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  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
71

Evoluce sociality a rodičovské péče u včel rodu Ceratina / Evolution of sociality and parental care in bees of the genus Ceratina

Mikát, Michael January 2020 (has links)
Small carpenter bees (genus Ceratina) are an excellent model taxon for the study of evolution of parental care and origin of eusociality. Prolonged offspring care is typical for this bee genus. Females usually guard their offspring until adulthood and later feed their adult offspring pollen and nectar. Moreover, most of studied species are facultatively eusocial, a trait probably inherited from the common ancestor of the genus. Although Ceratina bees have generally very interesting behavior, detailed studies were performed in only a few species, usually from North America, Japan and Australia. Only anecdotal observations of natural history existed for a few European species, and detailed research has not been performed before my thesis. The goal of my thesis is to explore the natural history of European species of Ceratina and to identify possible costs and benefits of this species' behavioral traits. I focused on following these behavioral traits: social nesting, guarding of offspring until adulthood, and feeding of mature offspring. Through my master project, I discovered biparental care in species C. nigrolabiata, therefore the most important goal of my Ph.D. project is the evaluation of costs and benefits of this behavior. Guarding of offspring by mother significantly influences their survival,...
72

Ontogenetic and Adult Shape Variation in the Endocast of Tapirus: Implications for T. polkensis from the Gray Fossil Site

Gaetano, Thomas M 01 May 2020 (has links)
Endocranial morphology provides evidence of sensory ecology and sociality of extinct vertebrates. The Earliest Pliocene Gray Fossil Site (GFS) of NE Tennessee features a conspicuous dominance of skeletal elements belonging to the dwarf tapir, Tapirus polkensis. Numerous individuals in one fossil locality often suggests gregarious behavior, but sociality in T. polkensis contradicts behavior documented for extant Tapirus species. I test T. polkensis for variation in sensory and social ecology using computed tomography and 3D digital endocasts from an ontogenetic sequence. I compare the T. polkensis endocasts with extant Tapirus species using Encephalization Quotients (EQs) and 3D geometric morphometrics. Results show conserved endocast morphology for Tapirus, and thus, conserved sensory and social ecology. Tapirus behavior is likely consistent for ~5 Ma, and extant Tapirus behavior can be inferred for T. polkensis. The large number of individuals from the GFS is likely the result of a preservation bias unrelated to gregariousness.
73

Molecular Evidence Suggests Multiple Evolutionary Origins of Sociality in the Polyphenic Spider <em>Anelosimus studiosus</em> (Araneae: Theridiidae).

Weber, Nathaniel O 18 December 2010 (has links) (PDF)
Anelosimus studiosus exhibits two behavioral phenotypes: subsocial and social. This is the only documented spider inhabiting a temperate climate exhibiting social behavior. While the subsocial phenotype is most common throughout the range, the social behavior occurs in isolated pockets in northern latitudes. This study examines the origins of the social phenotype within a segment of the spider's range. Two hypotheses are tested: 1) pockets of social behavior represent a single origin or 2) pockets of social behavior represent local evolutions, thus leading to multiple origins of evolution. Microsatellite loci were used to determine genetic structure of the population and to estimate the origins of social behavior. All loci showed lower observed than expected heterozygosities and all populations show indications of high levels of inbreeding. A phylogeny indicates four of the six populations fall out by location, not phenotype. We propose these results reflect multiple local evolutions of the social strategy.
74

Potentializing Values in Museum Entrepreneurship : On Board the Swedish Naval Museum

Billet, Thomas, Hsu, Luna January 2022 (has links)
Museums in Sweden are found to be more and more mission-laden, as they gradually evolve from a custodian role to a visitor-focused socio-cultural institution. In their efforts to live up to their newly acquired role, more and more museums are prompted to inject entrepreneurial mindset and practices into their activity, leading to a nascent interest from the academic field in the possibility offered by entrepreneurship in the context of museums. We identify museums as a unique context motivated by the values and desires of the museum workers, whilst arguing that research on museum entrepreneurship has so far neglected the social aspect of these museum workers. Instead, the popular discourse has generally favored functionalism and positivism. As such, we propose to explore and potentialize an alternative view of entrepreneurship in museums that places the people, along with their values and desires, at its core. To that end, we conduct a case study with the Naval Museum, a governmental museum located in Karlskrona, Sweden. Through an iterative abductive approach inspired by grounded theory method, we shed light on several potentials and phenomena emerging from a combination of the museum workers’ values and the unique context of the Naval Museum. After performing a metamorphosis analysis inspired by Weiskopf and Steyaert, we give birth to child-museum-entrepreneurship, a concept unburdened of preconceptions. We then infuse it with Hjorth’s public entrepreneurship theory and discover a new form of becoming of museum entrepreneurship, potentializing its existence and power of re-creation and opening the door towards a human-centered museum entrepreneurship.
75

Exploring the formation, maintenance, and adaptive significance of multi-male groups in feral horse societies / 野生馬社会における複数雄集団の形成と維持ならびに適応的意義を探る

Pinto, Pandora Francisca Costa Barão 25 September 2023 (has links)
付記する学位プログラム名: 霊長類学・ワイルドライフサイエンス・リーディング大学院 / 京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(理学) / 甲第24876号 / 理博第4986号 / 新制||理||1712(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)教授 平田 聡, 教授 三谷 曜子, 教授 松田 一希 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Science / Kyoto University / DGAM
76

Social infrastructures of urban solidarity : Neighborhood art spaces and their potential for negotiating difference

Damian, Corina Maria January 2023 (has links)
In the context of negative consequences following an economic growth paradigm, in the urban sphere, such as uneven urban development, marginalization, gentrification and austerity measures, the present study directs the focus towards the spaces of civic promise. These spaces have the potential to challenge the commoditized and consumerist urban practices and imagine alternative futures. The present paper applies an infrastructural approach to neighborhood art spaces with the purpose of identifying and understanding urban solidarity. Urban solidarity is conceptualized as civic sociality that negotiates difference. To pursue this line of inquiry, the thesis analyzes practices, relations, encounters and socialities that are allowed at Konsthall C, a neighborhood art space located in Hökarängen, a southern suburb of Stockholm, Sweden. The three research questions that guide the thesis are discussing the qualities of the art space, the civic sociality and how it negotiates difference and the dynamics between the qualities of the spaces and the civic social relations manifested in the space. These dynamics reveal that there is not a simple straightforward relationship between the two. Moreover, the importance of the background is reiterated for these types of spaces. Besides this, a nuanced perspective on the types of civic sociality and how it works towards negotiating differences is highlighted.
77

Social decision-making in a group living cichlid fish

Reddon, Adam R. 10 1900 (has links)
<p>For my doctoral research I examined social decision-making in a cooperatively breeding cichlid fish, <em>Neolamprologus pulcher</em> with a focus on affiliation and aggression. I investigated the role that the nonapeptide hormone, isotocin, plays in modulating social decisions in these contexts. I show that <em>N. pulcher</em> males prefer to join larger groups regardless of the rank at which they will join, whereas females prefer larger groups only when they can join a group in a high rank (Chapter 2). I examined decision-making during resource contests in<em> </em>(Chapter 3) and found that <em>N. pulcher</em> are sensitive to the size of their opponents, making fighting decisions depending on their opponents’ body size. I also found that smaller <em>N. pulcher</em> are more motivated to persist within contests, showing a shorter latency to resume fighting following interruption (Chapter 4). In Chapters 5 and 6, I explored the role of isotocin (the teleost fish homologue of oxytocin) in regulating social behaviour. I discovered that an increase in isotocin increased responsiveness to social information. Fish treated with isotocin were more sensitive to their opponent’s size in contests and were more submissive to dominant individuals within their social group (Chapter 5). Unexpectedly, I found that exogenous isotocin reduced sociality in <em>N. pulcher, </em>and that an isotocin receptor antagonist increased it (Chapter 6). These results suggest that the relationship between isotocin and social behaviour is both complex and context specific. In my final data chapter, I used social network analysis to explore the role of dominance interactions in determining the structure of <em>N. pulcher</em> social groups. I found that <em>N. pulcher</em> dominance hierarchies are highly linear, but that dominance interactions are not predicted by sex or body size asymmetry (Chapter 7). I found that conflict within <em>N. pulcher</em> social groups is greatest at the top of the dominance hierarchy. Taken together the results of my thesis helps to elucidate the behavioural and hormonal basis of social decision-making in a cooperatively breeding vertebrate and help to illuminate the evolution of social behaviour.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
78

The Sociality of Gaming : A mixed methods approach to understanding digital gaming as a social leisure activity

Eklund, Lina January 2012 (has links)
This dissertation is an exploration of the practice of social digital gaming, using a mixed methods approach with complementary data and analytical methods. The main themes are the prevalence and meaning of gamers’ experiences of social gaming and the underlying structures limiting or assisting social gaming, both material and social. Applying an everyday perspective, focus is on gamers’ day-to-day practices and experiences. Studies I and II enquire into relational aspects of social gaming based on interviews and survey data. Study III investigates the relationship between game design and gamer agency and its importance for social interaction with strangers, using in-game participant observation. Lastly in Study IV, building on interviews, female gamers come to the fore as their gender construction in an online game is examined with the aim of understanding the connection between online and offline. The main result concerns how social gaming takes place in various social relations. How gaming comes to be―what it means―is dependent on the relations between gamers, be they family members, real life friends, Internet friends or strangers. In these interactions, gender and sexual identity are realized; in the relations between gamers, physical proximate or online. Finally, virtuality is shown to be a social accomplishment of the people engaging in games rather than a property of the games themselves. Focus on the relational unveils how gaming comes to be in the process of interaction, a process at the same time dependent on underlying structures, i.e. games as designed platforms with certain affordances for social behaviour. We are able, thus, to reconcile the social constructivist position that (social) gaming is created in the relations between gamers engaging in games with the more formalist approach that games are rule based structures. Games create a foundation for interaction that can further develop into the creation/maintenance of relationships and identity. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Manuscript. Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript.</p>
79

Pant-grunts in wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) : the vocal development of a social signal

Laporte, Marion N. C. January 2011 (has links)
While the gestural communication of apes is widely recognised as intentional and flexible, their vocal communication still remains considered as mostly genetically determined and emotionally bound. Trying to limit the direct projections of linguistic concepts, that are far from holding a unified view on what constitute human language, this thesis presents a detailed description of the pant-grunt vocalisation usage and development in the chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) of the Budongo forest, Uganda. Pant-grunts are one of the most social vocalisations of the chimpanzee vocal repertoire and are always given from a subordinate individual to a dominant. The question of how such a signal is used and develops is critical for our understanding of chimpanzee social and vocal complexity in an ontogenetical and phylogenetical perpective. Results suggest that pant-grunt vocalisations can be used in a flexible way, both in their form and usage within a social group. More specifically, chimpanzees seemed to take into account the number and identity of surrounding individuals before producing these vocalisations. At the acoustic level, pant-grunts seem to be very variable vocalisations that corresponded to different social situations commonly encountered. Grunts are one of the first vocalisations produced by babies but they are not first produced in social contexts. Although some modifications of the social grunts form and usage could not entirely be attributed to maturation only, the role of the mother seemed to be restricted. Her direct influence was perhaps more visible in the rhythmic patterns of chorusing events. Taken together, this thesis suggests that chimpanzee vocalisations are more flexible in their usage, production and acquisition than previously thought and might therefore be more similar to gestural communication.
80

The effects of contact patterns and genetic specificity on host and parasite evolution

Ashby, Ben January 2014 (has links)
Many bacteria, viruses and other parasites cause severe morbidity or mortality in their host populations, creating strong selection for physiological or behavioural mechanisms to avoid disease. Likewise, changes in host susceptibility and contact patterns can dramatically influence the spread of infectious diseases, and hence selection for traits such as virulence and infectivity range in parasites. Understanding how ecological and evolutionary changes in one population affect selection in another represents a key challenge for theoreticians and empiricists alike, and is essential for gaining further insights into host-parasite relationships. This thesis contains theoretical models that explore how genetic and environmental factors shape the evolutionary and coevolutionary dynamics of hosts and parasites. In particular, the roles of genetic specificity (i.e. genotype-by-genotype interactions) and population mixing patterns are investigated, using both mathematical models and computer simulations. A broad range of scenarios are covered, including the coevolution of broad resistance and infectivity ranges (generalism), the persistence of coevolutionary cycling and the maintenance of sex, the effects of mating behaviour on disease prevalence and evolution, and the evolution of sexual and social behaviour. The models presented herein develop our understanding of host-parasite relationships and highlight the importance of genetic interactions and ecological feedbacks.

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