Marine mammals breeding in sympatry use resources differently depending on their time-activity budgets and prey distribution. We measured isotopic values and patterns of δ15N and δ13C in keratinous whiskers of satellite-tagged adult female Antarctic (Arctocephalus gazella) - and Subantarctic (Arctocephalus tropicalis) fur seals from three colonies at Marion Island in the Southern Indian Ocean. The three sympatric colonies were Mixed Pickle (HD_MP), Rockhopper Bay (LD_RhB), and Watertunnel (HD_WT). A comparison between two colonies of differing A. tropicalis densities will also be investigated. We investigated resource use in breeding mature females over varying time and spatial scales during summer and winter. The aim was to understand the variation in resource and habitat use at population and individual levels. The whiskers of A. gazella and A. tropicalis grow constantly at a rate of 0.16 ± 0.05 day-1 and 0.12 ± 0.05 day-1, respectively. To compare and relate behaviours, the stable isotope data and satellite tracks were grouped into winter and summer (pooled for 2010 - 2014). In summer, A. gazella from HD_WT had a larger isotopic niche width (0.85 ± 0.67‰2) compared to A. tropicalis from both HD_MP (0.18 ± 0.19‰2) and LD_RhB (0.21 ± 0.15‰2). However, the isotopic niche width of A. gazella reduced in size by more than half (0.40 ± 0.40‰2) during winter when the mature females were no longer constrained by the lactation mandate. The mean δ15N values in whiskers of both A. tropicalis and A. gazella in summer were similar (11.3 ± 0.4‰ and 11.0 ± 0.9‰, respectively). The A. gazella broadens its’ isotopic niche feeding at different trophic levels in summer (lactation period). We used a Repeatability index (R) to assess levels of intra- and inter-individual consistency. Repeatability indicated that the bigger isotopic niche width for A. gazella is attributed to high inter- and intra-individual variability in their resource use. The A. gazella individuals ranging closer to the colony consistently consumed myctophid fish. Other individuals foraged on low 15N content euphausiids (i.e., Euphausia spp. and Thysanoessa spp.) south of Marion Island in both winter and summer. The A. tropicalis from LD_RhB were repeatable in their δ15N values (trophic level) (Rglobal = 0.63; [95% CI: 0.29 – 0.80]) and δ13C values (habitat) (Rglobal = 0.69; [95% CI: 0.35 – 0.84]). At HD_MP, the A. tropicalis colony, diet was moderately repeatable (Rglobal = 0.33; [95% CI: 0.11 – 0.51]) while habitat was repeatable (Rglobal = 0.58; [95% CI: 0.33 – 0.73]). Consistency in diet (Rglobal = 0.27; [95% CI: 0.08 – 0.44] and foraging habitat (Rglobal = 0.45; [95% CI: 0.21 – 0.63] was moderate at HD_WT, the A. gazella colony. The diet varied with habitat at the individual level, across seasons. Segregation in diet and foraging habitat minimises resource-use overlap between sympatric fur seals. The behaviour of A. gazella from HD_WT (a high-density colony) might have a direct or indirect impact on the A. tropicalis from LD_RhB (a low-density colony) (i.e., competitive exclusion). Seasonality, at-sea movement, and intrinsic factors shaped the foraging behaviour and diet of adult female fur seals breeding at Marion Island. Some breeding mature females changed diets between seasons and depending on foraging habitat. / Dissertation (MSc (Zoology))--University of Pretoria, 2021. / NRF, Grantholder linked / Zoology and Entomology / MSc (Zoology) / Unrestricted

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / Inner hair cells (IHC) are the primary sensory cells of the mammalian cochlea. They transduce sound energy into a changing receptor potential which stimulates electrical activity in the Type I spiral ganglion cells of the auditory nerve. The auditory information thus encoded leads to the sensation of hearing. This thesis comprises my attempts to elucidate some of the biophysical mechanisms operating in the cochlea by analyzing intracellular recordings from guinea pigs, and to investigate the role these mechanisms play in auditory information processing via conceptual and computational models. Noise in the IHC receptor potential sets limits on the performance of a single cell. The magnitude of the intracellular noise averages 0.3 m V rms. A single IHC will be limited by this noise to: (i) a minimum detectable receptor potential of 0.3 mV (corresponding to about 0 dB SPL), (ii) a channel capacity of 5100 bits/sec, and (iii) a temporal resolution of 42 JLS. I compare these single cell limits to auditory performance as observed in published behavioral studies. The IHC receptor potential is shaped by at least two nonlinear processes: nonlinear transduction and a voltage dependent membrane conductance. I characterized the nonlinear conductance by analyzing recordings made during intracellular current injection. A simple model containing a two-state voltage-gated channel was sufficient to replicate the current-voltage characteristic found in these cells. I investigated the information transfer from inner hair cells to the auditory nerve by comparing the growth of the de receptor potential to the average firing rate in spiral ganglion cells. This comparison suggests that neural units with different thresholds encode different portions of the IHC dynamic range; at conditions well above threshold, low threshold units may be carrying predominantly temporal information while high threshold units may encode the absolute sound level. To help understand the complex behavior of the IHC receptor potential, I developed a computational model for its generation. The model contains gated ion channel descriptions of the nonlinear transducer and membrane conductance. Analysis of the model suggests a possible role for the voltage dependent conductance: efficiently trading sensitivity for temporal resolution as stimulus level increases. / 2031-01-01

This study deals with the distribution of the mammals of the La Sal Mountains, Grand and San Juan Counties, Utah. The distribution of the mammals has been correlated with the distribution of the vegetation zones of the mountains which varies with the elevation. The study points out which of the various mammals are found in the various vegetational communities and how the distribution varies from community to community.

Throughout midwestern North American ecosystems, semi-aquatic mammals including beaver (Castor canadensis), mink (Neovision vision), muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus), and river otter (Lontra canadensis) co-exist in wetlands. These species are ecologically important through their manipulation of habitats and interactions with other species present. The Lake County Forest Preserve District (Lake County, Illinois) is actively restoring forest preserves using several restoration practices and are interested in how these efforts may affect semi-aquatic mammal occupancy. We studied impacts of restoration practices and other environmental covariates on detection and occupancy of the 4 aforementioned focal species. Sign surveys were conducted during December-April in 2018-19 and 2019-20. Single species, multi-season models were run in RStudio using the package unmarked. Muskrat detection (p̂ = 0.60 ± 0.03) was positively affected by survey replicate, and negatively impacted by last precipitation amount and bank angle. Beaver detection (p̂ = 0.76 ± 0.03) was positively affected by survey replicate and previous 2-week precipitation amount, and negatively influenced by bank angle. Mink detection (p̂ = 0.26 ± 0.04) was positively impacted by survey replicate, and negatively affected by last precipitation amount and previous 2-week precipitation amount. River otter detection (p̂ = 0.10 ± 0.07) was not influenced by any covariates sampled. Muskrat had the highest occupancy (ψ ̂= 0.90 ± 0.05), followed by beaver (ψ ̂ = 0.57 ± 0.07), mink (ψ ̂ = 0.57 ± 0.10), and river otter (ψ ̂ = 0.28 ± 0.18). Both muskrat and river otter occupancy were not affected by any covariates sampled. Beaver occupancy was positively impacted by stream density and number of saplings. Mink occupancy was positively affected by stream density. No focal species’ occupancies were influenced by restoration practices. From these findings, I provide recommendations for future surveys and management for semi-aquatic furbearers in urban landscapes. Thank you to the Lake County Forest Preserve District for funding my research.

The mammalian hearing organ, the cochlea, has a marvelous sensitivity and frequency resolution. Due to passive mechanical properties (e.g. mass, stiffness, damping), sound-induced traveling waves are formed on the basilar membrane (BM), which are longitudinally tuned to different frequencies. In a live cochlea, a phenomenon called cochlear amplification, derived from the mechano-electric transduction of the outer hair cells (OHCs), locally enhances the traveling wave and increases the frequency selectivity. My research during the PhD program was focused on studying the in-vivo mechanical and electrophysiological responses of the cochlea in animal models.In the first set of experiments, the intra-cochlear motion and the OHC-generated local cochlear microphonic (LCM) responses were measured in the base of the gerbil cochlea. We used optical coherence tomography (OCT) to measure the intra-cochlear motion and a tungsten micro-electrode to obtain the LCM responses. We explored the effect of the two types of sound stimuli, single and multi-tone stimuli, to the nonlinear behavior of the LCM and the intra-cochlear motion responses in two frequency bands: a frequency band in which cochlear responses show a nonlinear peak (the best frequency (BF) band) and a frequency range below the large peak (sub-BF band: f < ∼ 0.7 × BF). In the sub-BF band, BM motion had linear growth for both stimulus types, and the motion in the OHC region was mildly nonlinear for single tones, and relatively strongly nonlinear for multi-tones. Sub-BF, the nonlinear character of the LCM was similar to that of the OHC- region motion. In the BF band, the LCM and the intra-cochlear motions all possessed the BF peak nonlinearity. Coupling these observations with previous findings on phasing between OHC force and traveling wave motions, we proposed the following framework for cochlear nonlinearity: The BF-band nonlinearity is an amplifying nonlinearity, in which OHC forces input power into the traveling wave, allowing it to travel further apical to the region where it peaks. The sub-BF nonlinearity is a non- amplifying nonlinearity; it represents OHC electromotility, and saturates due to OHC current saturation, but the OHC forces do not possess the proper phasing to feed power into the traveling wave. In the second set of experiments, we repeated the cochlear measurements as in the first project in the base of guinea pig cochlea. The goal was to compare the degree of nonlinearity and amplification in the LCM and intra-cochlear responses between gerbil and guinea pig. The experimental condition and method were similar to the gerbil study. In the BF band, our observations were similar to our previous measurements in gerbil: a nonlinear peak in LCM responses and in intra- cochlear displacements, and higher motion in the OHC region than the BM. Sub-BF, the responses in the two species were different. In both species the BM motion responses in the sub-BF band was linear and LCM was nonlinear. Sub-BF in the OHC-region, nonlinearity was only observed in a subset of healthy guinea pig cochleae while in gerbil, robust nonlinearity was observed in all healthy cochleae. The differences suggest that gerbils and guinea pigs may employ different mech- anisms for to achieve frequency selectivity. However, it cannot be ruled out that the differences are due to technical measurement differences across the species.

Separated from mainland Australia by the Bass Strait, Tasmania has acted as an island preserve maintaining large populations of many mammalian species presently uncommon, rare, or extinct on mainland Australia. There are few studies of Tasmanian mammal distributions. Recent distributional maps, based on information from surveys and mammal specimens, allowed for an investigation of the species density distributions of the terrestrial mammals of Tasmania. Compilation of species' distributional information into species density distributions provides an overview as to which areas may provide the most significant habitat for the greatest number of species; what geographic variations may influence species distributions; and which regions remain least surveyed for mammalian species in Tasmania.

Although cooperative behavior is generally acknowledged to occur among wolves, there is a lack of systematically collected data confirming the extent of development. The objectives of this study were to collect long-term, detailed observations documenting the role of social structure, seasonal influences, and individual participation in wolf pack cooperative activities. Individual cooperative strategies were associated with age, sex, and social positions and critically compared with results of similar studies. Emphasis was placed on quantifying group and dyadic relationships, focusing on reproductive strategies and dominance structure. Additional data were collected on denning behavior, maternal care behavior, scent marking, and spontaneous individual and group howling.

No description available.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to determine the kinds, population, distribution, and general habits of the mammals of the Lynndyl sand dune area. Only one article concerning the dunes was found, but several have been written on other dunes; however, none was found concerning mammals. Two quantitative studies, plot and transect trappings, were made and general observations were taken within the study area. Three types of plots; Russian thistle, juniper, and baren moving dunes; were trapped and revealed the following species: Dipodomys ordii, Peromyscus maniculatus, Reithrodontomys megalotis, Onychomys leucogaster, and Neotoma lepida. The most numerous animal in all plots was Dipodomys ordii followed in all cases by Peromyscus maniculatus. It was found that D. ordii prefer open sand; P. maniculatus, sage and R. megalotis, dense cover. The greatest activity and highest number of catch was in the summer. The major cause for the higher number of catch was the larger number of immature animals cught, but food availability may have had some effect. More than one breeding season, or at least a fluctuatin breeding season, apparently occurs in both predominant species, but further study on this point is recommended. The weights of the specimens were taken. This aided in determining the age of specimens and their breeding activities. Other mammals in the area are: Dipodomys microps, Lepus californicus, Erethizon dorsatum, Odocoileus hemoinus, Taxidea taxus, Vulpes macrotis, and Canis latrans.