey in Devon which monitored 12 greater horseshoe bats over 24 nights. The trajectories of seven of those bats over 14 nights were extracted from the data for analysis, ensuring that in each case, a bat’s beginning and ending roost were the same.</p>
<p>Using this data, we measured the population’s average distance from the roost. We found two distinctive patterns in the data we analysed: an initial spread of bats within the first one to two hours after sunset and a gradual return to the roost afterwards.</p>
<p>The initial spread reflects the expected random dispersal of bats leaving their roosts to forage after sunset. The return to the roost, occurring two to eight hours after sunset, is more complicated. </p>
<p>This prompted us to explore two potential mechanisms influencing the bats’ return. First, a “pull mechanism”, where the roost attracts the bats home, and second, a mechanism pushing the bats who range furthest away back to the roost.</p>
<p>We modelled the pushing mechanism as a leapfrog process. Imagine this as a cascade effect, where the outermost bats begin their return. Once the “outer” bats have passed or “leapt over” bats that are closer to the roost, the “inner” bats become the furthest out causing them to return too.</p>
<p>This motion unfolds systematically, like a synchronised dance, as each bat from the periphery of the foraging range follows suit in returning to the roost after being “leapfrogged”.</p>
<p>But what causes the bats to return in this manner? One plausible explanation underscores how bats rely on each other for effective navigation, like tiny radar signals. If a bat experiences prolonged silence or predominantly hears calls from one direction, it might decide to move closer to the roost, anticipating the presence of other colony members. </p>
<p>But a bat might return more slowly, prolonging foraging, if it perceives the presence of bats beyond its current location. So, it is the outer bats that would drive the return as they would not be surrounded by calls.</p>
<h2>How does this research help bats?</h2>
<p>The significance of these findings extends beyond just describing the movements of bats. They have laid the foundation for work that promises easier discovery of new bat roosts, potentially reducing the need for labour-intensive bat tracking surveys in the future. </p>
<p>One of the immediate effects of our research includes informing a measurement of the “core sustenance zone” for greater horseshoe bats. This is where most of their foraging occurs, so it’s important in bat ecology, conservation and construction planning.</p>
<p>The leapfrogging mechanism also allows us to ascribe intention to bat movements. Namely, through using surrounding bat calls they can identify where the population is relative to their position, suggesting whether or not they are on the periphery of the group, which is an indicator of their vulnerability. Should they be furthest from the roost they move back towards the bulk of the population and closer to the roost.</p>
<p>While these interpretations hold promise, further rigorous testing is essential. And we need to think about the safety and wellbeing of the bat population.</p>
<p>Our observations are also specific to greater horseshoe bats during the summer months. Different bat species have distinct flight patterns and habitat preferences, with the same species displaying diverse behaviours at different times of the year. </p>
<p>So, while we have taken some crucial first steps, we still have a lot of work to do in unravelling the characteristics of bat motions in general.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221352/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fiona Mathews receives funding from Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, Devon County Council and the Natural Environment Research Council. She is affiliated with the UK Mammal Society, Mammal Conservation Europe, Ecotype Genetics and Ecology Search Services Ltd. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Woolley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Maths plays a crucial role in new research which finds that bats “leapfrog” their way home at night.Thomas Woolley, Senior Lecturer in Applied Mathematics, Cardiff UniversityFiona Mathews, Professor of Environmental Biology, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2083672024-02-02T13:19:41Z2024-02-02T13:19:41ZTraining an animal? An ethicist explains how and why your dog − but not your frog − can be punished<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571993/original/file-20240129-15-anu9es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C3%2C2114%2C1406&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Only one of these guys deserves to be in timeout.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/pekingese-and-bullfrog-first-meeting-royalty-free-image/538018993?phrase=frog+dog&adppopup=true">Wild Horse Photography/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>People talk to their pets every day: offering praise when they’re good, reassurance when they’re confused and affection when they’re cuddling. We also speak to animals when they misbehave. “Why did you do that?” someone might ask their dog. Or we might scold the cat – “Don’t touch that!” – as we move a family heirloom across the room.</p>
<p>But is it ever appropriate <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2018.1563499">to punish or rebuke an animal</a>? </p>
<p>When people talk about “punishment,” this implies more than a loss of privileges. The term suggests someone <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/2265412">is being asked to learn a lesson</a> after breaking a rule they can understand. But an animal’s understanding is different from a human’s, which raises questions about what lessons they can learn and what, if any, rebukes of animals are ethical.</p>
<p>These issues involve what researchers know about different animals’ cognition. But they also go beyond this by raising questions about <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/kant-and-animals-9780198859918?cc=us&lang=en&#">what kind of moral standing animals have</a> and how people who interact with animals should train them.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://philosophy.utk.edu/people/jon-garthoff/">an ethical theorist</a>, I’ve explored these and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/10888683211065921">related questions</a>, including with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000200">some of my colleagues in psychology</a> and anthropology. I would argue it is important to distinguish three types of learning: conditioning, instruction and education.</p>
<h2>Conditioning</h2>
<p>One type of learning, called “classical conditioning,” <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/pavlovian-conditioning">was popularized by the psychologist Ivan Pavlov</a> just after the turn of the 20th century. By repeatedly ringing a bell while presenting food, Pavlov famously induced dogs to salivate from the bell ring alone. Such learning proceeds merely from associating two types of stimuli: a sound and a snack, in this case. </p>
<p>When scientists talk about punishment, they normally mean “operant conditioning,” which was <a href="https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.title.55072">popularized by the psychologists Edward Thorndike</a> and <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1939-00056-000">B. F. Skinner</a> shortly thereafter. In operant conditioning, positive or pleasurable stimuli are used to reinforce desired behavior, and negative or painful stimuli are used to deter undesired behavior. We may give a dog a treat, for example, to reward it for following a command to sit.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572216/original/file-20240130-19-rahaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A girl with colorful bracelets and a white t-shirt holds a white mouse eating cheese." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572216/original/file-20240130-19-rahaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572216/original/file-20240130-19-rahaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572216/original/file-20240130-19-rahaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572216/original/file-20240130-19-rahaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572216/original/file-20240130-19-rahaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572216/original/file-20240130-19-rahaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572216/original/file-20240130-19-rahaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reward for a job well done.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/little-hamster-eating-cheese-in-a-girls-hands-royalty-free-image/695407204?phrase=mouse+cheese&adppopup=true">Sol de Zuasnabar Brebbia/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The kind of learning that operant conditioning aims to achieve, however, lacks a crucial ingredient of human punishment: responsibility. <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1143080">When people punish</a>, it is not just to discourage an undesired behavior. They are trying to drive home that <a href="https://doi.org/10.5840/monist196852436">someone has transgressed</a> – that <a href="https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil197875114">the individual’s behavior merits punishment</a>.</p>
<p>But can nonhuman animals transgress? Do they ever deserve rebuke? I would argue they do – but with key differences from human wrongdoing. </p>
<h2>Instruction</h2>
<p>Training for many animals, such as horses and dogs, goes beyond conditioning. It involves a more sophisticated kind of learning: instruction.</p>
<p>One important way instruction differs from conditioning is that an instructor addresses their trainee. Pet owners and animal trainers speak to cats and dogs, and though these animals have no knowledge of grammar, <a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-your-dog-can-understand-what-youre-saying-to-a-point-173953">they can understand what many human words refer to</a>. Caretakers also often listen to their animals’ vocalizations in an attempt to understand their meaning.</p>
<p>To be sure, people condition cats and dogs – consider spraying a cat with water when it nibbles on a houseplant. The goal is for the cat to associate an off-limits snack with an unpleasant experience, and so to leave the plant alone.</p>
<p>But training pets can go beyond changing their behavior. It can aim to improve <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198528272.003.0007">animals’ ability to reason about what to do</a>: a trainer teaches a dog how to navigate an agility course, for example, or how to get through a new pet door. Instruction involves understanding, whereas learning based on mere conditioning does not.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572210/original/file-20240130-29-qehghc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A fluffy orange cat sits on a coffee table, staring intently at a potted plant next to it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572210/original/file-20240130-29-qehghc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572210/original/file-20240130-29-qehghc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572210/original/file-20240130-29-qehghc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572210/original/file-20240130-29-qehghc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572210/original/file-20240130-29-qehghc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572210/original/file-20240130-29-qehghc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572210/original/file-20240130-29-qehghc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Don’t do it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/cute-ginger-cat-on-table-indoors-royalty-free-image/1793454702?phrase=cat+plant+eat&adppopup=true">Yuliia Kokosha/Moment via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An animal’s ability to be instructed stems from the nature of their mental life. Scientists do not know exactly which animals’ cognition <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/65.1.289">involves understanding</a>, <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5827/5827-h/5827-h.htm">genuine problem-solving and the ability to reason or infer</a>.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262514620/vision/">research on perception</a> – on how humans and other animals <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1520-8583.2007.00124.x">convert sensory information</a> into <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199581405.001.0001">mental representations of physical objects</a> – has helped philosophers and psychologists distinguish thought from more basic mental capacities such as vision and hearing.</p>
<p>It is extremely likely that some nonhuman animals – including dolphins, apes and elephants – do think, as <a href="https://liberalarts.tamu.edu/philosophy/profile/gary-varner/">philosopher Gary Varner</a> argued in the 2012 book “<a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/6454">Personhood, Ethics, and Animal Cognition</a>.” My research suggests the distinction between thinking and nonthinking animals <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/05568641.2018.1563499">tracks well with the distinction</a> between animals that can be instructed and those that can, at most, be conditioned. </p>
<p>This difference is crucial to how different pets should be treated. An owner <a href="https://jesp.org/index.php/jesp/article/view/52">should have concern for their pet frog</a>, of course, <a href="https://rintintin.colorado.edu/%7Evancecd/phil308/Anderson.pdf">and care for its needs</a>. But they do not need to recognize the frog the same way they should recognize a dog: by addressing it, listening to it and comforting it. </p>
<p>Though an owner may rebuke the dog to hold it responsible for its actions, they must also hold themselves responsible to the animal, including by considering how the pet has interpreted events.</p>
<h2>Education</h2>
<p>Some nonhuman animals have demonstrated <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/6454">impressive cognitive abilities</a> in experimental settings, such as recognizing their bodies in mirrors and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_743">recalling past experiences</a>. Some birds, for example, display sensitivity to details about food they have cached, such as its perishability and how long ago it was stored.</p>
<p>Still, scientists <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-012273965-1/50016-9">do not possess strong evidence</a> that animals have <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/3131086">critical thinking abilities</a> or <a href="https://www.pdcnet.org/jphil/content/jphil_2011_0108_40701_0287_0315">a concept of self</a>, the key requirements for genuine education. Unlike conditioning and instruction, education aims to enable a learner to explain the world, to evaluate and debate rationales for decisions. It also prepares people to ask – and to try to answer – ethical questions like, “How should I live” and “Was that action justified?”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572207/original/file-20240130-21-8s9des.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman with long black hair in shorts and a tank top sits as she talks and holds the hands of a young boy who also wears a tank top and shorts." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572207/original/file-20240130-21-8s9des.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572207/original/file-20240130-21-8s9des.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572207/original/file-20240130-21-8s9des.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572207/original/file-20240130-21-8s9des.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572207/original/file-20240130-21-8s9des.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572207/original/file-20240130-21-8s9des.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572207/original/file-20240130-21-8s9des.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Learning not just what not to do but why.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/mother-teaches-her-son-a-difficult-lesson-royalty-free-image/1325618731?phrase=parenting+toddler+share+upset&adppopup=true">FatCamera/E+ via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A cat or dog cannot pose these questions. Much of the time, human beings do not concern themselves with these questions, either – but they can. In fact, caretakers pay great attention to these matters during child-rearing, as when they ask children, “How would you like it if someone did that to you” or “Do you really think it’s OK to act that way?” </p>
<p>Assuming that animals do not reflect and criticize, and therefore are not capable of education, I would say that they have no <a href="https://doi.org/10.5840/jphil20111086/716">moral obligations</a>. It is fair to say a pet has transgressed, since animals such as dogs and cats can come to understand how to act better. But morally speaking, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198753858.001.0001">an animal cannot commit wrongdoing</a>, for it lacks a conscience: It may understand some of its behavior, but not its own mind.</p>
<p>In my view, addressing an animal and acting with an understanding of how it interprets events is central to the ethical training of pets. But if someone treats an animal as though it were responsible for justifying itself to us, as though it could offer excuses and apologies, they anthropomorphize the animal and ask too much of it. Pet owners often do this in a mock way, saying things like, “Now you know you shouldn’t have done that” – the same phrases they might use with a child. </p>
<p>Unlike a child, however, the animal’s transgression is not a failure to fulfill a moral obligation. In human relationships we aspire to relations of mutual justification, where reasons are exchanged and excuses and apologies evaluated. But that’s not the nature of our relationships with our pets – however tempted we may be to think otherwise.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208367/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Garthoff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Questions about how to ethically train different kinds of pets depend on the nature of those animals’ inner lives and their abilities to learn.Jon Garthoff, Professor of Philosophy, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2215472024-01-31T12:02:05Z2024-01-31T12:02:05ZWhy monkeys attack people – a primate expert explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570907/original/file-20240123-15-jwdv0w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5159%2C3429&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/monkeys-open-mouth-see-horrible-teeth-1156580965">Witsawat.S/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Wildlife tourism thrives on our fascination with animals and primates are particularly attractive animals to tourists. With their human-like faces, complex family dynamics and acrobatic antics, they are a joy to behold.</p>
<p>But recent stories have emerged that portray monkeys in a more sinister light. Reports of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/25/monkey-attacks-injure-people-japanese-city-yamaguchi-tranquilliser-gun">“monkey attacks”</a>, <a href="https://metro.co.uk/video/devil-monkeys-push-driver-160ft-hillside-attack-thailand-2994905/">“devil monkeys”</a>, or even <a href="https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/what-face-ripping-bone-biting-31631055">“face-ripping, bone-biting monkeys”</a> have become common in the media. Have our primate cousins turned on us?</p>
<p>The recent monkey attacks involve a variety of species in different countries. They include the <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2024/01/16/thailand-monkeys-turn-tourists-start-attacking-beach-20120135/">long-tailed macaque</a> and the <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2023/08/09/thailand-devil-monkeys-pushed-driver-down-hill-and-attacked-him-19307282/">pig-tailed macaque</a> in Thailand, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/25/monkey-attacks-injure-people-japanese-city-yamaguchi-tranquilliser-gun">Japanese macaques</a> in Japan, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/boy-killed-monkey-attack-india-intestines-ripped-2023-11?r=US&IR=T">Hanuman langurs</a> in India.</p>
<p>Most of these species are macaques, which are a diverse group of monkeys. But all macaques are sociable, intelligent, relatively large (between 4kg and 9kg), and comfortable travelling on the ground. They have a flexible diet, but prefer fruit. They also have cheek pouches that allow them to gather food quickly and carry it to a safe place to eat.</p>
<h2>Over-habituation</h2>
<p>Regardless of species or location, a major factor in monkey bites and attacks is “over-habituation”. Habituation is a process used by animal researchers to gain animals’ trust so they can follow and record their behaviour, with limited impact of the researchers’ presence. </p>
<p>But animals can become unintentionally habituated. Squirrels in a city park who have grown accustomed to handouts are one example, but others include urban foxes in the UK, bears in North America, and, in many parts of the tropics, monkeys.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/three-surprising-reasons-human-actions-threaten-endangered-primates-197850">Three surprising reasons human actions threaten endangered primates</a>
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<p>When animals lose their fear of humans and become a nuisance, they are over-habituated. In nearly all cases of over-habituation, the main factor is human food. What people eat is irresistible to wildlife. It is nutrient-dense, easy to digest and is available in rubbish bins, unattended backpacks, or even directly from people. </p>
<p>From an ecological point of view, animals have every incentive to take advantage of this high-quality resource. So, it’s no surprise that animals will adjust their fear and natural behaviour accordingly.</p>
<p>While over-habituation due to associating tourists with food is certainly the main driver for the reported monkey attacks, that does not mean that every person bitten or threatened by a monkey is guilty of feeding or teasing them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A long-tailed macaque sits on a red footbridge while a cyclist rides past." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572224/original/file-20240130-23-bkbzlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/572224/original/file-20240130-23-bkbzlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572224/original/file-20240130-23-bkbzlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572224/original/file-20240130-23-bkbzlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572224/original/file-20240130-23-bkbzlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572224/original/file-20240130-23-bkbzlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/572224/original/file-20240130-23-bkbzlc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A contemplative long-tailed macaque in Singapore.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/long-tailed-macaques-crossing-bridge-singapore-2364831037">Tan Yong Lin/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Monkeys are very smart, have a long memory and learn from each other. Many groups have grown so accustomed to human foods that they have learned to harass tourists to get it. Some monkeys have become so adept at this that they know which items are valuable to tourists, which they will <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2019.0677">“trade” for food</a>. In other words, they’ll steal your mobile phone but then drop it when you throw them some food. </p>
<p>Another important factor in monkey attacks at tourist sites is an unawareness of the animals’ body language, facial expressions and vocalisation. Even highly habituated monkeys will normally give a warning before attacking someone. But people inexperienced with monkey behaviour will often <a href="https://peerj.com/blog/post/115284879374/experience-based-human-perception-of-facial-expressions-in-barbary-macaques/">misinterpret</a> a threatening facial expression for a friendly one. This can lead to dangerous encounters.</p>
<h2>Advice</h2>
<p>Wildlife tourists cannot be expected to understand every species’ typical expressions and body postures. But some things can help tourists be more safe and responsible, regardless of the primate species they are viewing.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Give them space. According to the <a href="https://human-primate-interactions.org/responsible-primate-watching-for-tourists/">International Union for Conservation of Nature</a>, a network of environmental organisations, keeping a distance of seven metres (23 feet) from the animals is recommended. This helps the animals not feel threatened and also reduces the risk of disease transmission.</p></li>
<li><p>Do not stand between the animals and their route to safety, or between adults and young.</p></li>
<li><p>Avoid direct eye contact or showing your teeth because monkeys may perceive this as aggressive.</p></li>
<li><p>For many primate species, common threats include bared teeth (including some yawns), direct stares with a lowered head, and short lunges or slapping the ground with the hands. If an animal does any of these things, quietly back away.</p></li>
<li><p>Do not feed the monkeys.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Wildlife tourism contributes <a href="https://wttc.org/Portals/0/Documents/Reports/2019/Sustainable%20Growth-Economic%20Impact%20of%20Global%20Wildlife%20Tourism-Aug%202019.pdf">more than US$100 billion</a> (£786 billion) per year to the global economy. It is also immensely rewarding and can offer many benefits to wildlife and the communities of people who live near them. But we should all be <a href="https://theconversation.com/five-ways-to-be-a-responsible-wildlife-tourist-118869">responsible tourists</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221547/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tracie McKinney is affiliated with the IUCN SSC Primate Specialist Group's Section for Human-Primate Interactions (SHPI).</span></em></p>Tourists can do a number of things to avoid dangerous encounters with monkeys.Tracie McKinney, Senior Lecturer in Biological Anthropology, University of South WalesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2214542024-01-26T13:35:37Z2024-01-26T13:35:37ZDogs in the middle ages: what medieval writing tells us about our ancestors’ pets<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570196/original/file-20240118-27-br2vl6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C5%2C681%2C387&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dogs being taken care of in an image from Livre de la Chasse (Book of the Hunt). </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.themorgan.org/collection/livre-de-la-chasse/32">The Morgan Library and Museum/Faksimile Verlag Luzern</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the middle ages, most dogs had jobs. In his book <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/27050/27050-h/27050-h.htm">De Canibus</a>, the 16th-century English physician and scholar John Caius described a hierarchy of dogs, which he classified first and foremost according to their function in human society. </p>
<p>At its apex were specialised hunting dogs, including greyhounds, known for their “incredible swiftnesse” and bloodhounds, whose powerful sense of smell drove them “through long lanes, crooked reaches, and weary ways” in pursuit of their prey. </p>
<p>But even the “mungrells” that occupied the bottom rungs of the canine social ladder were characterised in terms of their labour or status. For example as street performers, or turnspits in kitchens – running on wheels that turned roasting meat.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A dog with a spiked collar and a greyhound with a long leash" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570854/original/file-20240123-29-53mp9s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570854/original/file-20240123-29-53mp9s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570854/original/file-20240123-29-53mp9s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570854/original/file-20240123-29-53mp9s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=448&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570854/original/file-20240123-29-53mp9s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570854/original/file-20240123-29-53mp9s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570854/original/file-20240123-29-53mp9s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=563&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A dog with a spiked collar and a greyhound with a long leash from the Helmingham Herbal and Bestiary (c. 1500).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/orbis:9452785">Yale Centre for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The place of dogs in society <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/25199?language=en">changed</a> when hunting became an aristocratic pastime, rather than a necessity. Simultaneously, dogs were welcomed inside noble homes – especially by women. In both cases, dogs were signifiers of <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/25199?language=en">elite social rank</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Manuscript drawing of a nun holding a lapdog." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570198/original/file-20240118-19-na6vez.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=605&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A nun holding her lapdog, in Stowe MS 17, f. 100r .</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/09/dogs-medieval-mans-best-friend.html">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Indeed, in his ranking, Caius positions the “delicate, neate, and pretty” indoor dogs below hunting dogs but above the base mongrels, because of their association with the noble classes. As for puppies: “the smaller they be, the more pleasure they provoke”. </p>
<p>Although the church formally disapproved of pets, clerics themselves <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt1x738m">often owned dogs</a>. Like women, clerics’ dogs were generally lapdogs, ideally suited to their indoor pursuits.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/cats-in-the-middle-ages-what-medieval-manuscripts-teach-us-about-our-ancestors-pets-195389">Cats in the middle ages: what medieval manuscripts teach us about our ancestors' pets</a>
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</p>
<hr>
<h2>In praise of dogs</h2>
<p>Not everyone had such affection for dogs. Concerned about potential violence, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/26630015">urban authorities in England</a> regulated the keeping of guard dogs, as well as violent popular entertainments, such as boar, bear and bull-baiting.</p>
<p>In the Bible, dogs are often characterised as filthy scavengers. <a href="https://www.bibleref.com/Proverbs/26/Proverbs-26-11.html#:%7E:text=ESV%20Like%20a%20dog%20that,fool%20who%20repeats%20his%20foolishness.">Proverbs 26:11</a> famously describes how they return to their own vomit. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A miniature of Sir Lancelot, in conversation with a lady holding a small dog" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570201/original/file-20240118-21-lzdfhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570201/original/file-20240118-21-lzdfhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570201/original/file-20240118-21-lzdfhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570201/original/file-20240118-21-lzdfhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=509&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570201/original/file-20240118-21-lzdfhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570201/original/file-20240118-21-lzdfhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570201/original/file-20240118-21-lzdfhk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A miniature of Sir Lancelot, in conversation with a lady holding a small dog (c. 1315-1325).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/02/nothin-but-a-hound-dog.html">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On the other hand, the story of St Roch in <a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/goldenlegend/GoldenLegend-Volume5.asp#Rocke">The Golden Legend</a>, a popular 13th century collection of saints’ lives, tells of a dog who carried bread to a starving saint, then healed his wounds by licking them. One of Roch’s saintly attributes, a motif by which viewers can recognise him, is <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/473871">a devoted dog</a>.</p>
<p>The trope of dogs defending their owners or lamenting dead ones can be traced back to the classical period, to texts like Pliny the Elder’s <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0137%3Abook%3D8%3Achapter%3D61">Natural History</a>.</p>
<p>This theme is repeated in the medieval <a href="https://bestiary.ca/intro.htm">bestiary</a> tradition, a moralising compendium of knowledge about animals both real and mythical. One common story tells of the legendary <a href="https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/ms24/f18v">King Garamantes</a> who, when captured by his enemies, is tracked down and rescued by his faithful dogs. Another tells of a dog who publicly identifies his master’s murderer and attacks him. </p>
<p>The tale of one greyhound, Guinefort, even <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Holy_Greyhound.html?id=XwJTqyskSRQC&redir_esc=y">inspired an unofficial saint’s cult</a>. Writing in the 13th century, Dominican inquisitor and preacher <a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/guinefort.asp.">Stephen of Bourbon</a> described a noble family who, falsely believing the dog to have killed their infant, killed Guinefort in retribution. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Dogs in a battle with kings" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570200/original/file-20240118-29-td76te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570200/original/file-20240118-29-td76te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570200/original/file-20240118-29-td76te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570200/original/file-20240118-29-td76te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570200/original/file-20240118-29-td76te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570200/original/file-20240118-29-td76te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570200/original/file-20240118-29-td76te.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=627&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Detail of a miniature of King Garamantes, being rescued by his dogs, from the Rochester Bestiary ( c.1230).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2013/02/nothin-but-a-hound-dog.html">British Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Upon discovering the child unharmed (the dog had really saved it from a venomous snake), they honoured the “martyred” canine with a proper burial, which led to its veneration and alleged healing miracles. Although Stephen’s story intended to reveal the sin and folly of superstition, it nonetheless underlines what medieval people perceived as the special qualities that distinguished dogs from other animals. </p>
<p>According to the <a href="https://www.abdn.ac.uk/bestiary/">Aberdeen Bestiary</a> (c. 1200): “No creature is more intelligent than the dog, for dogs have more understanding than other animals; they alone recognise their names and love their masters.”</p>
<p>The association between dogs and loyalty is also expressed in the art of the period, including <a href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O64856/tobias-and-sara-on-their-panel-unknown/">in relation to marriage</a>. In tomb monuments, depictions of dogs <a href="https://brill.com/display/book/edcoll/9789004328617/B9789004328617_012.xml?language=zh&print=">indicate</a> fidelity of a wife to the husband who lies beside her.</p>
<p>In the case of clerical tombs, however, they may suggest the faith of the deceased, such as Archbishop William Courtenay (d. 1396), buried in Trinity Chapel, Canterbury Cathedral. Courtenay’s alabaster effigy reposes atop a tomb chest on the south side of the chapel. The archbishop wears the robes and mitre of his office, and two angels support his cushioned head. A long-eared dog wearing a belled collar lies obediently at his feet.</p>
<p>Although it’s tempting to wonder whether the dog depicted on Courtenay’s tomb may represent an actual pet owned by the archbishop, the belled collar was a popular convention of contemporary iconography, especially for lapdogs.</p>
<h2>Pampered pooches</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A nude painting in which a woman looks in a mirror. At her feet is a white, pampered-looking dog." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570197/original/file-20240118-15-r925rs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Allegory of Vanity by Hans Memling (c. 1490).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hans_Memling_Vanité_ca_1490.jpg">Museum of Fine Arts of Strasbourg</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Like their modern counterparts, medieval dog owners with means kitted out their companions with a variety of accessories, including leashes, <a href="https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O73327/the-devonshire-hunting-tapestries-tapestry-unknown/?carousel-image=2006BF7088">coats</a> and cushions made from fine materials. </p>
<p>Such material investment <a href="https://www.academia.edu/27942359/_Coats_Collars_and_Capes_Royal_Fashions_for_Animals_in_the_Early_Modern_Period_in_Medieval_Clothing_and_Textiles_Vol_12_2016_pp_61_94">was central</a> to the aristocratic culture of <em>vivre noblement</em> (the art of living nobly), where the deliberate consumption of luxury commodities publicly demonstrated one’s status.</p>
<p>Popular perceptions of dog owning and accessorising also fed gendered stereotypes. Whereas men were more likely to own active dogs for the protection of their life and property, women preferred lapdogs they could cradle and pamper. Toy dogs, then, could also be <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347765860_Arnolfini%27s_best_friend_Fellowship_and_familiarity_in_Jan_van_Eyck%27s_Arnolfini_portrait">associated with female idleness and vice</a>, as seen in Hans Memling’s painting <a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hans_Memling_Vanit%C3%A9_ca_1490.jpg">Allegory of Vanity</a> (c. 1485).</p>
<p>But even working dogs needed meticulous care and attention if they were to perform at their best. A miniature in a lavish 15th-century copy of Gaston Phébus’s influential book <em>Livre de la Chasse</em> (Book of Hunting) shows kennel attendants examining dogs’ teeth, eyes, and ears – while another bathes the paws of <a href="https://www.themorgan.org/collection/livre-de-la-chasse/32">a very good boy</a>.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
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</figure>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emily Savage does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The place of dogs in society changed when hunting became an aristocratic pastime, rather than a necessity.Emily Savage, Associate lecturer in the school of art history, St Andrews Institute of Medieval Studies, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2212182024-01-25T20:46:04Z2024-01-25T20:46:04ZThe first flowers evolved before bees – so how did they become so dazzling?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/571111/original/file-20240124-17-j4irzv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=60%2C25%2C5596%2C3802&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://unsplash.com/photos/red-pink-and-yellow-flowering-plants-v-3NQ3pmWkY">Nature Uninterrupted Photography/Unsplash</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Colourful flowers, and the insects and birds that fly among their dazzling displays, are a joy of nature. But how did early relationships between flower colour and animal pollinators emerge?</p>
<p>In a study published in <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2023.2018">Proceedings of the Royal Society</a>, we have unravelled this mystery by analysing the visual environments in which the ancestors of today’s bees foraged from flowers.</p>
<p>We measured and analysed the light reflected from today’s flowers, as well as the rocks, soil, sticks, bark and leaves that form their natural backgrounds.</p>
<p>From this data we built computer simulations that recreate the ancient visual environment when the first flowers emerged.</p>
<h2>Insect colour vision came before flowers</h2>
<p>Today, bees are prolific pollinators of flowering plants, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-bee-eye-camera-helps-us-support-bees-grow-food-and-protect-the-environment-110022">food crops</a>. Bees use <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2010.2412">colour vision</a> based on ultraviolet, blue and green sensitive photoreceptors (light-sensing cells) to detect and discriminate the most rewarding flowers. In comparison, most humans perceive colour using blue, green and red sensitive photoreceptors.</p>
<p>When the first flowers evolved during the Mesozoic era, between 252 million and 66 million years ago, the ancestors of bees had to orientate themselves, maintain stable flight, avoid collisions, and find food among natural backgrounds. We suspect their visual systems may have been influenced by evolution to efficiently operate in that environment.</p>
<p>By the time the first flowering plants appeared, bees’ ancestors had already evolved colour vision – and we know it <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01142181">has stuck around throughout the evolutionary history of bees</a>.</p>
<p>So, while bees weren’t initially around, their ancestors were. Flower colours likely evolved the vivid colours we see today to suit this ancient visual system. At the same time, the first bees emerged as the most efficient pollinators. </p>
<h2>What colour were flower backgrounds on the ancient Earth?</h2>
<p>Australia is an ideal place to collect data on natural background materials that early insects would have seen, as it is a <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/bt/BT00023">geologically ancient continent</a>.</p>
<p>We collected background samples from across Australia and measured their reflective properties using a tool called a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectrophotometry">spectrophotometer</a>.</p>
<p>We used this data to create a database of materials that would have been present in the visual environment of flying insects more than 100 million years ago – when the first flowers appeared.</p>
<h2>Flower colour evolved in response to bee colour vision</h2>
<p>For our collection of natural backgrounds, insect and bird pollinated flowers, we calculated <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215016120300479">marker points</a> – rapid changes in the intensity of light reflected from a surface, within a small wavelength band.</p>
<p>These marker points identify the key visual features of coloured surfaces, and we can use them for statistical testing of the evolutionary process. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-electromagnetic-spectrum-8046">Explainer: what is the electromagnetic spectrum?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>We then wrote computer simulations to generate possible flower backgrounds. By analysing their marker points, we tested the visibility of today’s flowers against the simulated backgrounds.</p>
<p>Interestingly, we showed that the distribution of marker points on petals from plants pollinated by bees clearly indicates these flowers are “salient” – that is, they stand out as stronger signals from natural backgrounds.</p>
<p>This finding matches with previous studies suggesting that in the <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00188925">Northern Hemisphere</a> and <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rspb.2012.0827">Australia</a>, flowering plants evolved colour signals to facilitate colour perception by bees.</p>
<p>The very first flowers were likely a <a href="https://theconversation.com/flies-like-yellow-bees-like-blue-how-flower-colours-cater-to-the-taste-of-pollinating-insects-167111">dull greenish-yellow colour and initially pollinated by flies</a>. However, as the first bees – with their tuned vision systems – started pollinating flowers, the flowers likely evolved new colours to match the bees’ visual capabilities.</p>
<p>The process of natural selection seems to have driven flower colours to stand out from their backgrounds in the eyes of pollinators.</p>
<h2>Birds were involved, too</h2>
<p>Birds became established as flower visitors <a href="https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nph.17822">millions of years after insect pollination evolved</a>. Bird vision uses <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/510141">four types of colour photoreceptors</a>, and they can see long-wavelength red colours that bees cannot easily process against natural backgrounds.</p>
<p>Our analysis confirmed that bird-pollinated flowers evolved marker points towards <a href="https://nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/nph.12135">longer wavelengths than bee-pollinated flowers</a>. Our new discovery also showed that these flowers systematically differ from natural backgrounds.</p>
<p>As Earth’s climate changes, it is important to consider what might happen to ecosystems and our food production systems <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/RS/RS23003">in a world without bees</a>. It is vital that we understand how pollination and plant reproduction may be altered.</p>
<p>Our research shows that bees are a major driver of floral evolution. Unless we protect these insects and their habitat, we will lose fundamental and beautiful aspects of life we all enjoy and need.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/bees-can-do-so-much-more-than-you-think-from-dancing-to-being-little-art-critics-204039">Bees can do so much more than you think – from dancing to being little art critics</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221218/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adrian Dyer receives funding from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research and the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alan Dorin receives or has received funding and/or support from the Australian Research Council, Microsoft, National Geographic Society, AgriFutures Australia, Costa Group, Australian Blueberry Grower's Association, Sunny Ridge Berries.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mani Shrestha worked under the German Federal Ministry of Education (BMBF) funded project, Professor Anke Jentsch, Disturbance Ecology Lab, University of Bayreuth, Germany and also wok in the Department of Life Science, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jair Garcia does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Flowers tend to stand out against a natural background. A new study shows this contrast evolved in a key relationship with their most famous pollinators – bees.Adrian Dyer, Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, Monash UniversityAlan Dorin, Associate Professor, Faculty of Information Technology, Monash UniversityJair Garcia, Researcher and analyst, Monash UniversityMani Shrestha, Senior Researcher and International Fellow, Disturbance Ecology, University of Bayreuth, Germany, Bayreuth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2208042024-01-16T21:51:20Z2024-01-16T21:51:20ZFowl language: AI is learning to analyze chicken communications to help us understand what all the clucking’s about<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569623/original/file-20240116-21-fbzgp8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C17%2C6000%2C3970&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chickens are vibrant communicators.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Have you ever wondered what chickens are talking about? Chickens are quite the communicators — their clucks, squawks and purrs are not just random sounds but a complex language system. These sounds are their way of interacting with the world and expressing joy, fear and social cues to one another. </p>
<p>Like humans, the “language” of chickens varies with age, environment and surprisingly, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0010639">domestication</a>, giving us insights into their <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11020434">social structures</a> and behaviours. Understanding these vocalizations can transform our approach to poultry farming, enhancing chicken welfare and quality of life.</p>
<p>Our research at Dalhousie University applies artificial intelligence (AI) to decode the language of chickens. It’s a project that’s set to revolutionize our understanding of these feathered creatures and their communication methods, offering a window into their world that was previously closed to us.</p>
<h2>Chicken translator</h2>
<p>The use of AI and machine learning in this endeavor is like having a universal translator for chicken speech. AI can analyze vast amounts of audio data. As our research, yet to be peer-reviewed, is documenting, our algorithms are learning to recognize patterns and nuances in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.12.26.573338">chicken vocalizations</a>. This isn’t a simple task — chickens have a range of sounds that vary in pitch, tone, and context. </p>
<p>But by using advanced data analysis techniques, we’re beginning to crack their code. This breakthrough in animal communication is not just a scientific achievement; it’s a step towards more humane and empathetic treatment of farm animals.</p>
<p>One of the most exciting aspects of this research is understanding the emotional content behind these sounds. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP), a technology often used to decipher human languages, we’re learning to interpret the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/s21020553">emotional states of chickens</a>. Are they stressed? Are they content? By understanding their <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12060759">emotional state</a>, we can make more informed decisions about their care and environment.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569656/original/file-20240116-23-oqw734.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a person in a white hazmat suit holding an ipad while surrounded by chickens" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569656/original/file-20240116-23-oqw734.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569656/original/file-20240116-23-oqw734.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569656/original/file-20240116-23-oqw734.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569656/original/file-20240116-23-oqw734.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569656/original/file-20240116-23-oqw734.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569656/original/file-20240116-23-oqw734.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569656/original/file-20240116-23-oqw734.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Understanding how chickens express themselves will impact how they are farmed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Non-verbal chicken communication</h2>
<p>In addition to vocalizations, our research also delves into non-verbal cues to gauge emotions in chickens. Our research has also explored chickens’ eye blinks and facial temperatures. How these might be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.31.478468">reliable indicators</a> of chickens’ emotional states is examined in a preprint (not yet peer reviewed) paper.</p>
<p>By using non-invasive methods like video and thermal imaging, we’ve observed changes in temperature around the eye and head regions, as well as variations in blinking behaviour, which appear to be responses to stress. These preliminary findings are opening new avenues in understanding how chickens express their feelings, both behaviourally and physiologically, providing us with additional tools to assess their well-being.</p>
<h2>Happier fowl</h2>
<p>This project isn’t just about academic curiosity; it has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.07.31.502171">real-world implications</a>. In the agricultural sector, understanding chicken vocalizations can lead to improved farming practices. Farmers can use this knowledge to create better living conditions, leading to healthier and happier chickens. This, in turn, can impact the quality of produce, animal health and overall farm efficiency. </p>
<p>The insights gained from this research can also be applied to other areas of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2022.110819">animal husbandry</a>, potentially leading to breakthroughs in the way we interact with and care for a variety of farm animals.</p>
<p>But our research goes beyond just farming practices. It has the potential to influence policies on animal welfare and ethical treatment. As we grow to understand these animals better, we’re compelled to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/agriengineering5010032">advocate for their well-being</a>. This research is reshaping how we view our relationship with animals, emphasizing empathy and understanding.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569662/original/file-20240116-15-c9v7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a man reaches into a chicken coop filled with chicken" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569662/original/file-20240116-15-c9v7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569662/original/file-20240116-15-c9v7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569662/original/file-20240116-15-c9v7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569662/original/file-20240116-15-c9v7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569662/original/file-20240116-15-c9v7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569662/original/file-20240116-15-c9v7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569662/original/file-20240116-15-c9v7e6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Understanding animal communication and behaviour can impact animal welfare policies.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Unsplash/Zoe Schaeffer)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ethical AI</h2>
<p>The ethical use of AI in this context sets a precedent for future technological applications in animal science. We’re demonstrating that technology can and should be used for the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s44230-023-00050-2">betterment of all living beings</a>. It’s a responsibility that we take seriously, ensuring that our advancements in AI are aligned with ethical principles and the welfare of the subjects of our study.</p>
<p>The implications of our research extend to education and conservation efforts as well. By understanding the communication methods of chickens, we gain insights into avian communication in general, providing a unique perspective on the complexity of animal communication systems. This knowledge can be vital for conservationists working to protect bird species and their habitats.</p>
<p>As we continue to make strides in this field, we are opening doors to a new era in <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fvets.2021.740253">animal-human interaction</a>. Our journey into <a href="https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202309.1714.v1">decoding chicken language</a> is more than just an academic pursuit: it’s a step towards a more empathetic and responsible world. </p>
<p>By leveraging AI, we’re not only unlocking the secrets of avian communication but also setting new standards for animal welfare and ethical technological use. It’s an exciting time, as we stand on the cusp of a new understanding between humans and the animal world, all starting with the chicken.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220804/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Suresh Neethirajan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Artificial intelligence can process large amounts of chicken vocalizations, identifying patterns in the birds’ communications.Suresh Neethirajan, University Research Chair in Digital Livestock Farming, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2208382024-01-16T20:51:12Z2024-01-16T20:51:12ZRemembered by our pets: More animals are getting a mention in obituaries<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569427/original/file-20240115-15-82sgl2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C30%2C6700%2C5022&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Over the years, more obituaries have grown longer, providing more room to mention a person's pets, hobbies and passions.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Animals occupy many different roles in our lives. Some consider them members of the family, while others appreciate the reminder to take daily walks.</p>
<p>From <a href="https://theconversation.com/service-dogs-play-vital-roles-for-veterans-but-canadas-lack-of-standards-makes-travel-and-access-difficult-219470">service dogs</a> and <a href="https://a-z-animals.com/blog/animals-that-have-been-made-into-service-animals/">emotional support animals</a> to the pet waiting to greet us at the front door, animals can bring joy, comfort and companionship to our lives. So naturally, these relationships that form throughout our lives would continue — or at least be commemorated — in death.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/insight/this-humane-society-needs-a-bigger-home-what-happens-to-the-650-pets-buried-in/article_b25eba3a-99f7-11ee-a7f5-473bdce48588.html"><em>Toronto Star</em></a> recently reported on efforts to excavate and move over 600 animals from an Oakville, Ont. pet cemetery. As that story highlighted, and as <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/book/46086/">many others will note</a>, burying, embalming or cremating animals is hardly a new practice. These funerary practices offer ways to honour a pet and everything they meant to us.</p>
<p>But what about when the owner dies first? As it turns out, animals are more frequently getting mentioned in the obituaries of their human companions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569423/original/file-20240115-67455-vfr8d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A smiling woman carries a bulldog" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569423/original/file-20240115-67455-vfr8d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569423/original/file-20240115-67455-vfr8d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569423/original/file-20240115-67455-vfr8d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569423/original/file-20240115-67455-vfr8d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569423/original/file-20240115-67455-vfr8d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569423/original/file-20240115-67455-vfr8d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569423/original/file-20240115-67455-vfr8d9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">From service dogs and emotional support animals to the pet waiting to greet us at the front door, animals can bring joy, comfort and companionship.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How obituaries are changing</h2>
<p>Writing an obituary is one of the many practices people conduct when a loved one dies. Formerly, they were reserved for society’s elite, but the <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203015964">democratization of the obituary</a> has resulted in more people being memorialized in this way.</p>
<p>We write obituaries for different purposes. Some of these are purely practical; to announce that someone died, or invite family and friends to the funeral.</p>
<p>More importantly though, obituaries give the bereaved a chance to tell a story about someone they loved. Who were they? What did they enjoy? What were their values?</p>
<p>As one of the studies within the <a href="https://nonreligionproject.ca/">Nonreligion in a Complex Future</a> project, our team has <a href="https://nonreligionproject.ca/obituaries/">analyzed Canadian obituaries</a> over the last century to understand transformations in how people commemorate the dead. As it turns out, animals are appearing more frequently with each passing year.</p>
<p>As recently as 1990, not a single one of the 53 obituaries published on a given Saturday in the <em>Toronto Star</em> mentioned any pets. This steadily started to change, however. We learn that, in 1991, Harriet will be “sadly missed by all of her friends and animals.” Likewise, Berton — who died in 1998 — was “sadly missed by his ‘good boy Scamp.’”</p>
<p>By the mid-2000s, roughly one to four per cent of obituaries mentioned pets. Since 2015, this number has climbed as high as 15 per cent.</p>
<p>Granted, these figures are not exactly overwhelming. In a sample from 1980 to 2022 containing 3,241 obituaries, only 79 mention animals. However, this minor uptick points to a transformation in how people compose obituaries.</p>
<h2>Telling personal stories</h2>
<p>Our research shows that, since the early 1900s, obituaries have grown progressively longer. The old standard was short notices stating the deceased’s name, age and where they died — all in the space of about four lines. In recent years, the mean length has grown to around 40 lines, with some reaching over 100 lines.</p>
<p>This added space leaves room for more information about the deceased. For example, over 80 per cent of recent obituaries mention the deceased’s children. This is up from about 50 per cent prior to 1960.</p>
<p>Recent obituaries are also more likely to mention the deceased’s education, occupation or hobbies. Beyond just listing attributes, it is common to see rich, detailed descriptions. Rather than be defined by their job title, we read that one man was “a dedicated visionary who remained proud of and loyal to his many employees and colleagues.”</p>
<h2>Our furry friends</h2>
<p>As obituaries grow longer and more detailed, it only seems fair that animals get some attention. It has become more common to mention someone’s pet, or love of animals. Passages also grow more detailed. Beyond the pet’s name, we learn whether they were a “hoity-toity poodle,” a “loyal companion” or “the best dog ever.”</p>
<p>Occupation is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07481187.2015.1056562">another staple of obituaries</a>. For Mary, who died in 2019, a career highlight while working at Nestle Purina was “inducting various heroic pets and service dogs into the Purina Hall of Fame.” Not just a professional passion; Mary also had six black Labradors at home.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13576275.2020.1784122">Hobbies and interests</a> are becoming more common in death notices. For Bobby, these included “sitting in his garden with his dog, Chloe” and “being entertained by his beloved parrot, Pookie.”</p>
<p>Rather than send the family flowers, many obituaries now close by requesting <a href="https://www.lovetoknow.com/life/grief-loss/lieu-flowers-wording-ideas-etiquette">donations in the deceased’s memory</a>. Unsurprisingly, groups like the <a href="https://ontariospca.ca/">Humane Society</a>, the <a href="https://www.farleyfoundation.org/">Farley Foundation</a> and various nature conservancy groups are growing in popularity.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569428/original/file-20240115-67455-4xa2ar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A smiling golden retriever" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569428/original/file-20240115-67455-4xa2ar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/569428/original/file-20240115-67455-4xa2ar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569428/original/file-20240115-67455-4xa2ar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569428/original/file-20240115-67455-4xa2ar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569428/original/file-20240115-67455-4xa2ar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569428/original/file-20240115-67455-4xa2ar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/569428/original/file-20240115-67455-4xa2ar.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It has become more common to mention someone’s pet or their love of animals in their obituary.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The new ways we grieve</h2>
<p>This trend in death notices hints at a broader societal shift. Namely, <a href="https://academic.oup.com/socrel/article-abstract/78/1/9/3053446">people are placing greater value on nature</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00377686231170993">non-human animals</a>. The reasons behind this turn are varied and complex. But the evidence — in <a href="https://doi.org/10.2752/175303713X13636846944204">obituaries</a> and <a href="https://nonreligionproject.ca/trekking/">beyond</a> — suggests people are finding meaningful connection through the natural world and with other-than-human creatures.</p>
<p>Animals aside, obituaries also reveal important transformations in how we commemorate the dead. These were once brief, formulaic texts (and some still are). But more frequently, obituaries are windows into the life of a person. They can be <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/an-ontario-woman-s-scathing-obituary-for-her-dad-raises-questions-do-we-have-to/article_aaaf6d28-0224-5c9a-9eaa-c124482e04bc.html">sad or tragic</a>, but also <a href="https://www.lex18.com/news/he-up-and-died-on-us-sons-hilarious-obituary-goes-viral">funny, sarcastic and heartwarming</a>.</p>
<p>Above all, obituaries are now more personal. To commemorate the lasting memory of someone they loved, families want to share with the world what made that person special. This can be told through the activities, people or pets that brought them joy throughout their lives. For some, this means cheering for their favourite hockey team, or recalling the time they scored a hole-in-one, and, often, the furry friend they curled up with at the end of a long day.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220838/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Miller does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Writing an obituary is one of the many things people do when a loved one dies. And animals are more frequently mentioned in the obituaries of their human companions.Chris Miller, Postdoctoral fellow, Nonreligion in a Complex Future project, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2180332024-01-15T00:27:05Z2024-01-15T00:27:05ZTikTok says orange cats are ‘dumb’, and tortoiseshell cats have ‘an attitude’. But how true is that?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560110/original/file-20231117-29-fv986f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C15%2C5048%2C3340&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>If you’ve watched cat videos on social media lately, you may have encountered the idea a <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@shop2daybycbph/video/7227729130438069509?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7311132537870452242">cat’s coat colour</a> tells us something about their personality. </p>
<p>Orange cats are supposedly “dumb”, always <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@winniegingercat/video/7235730348087299333?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7311132537870452242">falling off beds</a> or getting themselves stuck in awkward places. Tortoiseshell cats are often said to have a strong-willed attitude (sometimes referred to as “<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@shop2daybycbph/video/7227729130438069509?is_from_webapp=1&web_id=7311132537870452242">tortitude</a>”). <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@thisisdhayes/video/7167064678177295662?q=black%20cats%20smarter&t=1702356432918">Black</a> cats are “smarter”, if social media is to be believed.</p>
<p>The idea a cat’s personality is linked to their coat colour isn’t new. <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/judging-a-cat-wrongly-by-the-color-of-its-coat-97549864/">In 2012</a> a study of human perceptions of cats reported people generally believe ginger cats are friendly, while tortoiseshell cats are seen as aloof and intolerant. </p>
<p>It’s important to note this is a reflection people <em>believe</em>, rather than how cats <em>are</em>. So what does the research actually say?</p>
<h2>Surveys on cat personality are filled out by people</h2>
<p>Research suggests that cats, like people, have different personality types. One study proposed the <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0183455">“feline five”</a> personality traits for cats: neuroticism, extraversion, dominance, impulsiveness and agreeableness. </p>
<p>The researchers linked “neuroticism” in cats with being anxious, insecure, fearful of people and tense. Cats low in neuroticism were associated with being stable, trusting, calm and self-assured. </p>
<p>Cats categorised as impulsive scored highly for being erratic, reckless and distractible, while those low in impulsivity were considered to be predictable and constrained.</p>
<p>You might get a sense from these studies that these are not terms cats would choose for themselves, and you’d be right. </p>
<p>Surveys on cat personality are filled out by people. As such, results are affected by human perspectives, projections and biases. </p>
<p>Indeed, a review of methods used to define <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/10/9/1516">personality in cats</a> concluded studies reporting differences in personality due to coat colour were likely to be affected by owner bias. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566193/original/file-20231218-23-agqln9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Three kittens - one orange, one grey and one calico - frolic in grass." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566193/original/file-20231218-23-agqln9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566193/original/file-20231218-23-agqln9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566193/original/file-20231218-23-agqln9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566193/original/file-20231218-23-agqln9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566193/original/file-20231218-23-agqln9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566193/original/file-20231218-23-agqln9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566193/original/file-20231218-23-agqln9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Studies reporting differences in personality due to cat coat colour were likely to be affected by owner bias.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/three-kittens-different-colors-on-grass-2118477416">Irina Makushina/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Breed personality</h2>
<p>Instead of colour, it’s possible breed is more important when it comes to cat personality.</p>
<p>One <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44324-x">study</a> found British Shorthair cats were least likely to seek human contact, while Korat and Devon Rex cats were most likely.</p>
<p>Another study, however, found <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-44324-x">substantial variation exists within breeds</a>, suggesting a cat’s breed may not fully explain personality.</p>
<p>Both of these studies were once again survey-based and so, again, human bias is likely affecting the results. </p>
<h2>If it’s not coat or breed, what else is it?</h2>
<p>Genetics is not the only factor influencing personality. The environment and how an animal is raised also has a big effect.</p>
<p>If kittens are not socialised with people by the age of <a href="https://vetfocus.royalcanin.com/en/scientific/feline-developmental-stages">around nine weeks</a>, they are more likely to be anxious and shy around humans and other animals. </p>
<p>Whether your cat was hand-reared, purchased from a breeder or found in a box, they will likely behave differently depending on time spent with their mother.</p>
<p>In reality, humans tend to ascribe certain meanings to particular behavioural traits.</p>
<p>For instance, if a cat is fearful, they may come across as lacking intelligence because they are less likely to interact with their environment in ways we recognise as “smart”. </p>
<p>On the flip side, confident cats comfortable in their environment may seem “dumb”, as they act in a carefree way that registers as “stupid” to the human eye. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566196/original/file-20231218-21-mdxtlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An orange cat appears to be stuck inside a jar." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566196/original/file-20231218-21-mdxtlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566196/original/file-20231218-21-mdxtlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566196/original/file-20231218-21-mdxtlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566196/original/file-20231218-21-mdxtlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566196/original/file-20231218-21-mdxtlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566196/original/file-20231218-21-mdxtlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566196/original/file-20231218-21-mdxtlx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A cat that is bold and confident may look ‘dumb’ to humans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/orange-tabby-cat-stuck-inside-glass-2109878690">perezoo/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Don’t judge a book by its cover – or a cat by it’s colour</h2>
<p>While funny social media videos linking personality with cat coat colour might be harmless, the biases they create can have more harmful results. For instance, black cats take longer to adopt <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/the-modern-heart/202010/3-reasons-people-dont-adopt-black-cats">from a shelter</a> than cats of other colours, and so are at higher risk of being euthanised. </p>
<p>Black animals are more difficult to photograph, meaning they may not look as attractive in adoption photos. Some people also believe black cats symbolise bad luck, or are associated with witchcraft or evil. Stereotypes of black cats being less friendly may also stem from facial expressions on darker fur being harder to read. </p>
<p>Before you dismiss this as speculation, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0033294119844982">a study</a> did confirm human bias against black cats using photos of cats of different colours.</p>
<p>We shouldn’t be surprised people make judgements about cats based on their coat colour. We also make judgements based on human hair colour – take the baseless “dumb blonde” and “fiery redhead” <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/speaking-in-tongues/202104/examination-stereotypes-about-hair-color#:%7E:text=Over%20time%2C%20specific%20hair%20colors,and%20redheads%20have%20fiery%20tempers.">stereotypes</a>, for example. </p>
<p>And just like with human stereotypes, putting our cats into arbitrary boxes isn’t useful for anyone.</p>
<p>Instead, it’s best to think of your cat, and any cat, as the individuals they are. </p>
<p>Cats are much more than their coats. People and cats <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/pdf/S0960-9822(19)31086-3.pdf">form</a> <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/11/6/1601">close emotional bonds</a>.</p>
<p>A cat can be the reason somebody gets up in the morning. Cats can also be fiercely <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/cat-waiting-window-every-day-dead-owners-return-breaks-hearts-1736479">loyal</a>, unwavering companions, friends and family. Let’s not reduce their complex, wonderful individuality to just a colour or type.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218033/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Hazel receives funding from the Waltham FoundationTM and is a member of the Dog & Cat Management Board of South Australia, RSPCA South Australia and Animal Therapies Ltd. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julia Henning does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Surveys on cat personality are filled out by people. As such, results are affected by human perspectives, projections and biases.Susan Hazel, Associate Professor, School of Animal and Veterinary Science, University of AdelaideJulia Henning, PhD Candidate, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2197852024-01-11T13:24:53Z2024-01-11T13:24:53ZOtters, beavers and other semiaquatic mammals keep clean underwater, thanks to their flexible fur<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566392/original/file-20231218-18-2f1ege.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2136%2C1467&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Otters and other semiaquatic mammals can keep clean even in dirty water. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ANIMALSINTROUBLE/88740e31a4f1471ea8048eda247fbceb/photo?Query=otter&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=191&digitizationType=Digitized&currentItemNo=13&vs=true&vs=true">AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Underwater surfaces can get grimy as they accumulate dirt, algae and bacteria, a process <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/biofouling">scientists call “fouling</a>.” But furry mammals like beavers and otters that spend most of their lives wet manage to avoid getting their fur slimy. These anti-fouling abilities come, in part, from one of fur’s unique properties — that each hair can bend and flex as an animal moves.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_ev_ukj9HCU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Fouling on boats and machinery can be a big problem, and scientists are searching for ways to prevent it.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.dickersonlab.com/">I’m a mechanical engineer</a> who studies fluid dynamics, or how liquids behave. My team recently <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2023.0485">published a study</a> showing that fur that was allowed to move back and forth in a flow of dirty water accumulated less than half the amount of dirt as fur that was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2021.0904">held stiff from both ends</a>.</p>
<p>While lots of animals have <a href="https://theconversation.com/body-hair-helps-animals-stay-clean-and-could-inspire-self-cleaning-technologies-50445">fur that seems to clean itself</a>, semiaquatic mammals have the most grime-resistant, or “anti-fouling,” fur.</p>
<p>Our recent study compared fur fibers from beavers, otters, springbok, coyotes and more using a flow of water containing <a href="https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/Titanium-Dioxide">titanium dioxide</a>, a common additive in cosmetics. Titanium dioxide readily attaches to surfaces like skin. Our team pumped the dirty water over individual fibers in a closed loop for 24 hours, then cleaned the fibers to measure how much titanium dioxide they’d accumulated.</p>
<p>My colleagues and I then used mathematical techniques to combine all of fur’s properties into a single number that predicts its anti-fouling behavior. We considered each fur strand’s ability to bend, how fluid flows over it and other unique features of each species. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2023.0485">We found</a> that the ability to flex was critical for keeping the animal’s fur clean. </p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Fouling can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cis.2020.102336">damage the affected surface</a>. When fur fouls, the arrangement of individual strands across the animal’s pelt is disrupted, and the animal might struggle to stay warm or dry.</p>
<p><a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13060846">Industrial repellent methods</a> used to protect the bottom of ships and the insides of pipes often <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marpolbul.2004.02.034">employ harmful chemicals</a> and consume energy and materials, unlike naturally evolved solutions.</p>
<p>Figuring out how fur stays clean naturally could lead to more environmentally friendly solutions for repelling fouling in the water supply, in marine environments and even in the medical field. Solutions could include surfaces with parts that can flex and move or that have little hairs on a surface. </p>
<p>Research into fur also reveals more about how these mammals have evolved to survive across a variety of environments.</p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>Animal fur and the fouling process <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cis.2020.102336">are both complex</a>, so we still don’t fully understand how all the intricate properties of fur, from texture and length to cross-sectional shape and environmental conditions, contribute to cleanliness. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566393/original/file-20231218-23-v903xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A close-up of an otter's coat, with lots of brown fur packed closely together." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566393/original/file-20231218-23-v903xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566393/original/file-20231218-23-v903xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566393/original/file-20231218-23-v903xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566393/original/file-20231218-23-v903xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566393/original/file-20231218-23-v903xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566393/original/file-20231218-23-v903xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566393/original/file-20231218-23-v903xy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Since hairs in fur are packed densely, they brush against each other and don’t always move individually.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/otter-fur-close-up-royalty-free-image/691551942?phrase=fur%2Bup%2Bclose%2Botter">Hailshadow/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The strands of hair in fur don’t always move individually. On an animal, the hairs are packed tightly, and they likely clean each other by rubbing as their host moves. We can’t yet tell if rubbing and moving affect the host animal’s cleanliness. </p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>My colleagues and I have just scratched the surface of the mystery of furry mammal cleanliness, and there’s plenty more we can test. Future work could expose fur to biological foulers like bacteria and algae, or look at the role patches of fur play in cleanliness. </p>
<p>The only known mammal that does succumb to fouling is the sloth – <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2014/03/sloths-moths-and-algae-a-surprising-partnership-sheds-light-on-a-mystery/">algae grows on their fur</a>. </p>
<p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take on interesting academic work.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219785/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andrew Dickerson receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p>The bottoms of boats and docks can accumulate lots of dirt, but semiaquatic animals like otters avoid having ‘fouled’ fur. Their secret could one day help keep underwater infrastructure clean.Andrew Dickerson, Assistant Professor of Mechanical, Aerospace and Biomedical Engineering, University of TennesseeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2203182024-01-08T23:41:27Z2024-01-08T23:41:27ZWhen polar bears hunt snow geese, hunger justifies the means<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/567181/original/file-20231220-19-d2je5g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C1%2C989%2C745&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The adaptations that polar bears will have to make to meet the challenges brought about by climate change are numerous and unpredictable.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Polar bears (<em>Ursus maritimus</em>) take advantage of the winter to build up their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/physzool.69.2.30164186">fat reserves</a>. Intensive hunting of seals, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1139/z75-117">a resource rich in fat</a>, allows bears to store up enough energy to get through the summer.</p>
<p>As the climate warms, hunting opportunities on the ice pack are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.12685">diminishing</a>. Experts believe that as a result, there is not sufficient food resources on the land to allow bears to build up <a href="https://doi.org/10.1890/140202">the energy reserves they require</a>.</p>
<p>Faced with these changes, some polar bears are taking advantage of colonies <a href="https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.3128">of nesting birds and their eggs</a>, one of the few resources readily available on land, to compensate for their energy deficits. The adaptations that bears will have to make to meet the challenges brought about by climate change are numerous and unpredictable.</p>
<p>As a student researcher in ecology, I was going to take advantage of a short trip north of Baffin Island, in Nunavut, to do some work on the small fauna of Bylot Island. One afternoon, a polar bear decided otherwise. Here we report on his exploits, which led to observations of unprecedented behaviour.</p>
<h2>An unusual sighting – a polar bear in fresh water</h2>
<p>It was Aug. 8, 2021. Some 80 km from the Inuit community of Mittimatalik, the Bylot Island field station was bustling with activity.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1139/as-2023-0029">Established 30 years ago</a>, the field station is located in the heart of the breeding grounds of the largest known colony of snow geese (<em>Anser caerulescens caerulescens</em>). Today, scientists from a variety of backgrounds scour the Quarliktuvik valley floor, which is generally flat, to study the soil, water, plants and wildlife.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566995/original/file-20231220-25-jybcic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Bylot Island main research station TimMoser x" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566995/original/file-20231220-25-jybcic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566995/original/file-20231220-25-jybcic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566995/original/file-20231220-25-jybcic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566995/original/file-20231220-25-jybcic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=246&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566995/original/file-20231220-25-jybcic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566995/original/file-20231220-25-jybcic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566995/original/file-20231220-25-jybcic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=310&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Bylot Island research camp.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Tim Moser)</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Coming out of a ravine, one of the few landforms in the area, I was scanning the valley with my binoculars when two pairs of legs in the distance caught my eye. The image was foggy, but what I initially thought were two colleagues walking side by side, turned out to be the distinctive shape of a polar bear. Everyone in our group had the necessary protective equipment — bear spray, anti-bear cartridges and sometimes even a rifle — but I alerted them by radio and immediately returned to the field station.</p>
<p>Several colleagues had gathered on a small hill to keep an eye on the newcomer. In fact, by the time I’d covered the kilometre distance to the camp, the bear had walked three kilometres and was moving around a pond where geese were gathered. At this time of year, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/jav.00982">the geese are moulting</a> — and therefore unable to fly — so they congregate near ponds to avoid the <a href="https://doi.org/10.14430/arctic604">Arctic fox (<em>Vulpes lagopus</em>)</a>, which is reluctant to jump into the water. With a bear in the vicinity, we ceased our field activities and took advantage of the radiant afternoon to watch the king of the ice pack.</p>
<p>True to form, the geese took refuge in the nearest pond at the first sight of danger. They waded in quickly enough to keep the bear, who was swimming on the surface, at a safe distance.</p>
<p>But the bear was about to use a new hunting technique: he dove under the water, disappeared from the eyes of the geese who had stopped fleeing, and emerged from underneath one of them.</p>
<p>My colleague Mathilde Poirier recorded the behaviour in her notebook:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>1:45 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.: the bear swims in the lake […], makes 4 dives to try to catch a goose. Succeeds in its 4th attempt (catches the goose from below, during a dive).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>During the afternoon, the bear used this technique two more times, once failing and once with success.</p>
<h2>What are the benefits of this behaviour for bears?</h2>
<p>Two months later, back at Laval University, we were still fascinated by this observation. Nowhere in the scientific literature is there any mention of such behaviour. At best, there are reports of <a href="https://doi.org/10.33265/polar.v41.8176">attacks on murres in the ocean</a> near the coasts, an environment very different from the calm, shallow ponds where we observed the bear’s attacks.</p>
<p>Being aware of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1890/140202">energy challenges</a> bears face during the summer, our research group — led by Matthieu Weiss-Blais — wanted to answer the following question: would this hunting technique allow polar bears to benefit from eating snow geese?</p>
<p>The information recorded in the field, i.e. the time the bear spent swimming and its success in hunting, allowed us to answer this question. By combining our observations with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-017-2209-x">estimates of the energy cost</a> of swimming in bears and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/cow045">the energy contained in a snow goose</a>, we were able to model the energy efficiency of the technique.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1139/AS-2023-0036">These calculations reveal</a> that this hunting technique could allow bears to acquire more energy than they expend, particularly for smaller bears, and if they manage to catch a goose quickly.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566994/original/file-20231220-25-lint0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="polar bear" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566994/original/file-20231220-25-lint0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/566994/original/file-20231220-25-lint0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566994/original/file-20231220-25-lint0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566994/original/file-20231220-25-lint0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566994/original/file-20231220-25-lint0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566994/original/file-20231220-25-lint0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/566994/original/file-20231220-25-lint0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The bear was moving around near a pond occupied by geese.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Yannick Seyer)</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>An energy boost, but far from sufficient</h2>
<p>However, this energy contribution would be very limited in scope.</p>
<p>First of all, a goose provides relatively little energy — around 200 times less than a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1139/z75-117">ringed seal weighing 45 kilograms</a>.</p>
<p>What’s more, the geese are rarely available as prey: they lose the ability to fly for only three or four weeks each summer and they only have colonies in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jwmg.879">a few places</a> in the Arctic.</p>
<p>Hunting geese could therefore be of benefit to certain bears from time to time, but on a population-wide scale, it will not alleviate the energy deficits caused by the melting ice pack.</p>
<p>Although our observation highlights the range of behaviours bears can adopt in order to exploit terrestrial resources, this type of interaction between snow geese and polar bears should have no impact on the populations of either species.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/220318/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Bolduc received funding from the NSTP and the Canadian Association for Humane Trapping.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthieu Weiss-Blais received funding from NSERC, FRQNT and NSTP.
</span></em></p>Researchers have made a fascinating observation: a polar bear used a diving hunting technique, never before reported, to capture large moulting snow geese.David Bolduc, Étudiant au doctorat en écologie animale, Université LavalMatthieu Weiss-Blais, Étudiant la maîtrise en biologie, Université LavalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2189752023-12-29T11:40:00Z2023-12-29T11:40:00ZThe secret world of puddles<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565473/original/file-20231213-16-omthqc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C209%2C4169%2C3093&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Puddles can be valuable wildlife havens.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/water-splash-shoes-mens-feet-hiking-1857225058">Maksim Safaniuk/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the new year arrived in 2016, my home city of Newcastle upon Tyne was briefly the centre of <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/01/the-puddle/422955/">global attention</a> – for a puddle. The Drummond Puddle, as it was grandly known, was a watery hazard placed perfectly where converging footpaths funnelled a daily stream of victims to their doom. To the wonderment of the world, their fate was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRXuE7PBdLI">livestreamed</a> over the internet to more than half a million viewers. </p>
<p>But puddles are not merely a source of delight for wicked-minded onlookers. We can all, surely, remember the joy of splashing in a puddle – a universal example of creative play and getting to know the environment.</p>
<p>And yet, the conservation value of these tiny sites is still largely unappreciated. For puddles can be valuable wildlife havens too.</p>
<p>One <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.limno.2012.07.002">study</a> of the invertebrate inhabitants of puddles in the UK countryside found a majority of these sites had a high conservation value, primarily due to the rare, specialist animals they hosted. Puddles may be commonplace, but their wildlife need not be.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uRXuE7PBdLI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">This 2016 Periscope video shows people trying to avoid stepping in Newcastle’s Drummond Puddle.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Your own private pool</h2>
<p>The tiny, fragmented, ephemeral world of puddles creates the ideal habitat for some species. The isolation and brief life of many of these mini-ponds keeps long-lived, larger predators and competitors at bay, opening up opportunities for more “live fast, die young” life. </p>
<p>In the UK, the most famous examples are the <a href="https://insidedio.blog.gov.uk/2018/10/22/an-exclusive-tour-around-the-plain/">fairy shrimps</a> of puddles on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire. Large areas of Salisbury Plain are given over to military training, and the churning tracks of tanks create many temporary pools that house these muddy lodgers.</p>
<p>The eggs of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/fairy-shrimp">fairy shrimp</a> are resistant to drought. They remain dormant, but viable, for many years and are spread by the wind or, in the case of Salisbury Plain, are carried in the mud spattered on military vehicles. </p>
<p>When rain fills a track in the dried mud, fairy shrimp eggs hatch almost immediately. The shrimps grow quickly to lay a new generation of eggs before their puddle dries.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Frozen puddles in tank tracks on Salisbury Plain." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565471/original/file-20231213-15-a9b1jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565471/original/file-20231213-15-a9b1jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565471/original/file-20231213-15-a9b1jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565471/original/file-20231213-15-a9b1jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=355&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565471/original/file-20231213-15-a9b1jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565471/original/file-20231213-15-a9b1jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565471/original/file-20231213-15-a9b1jz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Frozen puddles in tank tracks on Salisbury Plain, Wiltshire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/snow-covered-frozen-iced-puddle-off-1914696466">Martin Hibberd/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other landscapes also harbour important puddles that we have helped to create. The Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall supports a network of trackways that date back to pre-historic times. Temporary pools have developed within these trackways, supporting rare specialist plants like the <a href="https://www.conservationevidence.com/reference/pdf/4018">pygmy rush</a>. </p>
<p>In the US, over the past decade, the rare <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/clam-shrimp">clam shrimp</a> has <a href="https://urbanhabitats.org/v02n01/biodiversitypatterns_pdf.pdf">been found</a> in puddles on the dirt surface of a gas pipeline road in New Jersey. The clam shrimp had only previously been identified in a handful of sites in the north-eastern US.</p>
<h2>Puddle problems</h2>
<p>Human activity may also be creating puddles in urban landscapes. The rapid urbanisation of Beijing has been <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878029616302298">linked</a> with increasing the numbers of puddles in the Chinese capital, largely by accident as sites are demolished ready for new developments. As soon as the new build is started, however, these ponds are buried and lost.</p>
<p>The wildlife of urban puddles on roads and pavements has received much less attention compared with other urban habitats, such as flowerbeds or small ponds. But <a href="https://doi.org/10.12911/22998993/111463">research</a> in urban areas of south-east Poland shows that single-celled algae such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/diatom">diatoms</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/desmid">desmids</a> thrive in these puddle environments. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2530064420300225?via%3Dihub">Studies</a> in Brazil have also credited deforestation in the Xingu basin with driving “lentification” – creating water bodies that include puddles. Puddles in these more tropical regions of the world support the ominous presence of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/mosquito-insect">mosquito larvae</a>. </p>
<p>The same safety from predators provided by puddles that benefits fairy and clam shrimps is also important to mosquitoes. In one <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335091956_Assessment_of_Physico-Chemical_and_Ecological_Variables_in_Selected_Natural_Breeding_Sites_of_Mosquitoes_in_Ibadan_Oyo_State_Nigeria">study</a> in Nigeria, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/Anopheles"><em>Anopheles</em> mosquito</a> larvae were found in a higher proportion of road puddles than in other small water bodies.</p>
<p>Birds often look to exploit ponds and puddles, looking for drowned worms after prolonged rain. But worms are <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1744-7410.2007.00117.x">not that easy</a> to drown (although it varies by species). So maybe the sorry, soggy specimens stuck in puddles are just unlucky, slowed down as they flounder in the water, becoming very obvious to birds with an eye for an easy meal.</p>
<p>Puddles are, however, not a positive substitute for the problems caused by urbanisation and habitat loss. In Poland, birds using road puddles for a wash <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/24750263.2022.2101699">risk</a> being killed by traffic. </p>
<h2>Planet puddle</h2>
<p>While we might be most familiar with the puddles of pavements and streets, there are natural puddle habitats too – and these are very widespread all over the planet. Puddles on ice sheets and glaciers called <a href="https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jzo.12832">cryoconite holes</a> are home to a cosmopolitan fauna of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/Devils-worm">nematode worms</a>, mites and the famously tough <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/20/tardigrades-natures-great-survivors">tardigrades</a>. </p>
<p>Puddles also occur in deserts, often as tiny rock pools. By arranging sticky traps around these rock pools, researchers in South Africa showed how wind dispersal <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10750-009-9929-z">helps their inhabitants travel</a>. As the rock pools dried, the traps caught wind-borne eggs blowing in the dust, carrying a mix of <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/water-flea">waterfleas</a>, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/zsc.12505#:%7E:text=Laevicaudatan%20branchiopods%2C%20also%20called%20%E2%80%98smooth%20clam%20shrimps%E2%80%99%20or,90%25%20of%20which%20belong%20to%20the%20genus%20Lynceus.">pea shrimps</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/animal/mite">mites</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An image of a tardigrade under a microscope." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=341&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565472/original/file-20231213-25-qdygg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tardigrades are famed among biologists for their ability to survive conditions that would kill almost any other animal.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/tardigrade-water-bear-microscope-magnification-2111263538">Videologia/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Urban puddles might still be the toughest environment of all, compared with the puddles in these glacier and desert habitats. But in all cases, there is much more to puddles than meets the eye – not just tiny shrimps or marooned worms.</p>
<p>Some of the strange creatures they contain are much more conspicuous. Video coverage of the Drummond Pond in Newcastle in 2016 even captured some two-legged inhabitants that appeared to be large, mammalian and naked …</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mike Jeffries does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Puddles are an often-ignored but crucial habitat for rare and unusual wildlife.Mike Jeffries, Associate Professor, Ecology, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2197262023-12-21T16:07:15Z2023-12-21T16:07:15ZCats like to play fetch, as long as it’s on their terms – new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565558/original/file-20231213-19-gdxrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C53%2C5973%2C3934&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Surprised that cats like to play fetch too? </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/portrait-cute-scottish-fold-cat-sitting-1466349110">Tzido Sun/Shuttestock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cats have a reputation <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185599">for being aloof</a> (some may even say lazy) – but our <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-47409-w">new research</a> has found they <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982219310863?via%3Dihub">interact with their owners</a> in surprising ways. What we discovered also shows how important this <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2021.650143/full">kind of interaction</a> can be for cats’ wellbeing.</p>
<p>Fetching behaviour in domestic cats has been <a href="https://gwern.net/doc/cat/psychology/1996-voith.pdf">reported to be</a> more common than coming when called, meowing on command, or playing games. There may also be breed differences in fetching (at least among purebreds). For example, <a href="https://tica.org/breeds/browse-all-breeds?view=article&id=1227:the-siamese-breed&catid=48">Siamese cats</a> and their crossbreed variations are known for being proficient fetchers.</p>
<p>We wanted to know more about how and why cats fetch. In an online survey, we asked owners of cats who play fetch about this behaviour. Almost all of these cats (94.4%) had not been trained to fetch, and most were young (less than one year old) when their owners first noticed they could fetch.</p>
<p>At the time of our survey, these cats had on average fetched for approximately four years. But there was a lot of variation – some were new fetchers, while others had played fetch for their whole lives. </p>
<h2>What we learned</h2>
<p>We discovered that cats prefer to be in control of their fetching sessions. According to their owners, the cats that usually initiate fetching sessions seem more enthusiastic about it. These cats both had more fetching sessions per month and retrieved the object more times in a single play session.</p>
<p>Most of the cats in our sample were mixed breed (86%). Out of the purebreds, Siamese were the most common (22.5%), supporting their reputation as fetchers.</p>
<p>Fetching cats preferred to play fetch with toys such as imitation mice and catnip toys. But they also made the most of their surroundings and would opportunistically fetch items such as crumpled paper, hair ties or bottle caps.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Tabby long-haired kitten playing in a paper bag with crumpled paper, peeking out" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565560/original/file-20231213-15-eewqnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565560/original/file-20231213-15-eewqnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565560/original/file-20231213-15-eewqnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565560/original/file-20231213-15-eewqnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565560/original/file-20231213-15-eewqnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565560/original/file-20231213-15-eewqnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565560/original/file-20231213-15-eewqnt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some cats prefer to play with crumpled paper.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cute-cheeky-tabby-longhaired-kitten-playing-1724286601">Pocket Canyon Photography/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Overall, the owners reported lots of differences in fetching behaviour. Some cats bring the object to their owner first, while others respond to their owner throwing an object first. Some cats only bring the object back halfway. Some are fussy with the objects they want to play with, and some will only fetch at certain times or in particular areas of the house (like up and down the stairs).</p>
<h2>Playful cats</h2>
<p>When cats play, they look similar to when they hunt. For example, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/0003347279901295">chasing, biting, leaping</a> and stalking their prey or object of choice. Hunting is a natural behaviour for cats, so they need an outlet for it. </p>
<p>Play has important benefits for pet cats in terms of preventing aggression towards humans, and acting as a <a href="https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(20)31896-0">substitution for predation on live animals</a>.</p>
<p>Owners can also learn about <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1558787822000533">the needs of their cats through play sessions</a>, such as how long they like to play for, and thus help strengthen their bond. Young cats are most likely to be playful, both with objects and littermates. But we don’t know much about how play in adult cats differs from play in kittens or young cats, because there is only limited <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159118304556">research into how adult cats play</a>. </p>
<p>While there also hasn’t been a lot of research into the bond between cats and their owners, some studies have shown this relationship is an important one. For example, a <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0185599">2017 study in Sweden</a> found that cats sought more social contact with their owner after being left alone for 30 minutes – they coped well on their own, but their behaviour changed when their owner returned home. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Black cat stares down toy mouse" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565563/original/file-20231213-19-21bdwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565563/original/file-20231213-19-21bdwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565563/original/file-20231213-19-21bdwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565563/original/file-20231213-19-21bdwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565563/original/file-20231213-19-21bdwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565563/original/file-20231213-19-21bdwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/565563/original/file-20231213-19-21bdwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Playtime is good for cats.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/cat-hunting-toy-mouse-home-burmese-1957926694">Viacheslav Lopatin/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s important for owners to put time aside to play with their cat each day. Short periods of play a few times a day are enough – and it doesn’t have to be a game of fetch. If cats enjoy playing fetch on their own terms, that probably applies to all kinds of play. Generally, they prefer toys that have features of prey – for example, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159118304556">toys that can break or pull apart</a>, or <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376635716303424">that move erratically</a> (like toys on a rod).</p>
<p>Owners can learn and understand what their cat’s behavioural signals mean during a play session. When a cat wants their owner to play with them, they might bring a toy to their owner or sit next to a toy and stare expectantly at their owner. Examples of behaviour that shows a cat wants to end the play session include lying down, walking away from the area, or no longer chasing after a toy when it’s thrown. </p>
<p>If owners can read and interpret the body language of their cat and know when to start or end a play session, the cat will enjoy this experience and may open up more playing opportunities in the future – perhaps even building up to fetch!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219726/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There hasn’t been a lot of research into adult cat play, but a new study shows it’s not just dogs who like to play fetch.Elizabeth Renner, Lecturer of Psychology, Northumbria University, NewcastleJemma Forman, PhD Candidate in Psychology, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2187032023-12-07T05:01:59Z2023-12-07T05:01:59ZIf humans disappeared, what would happen to our dogs?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563803/original/file-20231206-29-g9446.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=15%2C15%2C5080%2C3376&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For many of us, dogs are our best friends. But have you wondered what would happen to your dog if we suddenly disappeared? Can domestic dogs make do without people? </p>
<p>At least 80% of the world’s <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691196183/a-dogs-world">one billion or so dogs</a> actually live independent, free-ranging lives – and they offer some clues. Who would our dogs be if we weren’t around to influence and care for them?</p>
<h2>What are dogs?</h2>
<p>Dogs hold the title of the most successful domesticated species on Earth. For millennia they have <a href="https://iview.abc.net.au/show/dog-s-world-with-tony-armstrong">evolved under our watchful eye</a>. More recently, selective breeding has led to people-driven diversity, resulting in unique breeds ranging from the towering Great Dane to the tiny Chihuahua. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562913/original/file-20231201-15-zku7cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562913/original/file-20231201-15-zku7cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562913/original/file-20231201-15-zku7cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562913/original/file-20231201-15-zku7cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562913/original/file-20231201-15-zku7cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562913/original/file-20231201-15-zku7cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562913/original/file-20231201-15-zku7cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562913/original/file-20231201-15-zku7cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Today’s diverse dog breeds are a result of the modern approach to selective breeding.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Humanity’s quest for the perfect canine companion has resulted in more than 400 modern dog breeds with unique blends of physical and behavioural traits. Initially, dogs were bred primarily <a href="https://theconversation.com/managing-mutations-of-a-species-the-evolution-of-dog-breeding-96635">for functional roles</a> that benefited us, such as herding, hunting and guarding. This practice only emerged prominently over the past 200 years. </p>
<p>Some experts suggest companionship is just another type of work <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168159122000983">humans selected dogs for</a>, while placing a greater emphasis on looks. Breeders play a crucial role in this, making deliberate choices about which traits are desirable, thereby influencing the future direction of breeds. </p>
<h2>Are we good for dogs?</h2>
<p>We know certain features that appeal to people have serious impacts on <a href="https://theconversation.com/vets-can-do-more-to-reduce-the-suffering-of-flat-faced-dog-breeds-110702">health and happiness</a>. For instance, <a href="https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0137496">flat-faced dogs struggle with breathing</a> due to constricted nasal passages and shortened airways. This “<a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00480169.2014.940410">air hunger</a>” has been likened to experiencing an asthma attack. These dogs are also prone to higher rates of skin, eye and dental problems compared with dogs with longer muzzles.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562919/original/file-20231201-21-o3gi7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562919/original/file-20231201-21-o3gi7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562919/original/file-20231201-21-o3gi7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562919/original/file-20231201-21-o3gi7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562919/original/file-20231201-21-o3gi7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562919/original/file-20231201-21-o3gi7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562919/original/file-20231201-21-o3gi7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562919/original/file-20231201-21-o3gi7e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flat-faced dogs such as pugs and bulldogs often aren’t comfortable in the bodies we’ve bred them for.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Many modern dogs depend on human medical intervention to reproduce. For instance, French Bulldogs and Chihuahuas frequently require a caesarean section to give birth, as the puppies’ heads are <a href="https://kb.rspca.org.au/knowledge-base/what-are-the-welfare-risks-associated-with-difficulty-giving-birth-in-brachycephalic-dogs/">very large compared with</a> the mother’s pelvic width. This reliance on surgery to breed highlights the profound impact intensive selective breeding has on dogs.</p>
<p>And while domestic dogs can benefit from being part of human families, some live highly isolated and controlled lives in which they have little agency <a href="https://frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fvets.2023.1284869/">to make choices</a> – a factor that’s important to their happiness.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-an-australian-first-the-act-may-legally-recognise-animals-feelings-111079">In an Australian first, the ACT may legally recognise animals' feelings</a>
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</em>
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<h2>Dogs without us</h2>
<p>Now imagine a world where dogs are free from the guiding hand of human selection and care. The immediate impact would be stark. Breeds that are heavily dependent on us for basic needs such as food, shelter and healthcare wouldn’t do well. They would struggle to adapt, and many would succumb to the harsh realities of a life without human support.</p>
<p>That said, this would probably impact fewer than 20% of all dogs (roughly the percentage living in our homes). Most of the world’s dogs are free-ranging and prevalent across Europe, Africa and Asia.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562921/original/file-20231201-17-4hsi2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562921/original/file-20231201-17-4hsi2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562921/original/file-20231201-17-4hsi2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562921/original/file-20231201-17-4hsi2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562921/original/file-20231201-17-4hsi2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562921/original/file-20231201-17-4hsi2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562921/original/file-20231201-17-4hsi2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562921/original/file-20231201-17-4hsi2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Many dogs live independently around people, like these dogs seen on the street in India.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But while these dogs aren’t domesticated in a traditional sense, they still coexist with humans. As such, their survival depends almost exclusively on human-made resources such as garbage dumps and food handouts. Without people, <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-theory-of-evolution-2276">natural selection</a> would swiftly come into play. Dogs that lack essential survival traits such as adaptability, hunting skills, disease resistance, parental instincts and sociability would gradually decline. </p>
<p>Dogs that are either extremely large or extremely small would also be at a disadvantage, because a dog’s size will impact its caloric needs, body temperature regulation across environments, and susceptibility to predators. </p>
<p>Limited behavioural strategies, such as being too shy to explore new areas, would also be detrimental. And although sterilised dogs might have advantageous survival traits, they would be unable to pass their genes on to future generations.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563817/original/file-20231206-23-djskol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/563817/original/file-20231206-23-djskol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563817/original/file-20231206-23-djskol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563817/original/file-20231206-23-djskol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=416&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563817/original/file-20231206-23-djskol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563817/original/file-20231206-23-djskol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/563817/original/file-20231206-23-djskol.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=523&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rearing puppies without human support happens successfully around the world.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4450/14/7/618">Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>No more designer breeds</h2>
<p>Ultimately, a different type of dog would emerge, shaped by health and behavioural success rather than human desires.</p>
<p>Dogs don’t select mates based on breed, and will readily mate with others that look very different to them when given the opportunity. Over time, distinct dog breeds would fade and unrestricted mating would lead to a uniform “village dog” appearance, similar to “camp dogs” in <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/11771801231167671">remote Indigenous Australian communities</a> and dogs seen in South-East Asia.</p>
<p>These dogs typically have a medium size, balanced build, short coats in various colours, and upright ears and tails. However, regional variations such as a shaggier coat could arise due to factors such as climate.</p>
<p>In the long term, dogs would return to a wild canid lifestyle. These “re-wilded” dogs would likely adopt social and dietary behaviours similar to those of their current wild counterparts, <a href="https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/7138/">such as Australia’s dingoes</a>. This might include living in small <a href="https://7news.com.au/news/wildlife/dingo-drone-footage-captured-by-thermal-camera-on-qld-property-shows-family-fun-time-c-12586477">family units within defined territories</a>, reverting to an annual breeding season, engaging in social hunting, and attentive parental care (especially from dads).</p>
<p>This transition would be more feasible for certain breeds, particularly herding types and those already living independently in the wild or as village dogs.</p>
<h2>What makes a good life for dogs?</h2>
<p>In their book <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691196183/a-dogs-world">A Dog’s World</a>, Jessica Pierce and Marc Bekoff explore the idea of “doomsday prepping” our dogs for a future without people. They encourage us to give our dogs more agency, and consequently more happiness. This could be as simple as letting them pick which direction to walk in, or letting them take their time when sniffing a tree. </p>
<p>As we reflect on a possible future without dogs, an important question arises: are our actions towards dogs sustainable, in their best interests, and true to their nature? Or are they more aligned with our own desires?</p>
<p>By considering how dogs might live without us, perhaps we can find ways to improve their lives with us.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562914/original/file-20231201-15-2sncwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562914/original/file-20231201-15-2sncwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/562914/original/file-20231201-15-2sncwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562914/original/file-20231201-15-2sncwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562914/original/file-20231201-15-2sncwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=446&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562914/original/file-20231201-15-2sncwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562914/original/file-20231201-15-2sncwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/562914/original/file-20231201-15-2sncwg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=560&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Providing a good life for dogs requires thinking about their mental well-being, health and environment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218703/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If we weren’t here to shape, feed and care for our dogs – how might they change?Bradley Smith, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, CQUniversity AustraliaMia Cobb, Research Fellow, Animal Welfare Science Centre, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2166992023-11-27T11:34:01Z2023-11-27T11:34:01ZStones inside fish ears mark time like tree rings – and now they’re helping us learn about climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/556852/original/file-20231031-23-62b3ms.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=44%2C35%2C5939%2C3956&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/large-atlantic-bluefin-tuna-common-tunny-2190003345">Dolores M. Harvey/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As a marine biologist, I’ve always found it fascinating to learn about how animals adapt to their habitat. But climate change has made it more important than ever – wild animals’ futures may depend on how much we understand about them. </p>
<p>Fish have a kind of stone in their ear that scientists can read like tree rings. My team’s <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41930-2">new research</a> found a way to decode the chemicals in these stones to measure how much energy they used when alive. What we learned could help bluefin tuna survive the climate crisis.</p>
<p>There is still so much <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2656.13467">we don’t know</a> about how animals respond when their habitat suddenly changes. Temperature is one of the most important puzzle pieces, as it <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780123745538001593">affects the rates of the chemical reactions that define life</a>. </p>
<p>For animals, rising temperatures act like inflation. Rising prices mean housing and food take up more of our budget, leaving less money for luxuries. More heat means more of an animal’s bodily resources, like food and oxygen, are needed to <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780123745538001970">fuel basic functions</a>, like breathing and moving, leaving less energy for growth and reproduction.</p>
<p>However, heat changes don’t <a href="https://www.cefas.co.uk/news-and-resources/news/new-research-identifies-winners-and-losers-of-future-climate-change-on-uk-fish-species/">affect all animals the same way</a>. Just as the wealthy can use their large cash reserves to weather inflation, animals differ in how close they are to their energy “ceiling”.</p>
<h2>Warming waters</h2>
<p>Animals living in temperatures in the middle of their species’ range can increase the rate of their metabolism, meeting the extra cost of living in warmer waters. Those on the warm edge of their species’ range might be closer to their limits, where increases in temperature push them into a form of energy debt. </p>
<p>Reserves that might have been used for growth must be diverted to maintain essential life processes. <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo4259">Rising temperatures</a>, through their effects on metabolism, force species to adapt, move somewhere new or die. </p>
<p>Measuring energy expenditure in wild animals is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S109564331630099X">no easy task</a>. Fortunately, metabolic reactions leave chemical traces in the body. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://uni.hi.is/scampana/otoliths">otolith</a> is a stony lump in the fish ear. Otolith rings, much like tree rings, reveal a fishs’s age. At the University of Southampton we have developed a technique to decode the chemistry of otoliths. </p>
<p>Different forms or isotopes of oxygen in the otolith indicate the temperature the fish experienced when it was alive. Carbon isotopes reveal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-018-0266-5">how quickly food was converted</a> into energy. Fish carry their fitness trackers in their ears.</p>
<p>Studying how animals’ energy needs shift with temperature can help us predict which animals are most at risk from rising temperatures. Juveniles, for instance, which need to grow quickly so they are strong enough to evade predators, might be more vulnerable to the effects of global warming. </p>
<p>Recently, we applied this new technique to <a href="https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/bluefin-tuna">Atlantic bluefin tuna</a>. These fish can grow to two metres long and can swim at 40mph. They also have a high metabolism which allows them to thrive in colder waters than most other tuna species. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.msc.org/species/tuna/recent-history-of-bluefin-tuna">Overfishing in the 20th century</a> made Atlantic bluefin tuna populations crash. Fish management policies have allowed bluefin tuna populations in the north Atlantic to recover, and shoals of bluefin are <a href="https://www.mcsuk.org/news/bluefin-tuna-an-ocean-giant-on-the-rise/#:%7E:text=Within%20three%20years%2C%20numbers%20of,Isles%20of%20Scilly%2C%20and%20Ireland">once again regular visitors</a> to waters around the British Isles and northern Europe. </p>
<p>Bluefin tuna spawn in <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/peg/publications/fact_sheet/atlantic20bluefin20spawning20englishpdf.pdf">both the western and eastern sides</a> of the Atlantic. But these two spawning populations show different rates of recovery. </p>
<p>The proportion of adult fish with a western (Gulf of Mexico) origin has declined over time. Proportionally more eastern (Mediterranean) origin fish are surviving to adulthood each year. </p>
<p>Our study asked whether these differences in recovery can be explained by temperature. We discovered that the metabolic rates for young tuna peak at around 28°C. Tuna in warmer waters had lower metabolic rates, showing that their bodies were unable to keep up with the energy costs of living in temperatures over 28°C. </p>
<p>In the spawning and nursery grounds of the Gulf of Mexico, temperatures often surpass 28°C. While it has always warmer been in the Gulf of Mexico than the Mediterranean Sea, recent warming means that the area of suitable habitat below the 28°C threshold has become smaller and smaller. Sea temperatures in Florida exceeded 36°C in June 2023.</p>
<p>Slow recovery in western tuna populations could be attributed to these warm water conditions and its effect on growth of juvenile tuna. In contrast, most of the Mediterranean currently remains below 28°C during summer.</p>
<h2>Looking ahead</h2>
<p>The recent recovery of bluefin tuna may not last. We used climate models to predict how quickly ocean warming will start to affect juvenile tuna.</p>
<p>Even middle-of-the-road projections suggest that the eastern half of the Mediterranean Sea will cross the 28°C threshold within 50 years. In the last two years we have seen <a href="https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/08/04/ocean-heat-record-broken-and-experts-fear-temperatures-could-rise-even-further">record average temperatures</a> in <a href="http://www.ceam.es/ceamet/SST/SST-trend.html">the Mediterranean</a> already approaching the 28°C threshold. </p>
<p>We need a long-term solution to protect tuna. </p>
<p>As the oceans continue to warm, tuna may establish new spawning and nursery areas in regions that were previously too cold, for instance further north on the US’s eastern coastline. If so, juvenile tuna would be in danger of getting caught unintentionally by fisheries, also known as bycatch, </p>
<p>Bluefin tuna are a sought-after delicacy for sushi in Asia where a single fish <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/01/sushinomics-how-bluefin-tuna-became-a-million-dollar-fish/282826/">can sell for over a million dollars</a>. But they are more than culinary delicacies. Tuna fish are giving us a warning of the challenges that lie ahead for marine wildlife. </p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Clive Trueman receives funding from UKRI. </span></em></p>My team studied bluefin tuna otoliths to learn why some populations are recovering faster than others.Clive Trueman, Professor of Marine Biology, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2178562023-11-21T21:53:50Z2023-11-21T21:53:50ZOxygen in the St. Lawrence Estuary is decreasing – and having a major impact on small animals living there<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559651/original/file-20231025-23-oo8vam.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=24%2C0%2C4001%2C2752&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The majestic St. Lawrence River, a jewel of economic, historical and environmental importance, reminds us of the need to preserve this essential ecosystem.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Ludovic Pascal)</span>, <span class="license">Fourni par l'auteur</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The waters of the St. Lawrence Estuary are running out of breath. The lack of oxygen in deep waters is affecting the organisms that live on the bottom of the estuary.</p>
<p>How do deep ecosystems react to this deoxygenation?</p>
<p>In a previous article, we highlighted the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-st-lawrence-estuary-is-running-out-of-breath-184626">causes of the decrease in the concentration of oxygen in the bottom waters of the estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence</a>. This phenomenon, called hypoxia, is intensifying in this environment. In this article, we look at the impacts of low oxygen levels on the organisms that live at the bottom of the estuary and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and on the overall functioning of this ecosystem.</p>
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<p><em>This article is part of our series, <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca-fr/topics/fleuve-saint-laurent-116908">The St. Lawrence River: In depth</a>.
Don’t miss new articles on this mythical river of remarkable beauty. Our experts look at its fauna, flora and history, and the issues it faces. This series is brought to you by <a href="https://theconversation.com/ca-fr">La Conversation</a>.</em></p>
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<h2>The seabed, an environment teeming with life</h2>
<p>A large number of organisms live at the very bottom of the oceans. These are known as <a href="https://theconversation.com/discover-6-fascinating-animals-that-live-at-the-bottom-of-the-st-lawrence-river-215977">benthic organisms</a>. </p>
<p>This group of small animals includes starfish, worms, crustaceans and molluscs. They colonize the surface of the sediment (known as epifauna; “epi” for “on,” and “fauna” for “animal”) or burrow into the sediment (known as endofauna; “endo” for “inside”). </p>
<p>These organisms are not very mobile and cannot travel great distances.</p>
<h2>Bioturbation or the art of mixing sediment</h2>
<p>Benthic organisms don’t move around much, but they are far from being useless. On the contrary, they play a crucial role in the functioning of benthic ecosystems, through bioturbation. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.3354/meps09506">Bioturbation</a> refers to all the activities that benthic organisms carry out, both on, and in sediments. Bioturbation can be compared to what earthworms do in our gardens: they dig burrows, mix grains of sediment and inject water containing oxygen into areas of the sediment that lack it. </p>
<p>Benthic organisms are therefore the “gardeners” of the ocean floor. And they help to maintain a healthy ecosystem. By bringing oxygen into the sediments, bioturbation allows many organisms to establish themselves there. It also increases biodiversity and promotes the decomposition of organic matter while <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-019-3597-y">reducing the concentration of potentially toxic waste, such as hydrogen sulphide</a>.</p>
<h2>Oxygen and bioturbation: a not-so-simple relationship</h2>
<p>Twenty years ago, researchers used <a href="https://doi.org/10.4319/lo.2007.52.6.2555">models to try to predict the consequences of deoxygenation on the ecosystems of the bottom of the St. Lawrence</a>. Their work highlighted a critical element in anticipating future changes: how bioturbation responds to oxygen depletion.</p>
<p>Deoxygenation can lead to several types of responses in ecosystems. In a linear response scenario, the intensity of bioturbation decreases gradually and proportionally with the decrease in oxygen concentration. In such cases, it is relatively simple to predict the consequences, as the relationship is predictable. </p>
<p>However, there is another type of response that is non-linear and characterized by a threshold effect. This means that there is a certain critical point, a threshold, at which responses change abruptly. Before this threshold, the responses differ from those observed afterwards. These non-linear responses are associated with the development of resistance (or compensatory) mechanisms. These mechanisms operate at the level of the individual, the population (the set of individuals of the same species in a given location) and/or the community (the set of populations in a given location). They compensate for the effects of a disturbance until they are no longer sufficient. It is these compensatory mechanisms that make it difficult to predict the consequences of a disturbance.</p>
<h2>A non-linear relationship</h2>
<p>Our team has been studying the deoxygenation of the St. Lawrence for more than 20 years, but we had never before observed a clear relationship between the bioturbation of communities of benthic organisms and oxygen concentrations.</p>
<p>This raises an important question: does bioturbation respond in a linear or non-linear way to oxygen depletion? And is this a predictable relationship?</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-20-839-2023">The recent fall in oxygen concentrations in the bottom waters of the St. Lawrence</a> has enabled us to answer this question by observing a threshold effect for the first time. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16994">We now know that the relationship between oxygen concentration and the functioning of benthic ecosystems is not linear</a>. </p>
<p>In other words, these ecosystems can resist deoxygenation up to a certain critical threshold, which is observed at an oxygen concentration of around 60 micromolar (i.e. approximately 20 per cent saturation, or 20 per cent of what the dissolved oxygen concentration should be if the water were in equilibrium with the atmosphere). This concentration is close to the value above which we speak of hypoxia. Below this threshold, communities of benthic organisms change, but surprisingly, without any significant loss of biodiversity. </p>
<p>However, the organisms that make up these communities are much less active. They are actually running out of air! They considerably reduce their movements, move towards the surface of the sediment and the intensity of bioturbation becomes practically zero. </p>
<p>In other words, in these conditions of severe hypoxia, the organisms no longer have enough energy to mix and irrigate the sediment.</p>
<h2>When bioturbation stops, what happens?</h2>
<p>These results have major implications for the role of sediments in the overall health of ecosystems in the estuary and Gulf of St. Lawrence. When bioturbation stops, the sediments are neither mixed nor irrigated efficiently, leading to the accumulation of toxic waste very close to the surface of the sediment. </p>
<p>As this waste accumulates, it could even spread into the water column, scaring away sensitive species and increasing deoxygenation. </p>
<p>When and under what conditions would this happen? This is the question we now need to answer. </p>
<p>Deoxygenation of the bottom waters of the St. Lawrence is of particular concern because it is likely to lead to changes in the abundance and distribution of fishery resources. Indirectly, therefore, it could have socio-economic effects that have yet to be fully assessed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217856/count.gif" alt="La Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ludovic Pascal is a member of the Québec Océan inter-institutional group and the Nereis Park scientific association. He has received funding from the FRQNT, the MEOPAR Network of Centres of Excellence, and the Québec government (Réseau Québec Maritime, MEIE, MELCCFP).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwénaëlle Chaillou has received funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Fonds de Recherche du Québec, Canada Research Chairs, and the Government of Québec (Réseau Québec Maritime, MEIE, MELCCFP). She is a member of the Québec Océan inter-institutional group, ACFAS, the Geochemical Society and the International Association of Hydrogeologists - Canadian National Committee (IAH-CNC).</span></em></p>The waters of the St. Lawrence are running out of breath and bottom-dwelling organisms are already feeling the effects. Here’s how ecosystems are reacting.Ludovic Pascal, Postdoctorant en biogéochimie marine, Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR)Gwénaëlle Chaillou, Professeure de chimie marine à l'Institut des sciences de la mer de Rimouski (ISMER-UQAR), Université du Québec à Rimouski (UQAR)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.