No description available.

No description available.

Hair is an important piece of evidence in forensic and archaeological investigations. Analysis of the morphological features of hair has been reported since at least the early 1800's. However, many questions still remain unanswered such as, how can human groups (or local populations) be analyzed and possibly distinguished from each other based on the morphology of their hair? This investigation successfully established a set of procedures for analysis of human hair morphology and explored the possibility of separating populations by examining a case study of 40 hairs from five sample populations (Mongolian, English, Vietnamese, Native American Sioux and Oneida). The methodology leads the investigator from the point of receiving a single hair to acquiring a list of specific, discernible traits characterizing that hair. These methods included a variety laboratory procedures (cleaning, casting, mounting and microtome sectioning of the hair) and examination procedures (microscope and computer imaging and developing a key and database). Statistical analysis was then utilized in order to determine the variability and/or relationships between the populations. Although the results were not statistically significant, they weakly support a division of three groups: English, Mongolian and Vietnamese, and Sioux and Oneida. The small sample size and overlap between the five populations is a limiting factor in attempting to discriminate between populations and should be taken into consideration in future investigations. / Graduation date: 1999

A basic tenet of social structure is the assumption that the benefits of cooperative behavior must outweigh its costs if sociality is to evolve. The temperate spider, Anelosimus studiosus, exhibits a social behavioral polymorphism: individuals may defend asocial nests against intrusion by conspecifics or cooperate with them in multi-female nests. I initiated my investigation into this system by examining the extent to which social behavior phenotype is correlated with other behavioral traits and whether these correlations had adaptive consequences (Chapter 1). Using field surveys and laboratory experiments, I compared the success of asocial and social individuals in encounters over contested prey and prospective mates (Chapters 2, 3, 4). I then considered whether these trait correlations possess explanatory power for population-level divergence in behavior (Chapter 5). My results indicate social tendency is phenotypically correlated with several other types of behavior (e.g., activity-level, aggressiveness towards prey, exploratory behavior). The observed linkage between social tendency and other behavioral traits imposes a number of non-intuitive costs and benefits to possessing the social phenotype (e.g., social females are disadvantaged in agonistic interactions, but are more attractive to prospective mates). Finally, I examined the phenotypic correlations among behavioral traits for 18 different populations of An. Studiosus. I find that within- and between-population trait correlations resemble one another. Thus social tendency may not be “free” to evolve independently from other behavioral traits.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 80-86).

Thesis (M.Sc.)--York University, 2003. Graduate Programme in Mathematics. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 73-78). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL:http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url%5Fver=Z39.88-2004&res%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss&rft%5Fval%5Ffmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft%5Fdat=xri:pqdiss:MQ99406

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The blue sheep (Pseudious nayaur) is the major large-size herbivores in Helanshan. During studying, the blue sheep mean group size were 4.2¡ã7.1, with smaller group size than in other ranges. Mixed groups were usually bigger than male and female groups. Sex ratio the most close was 1:1.08 (¡ð:¡ñ) in winter, and other samples still favored males except for fall. The highest ratio of adult female to young was 1:0.78 in summer. In daily activity cycle, blue sheep usually moved and fed in morning and evening, but rested during noon. In summer, animals started active earlier and ended latter than in winter, but had more short active time. From summer to fall, the blue sheep mostly used the edge of forest and used forest least in altitude 2200m. But in altitude 1700m, blue sheep used grassland more than frequently bush and fountain.

No description available.