In the wild, snakes are known to elicit strong antipredator responses in primates. Primates often mob the snakes, which is also accompanied by loud calls. In evolution, the deadly threat posed by snakes goes as far as to the origin of placental mammals. In this study, the reactions of naïve individuals to snakes were tested. Naïve pigtail macaques (Macaca nemestrina) and mouse lemurs (Microcebus murinus) avoided the snake stimulus. For the macaques there was a longer latency to touch the rubber snake compared to the latency to touch the rubber lizard. The mouse lemurs avoided feeding on the side of experimental box where the snake odor was presented. The reactions of macaques and mouse lemurs were not accompanied by vocalizations and they seemed to be overall mild. Nevertheless, the snake stimuli used here were strong enough for these naïve primates. For ringtail lemurs (Lemur catta), the reactions to uncovering a hidden rubber snake was tested. But the lemurs showed no avoiding reactions. A question for further research is whether the different results for lemurs were not caused by different experimental procedure. As well as in macaques and mouse lemurs, the reactions seemed to be very mild. But no deeper analysis of the behavior was performed. Thus, a reaction could have been overlooked, which...

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Previous studies have revealed insight into the effects of noises and vibrations on rodents, livestock, and zoo animals, but there is little information about such effects on non-human primates. This study aimed to assess the impact of construction activity on the behavior of animals in a non-human primate (rhesus macaque) facility. Construction activity and modified frequency behavioral data were divided into three phases: baseline (~3 months prior to construction), roof (construction on top of the animal facility), and honors (construction of 7 new buildings adjacent to the facility). We hypothesized that anxiety behaviors (scratch and yawn) would be increased during the construction as opposed to baseline but that overall behavioral activity would be decreased. Additionally, we predicted that these effects would be most prominent during the roof construction period. However, subjects actually exhibited a significant decrease in scratching behavior from the baseline to the honors phase (p=0.040). The average number of behaviors performed in a 15-sec interval (behavioral change) significantly decreased (p=0.034) between the baseline and honors construction periods. This same decrease was seen in the average number of different species typical behaviors performed per observation period (behavioral range; p=0.004). Both effects occurred from the baseline to honors period (p=0.015). Closer inspection of the honors construction period revealed levels of scratching , behavioral change, and behavioral range had returned to baseline during Honors 3 and 4 (All p>0.05). These data suggest that adaptation may be possible when monkeys are exposed to prolonged construction.

The effects of testosterone (T) extend beyond reproductive behavior to the areas of cognitive and emotional functioning. While T effects on cognition have been extensively investigated, less is known about the role of T in the processing of emotional stimuli. Considering the role that T plays in aggressive behavior and dominance status, it is of particular interest to determine whether T modulates the processing of social threat. Due to their similarities to humans in brain organization, reproductive endocrinology and affective regulation, rhesus monkeys (macaca mulatta) provide an excellent model to investigate this relationship. In a within-subjects design, six male rhesus monkeys underwent treatment to suppress endogenous T and received either T or oil replacement. Tests of anxiety, attention and memory for social and non-social emotional stimuli, and risk-taking were administered to animals during both treatments. Data analyses indicate that T treatment resulted in faster response times, but had no effect on anxiety, attention or memory for emotional stimuli, or on risk-taking behavior. There are several limitations to this study that may account for the lack of effect of T and therefore, further investigation of the relationship between T and emotional processing is warranted.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第24465号 / 理博第4964号 / 新制||理||1709(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院理学研究科生物科学専攻 / (主査)准教授 平﨑 鋭矢, 教授 髙井 正成, 教授 今井 啓雄 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DGAM

This master thesis project is interdisciplinary between the fields of biology, visualization, and astrophysics. The project was conducted at the American Museum of Natural History in New York in collaboration with researchers from Basel, Switzerland. The goal of the project was to, with the help of OpenSpace, visualize and map the relation- ship between animal species by looking closely at their DNA and commuting the informa- tion to the general public. First, Openspace and the software’s existing functionality were examined to visualize the datasets used during the project. The two datasets explored in OpenSpace were: a cloud-based dataset known as The Barcode of Life Data (BOLD) Sys- tem, which contains 1.1 million DNA barcodes, and a dataset containing differences in human DNA to track human emigration. This project is the first time Openspace has been used to visualize fields other than space. As a starting point, the group of primates from the BOLD dataset was visualized. With the help of researchers in Switzerland, the indi- vidual DNA barcodes in the datasets were converted into three-dimensional positions that represent the relationship between species. This was achieved by applying dimensional- ity reduction techniques. In addition, various features were added to the dataset during the project, such as lineage, mutations, consensus sequences, endangered species, human emigration, and measures of polymorphism within species. With the help of Openspace, different visualization techniques could be investigated to visualize the different features in the two datasets and combine these visualizations into a story. The result is a story that highlights information from the dataset. The relationships between species are visualized using colors, glyphs, and volumes. The story takes an audience on a journey from the closest human relatives to the whole group of primates. The results were evaluated through interviews with four people to determine how the visualizations were interpreted. Further development of the project is to add other animal species in the visualizations to compare with the primates in the three-dimensional information space. A future goal of the project is to create a show about the subject of biology at the Hayden Planetarium at the Natural History Museum, which today has shows about space. / <p>Examensarbetet är utfört vid Institutionen för teknik och naturvetenskap (ITN) vid Tekniska fakulteten, Linköpings universitet</p>

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