Tag: Behaviour

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Banding together by Kathy Gillen

Entangled worm blob
Seeking connection with mates
Much like a mosh pit

by Kathy Gillen

In laboratory culture conditions California blackworms huddle together, but why? California blackworms (Lumbriculus variegatus) are widely distributed freshwater annelids that are easy to care for in the lab (1). In the wild these detritivores stick their heads into the muck at the edges of ponds and rivers while their tails extend through the water column for gas exchange. In lab culture consisting of worms in bowls of artificial freshwater, the worms form tangled masses that with a touch from a pipette wriggle apart. This behavior fascinates students and students frequently ask why the worms form knotted blobs.

One explanation for the worm blobs is that lacking a substrate such as mud to stick their heads into, the worms instead burrow into each other. Whether or not this is correct, in worms, as in other animals, aggregating provides benefits. Researchers manipulated blob sizes and found that larger blobs help more worms survive thermal stress in a temperature gradient experiment. And blobs of worms better withstand desiccation stress (2). Additionally the physics of the entangled masses themselves are being examined, research that may pave the way for bioinspired materials with useful new properties (3,4). Long used as model organisms in whole body regeneration and in environmental toxicology studies, the California blackworm continues to provide new research avenues.

Further reading:

  1. ‘It Cuts Both Ways: An Annelid Model System for the Study of Regeneration in the Laboratory and in the Classroom’, 2021, Martinez Acosta, V.G., Arellano-Carbajal, F., Gillen, K., Tweeten, K.A., Zattara, E.E. Front Cell Dev Biol 9, 780422. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2021.780422
  2. ‘Collective dynamics in entangled worm and robot blobs’, 2021, Ozkan-Aydin, Y., Goldman, D.I., Bhamla, M.S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 118, e2010542118. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2010542118
  3. ‘Following the entangled state of filaments’, 2023, Panagiotou, E. Science 380, 340–341. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adh4055
  4. ‘Ultrafast reversible self-assembly of living tangled matter’, 2023, Patil, V.P., Tuazon, H., Kaufman, E., Chakrabortty, T., Qin, D., Dunkel, J., Bhamla, M.S. Science 380, 392–398. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.ade7759

Author bio:

Kathy Gillen teaches and conducts research at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. Her Kenyon profile can be found here: https://www.kenyon.edu/directory/kathy-gillen/

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Masterful Mimicry by Douglas J. Lanzo

desert drongo
mimicking meerkat sentries
to draw them off guard

by Douglas J. Lanzo

Fork-tailed desert drongo first win the trust of meerkats by sounding an alarm when a threatening hawk circles above their burrows.  Having won their trust, a wily drongo then betrays it by sounding a false alarm.  This sends meerkats into a tailspin, inducing them to flee to their burrows.  In the process , the duped meerkats abandon captured insects, lizards and scorpions, leaving the tasty critters behind for grateful drongo to claim.

Once the meerkats catch onto this trick, fork-tailed drongo elevate their deception to the next level.  From their desert perches, they imitate the warning bark or high-pitched squeal of the meerkat sentry itself, sending the clan into a panic.  The burrowing meerkats leave behind insects, scorpions and lizards for the breakfasting drongo, who swiftly swoop down from trees and shrubs to retrieve the coveted prey.

Further reading:

To learn more about this fascinating opportunistic behavior,  called kleptoparasitism, check out the BBC series Wild Africa to witness these amazing interactions among Kalahari desert meerkats and fork-tailed drongo, available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEYCjJqr21A 

‘Forktailed drongo’, Wikipedia article, available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fork-tailed_drongo 

‘Kleptoparasitism’, Wikipedia article, available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleptoparasitism.

Author bio:

Doug is an award-winning American author and poet of over 530 internationally published poems whose debut novel The Year of the Bear won the Ames Award for YA Books and whose second book I Have Lived was named American Book Fest Novella of the Year.  His Author’s website is www.douglaslanzo.com.

Check out other sciku by Doug here.

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A toxic relationship by Mike Fainzilber

love hurts
the semen
and the venom

by Mike Fainzilber

Blue ringed octopi are small (they can fit in the palm of your hand), beautiful and extremely deadly – a venomous bite from the octopus nestled in your hand can kill you. Female octopi are larger than the males and will readily devour their smaller male partners during mating. The male solves this problem by biting into the female’s aorta,  injecting a large dose of venom that paralyzes the female for long enough for the male to complete mating and escape (1, 2).

A previously published SciKu by Debbie Lee describes application of a similar principle in insect biocontrol (3).

Further reading

(1) ‘Blue-lined octopus Hapalochlaena fasciata males envenomate females to facilitate copulation’, 2025, Chung, W., et al., Current Biology, available: https://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(25)00057-0

(2) ‘These octopuses inject their lovers with one of the world’s deadliest toxins’, 2025, Wilcox, C., ScienceAdviser, available: https://www.science.org/content/article/these-octopuses-inject-their-lovers-one-world-s-deadliest-toxins

(3) ‘Toxic Male’, 2025, Lee, D., The Sciku Project, available: https://thescikuproject.com/2025/02/27/toxic-male/

Author bio:

Mike Fainzilber’s day job is a biologist. He began writing haiku and senryu during the pandemic, and this side effect of COVID-19 has not worn off yet. Editors in his two spheres of activity have been known to suggest that he should best restrict his efforts to the other sphere. Find out more about Mike’s research via his lab’s website and connect with him on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/mfainzilber.bsky.social .

Read more sciku by Mike here.

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Fledgling Courage to Pierce the Pane by Douglas J. Lanzo

thirst for survival
drenched fledging great dusky swift
pierces waterfall

by Douglas J. Lanzo

This sciku was inspired by watching the “South America” episode of the BBC series Seven Worlds, One Planet narrated by David Attenborough.

It shows how great dusky swifts build nests protected by the waterfalls from hawks and other birds of prey, which nests get flooded from dam releases upriver of the spectacular Iguazu Falls (on the Iguaçu River). The torrential dam releases sometimes force the parent great dusky swifts to have to abandon their fledglings, who unless they can escape from the torrents and fly through a massive cascading curtain of water into the sunlight, will either starve or plummet to their deaths. The poem recognizes the courage and tenacity of the fledglings who attempt to breach this waterfall curtain and succeed in doing so.

Further reading and watching:

‘Great dusky swifts: A leap of faith’, 2019, Seven Worlds, One Planet, BBC, available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07tcnyf

‘Protectig a South American wonder of the world: Iguazú Falls’, 2019, Webster, J., BBC, available: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5MbnkmwJmQ1zpTrksTVRSmF/protecting-a-south-american-wonder-of-the-world-iguazu-falls

‘Great dusky swift’, Wikipedia article, available: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_dusky_swift

Author bio:

Doug is an award-winning American author and poet of over 500 internationally published poems whose debut novel The Year of the Bear won the Ames Award for YA Books and whose second book I Have Lived was named American Book Fest Novella of the Year. His Author’s website is www.douglaslanzo.com.

Check out other sciku by Doug here.

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The Blood and the Run by Mike Fainzilber

flying dracula
bleeding to run
running to bleed

by Mike Fainzilber

This is a haiku about the stuff of nightmares – vampire bats. As we know, vampire bats feed on blood, and blood is low in carbohydrates and lipids that are the typical fuel for activities that require high energy. Flight is highly costly in energy, so how can it be fueled by blood alone? Certain blood-sucking insects can fuel their flight by direct metabolism of amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) in their blood meals, but this metabolic specialization was known only in very few insect species.

A team of biologists traveled from the University of Toronto to Belize to find out if vampire bats can do the same. The researchers took advantage of the fact that vampire bats are exceptionally good runners, and they use this to approach their prey along the ground. Bats were fed cow blood with labeled amino acids and the researchers then placed them on treadmills, monitoring tracer release in the bat’s breath as they ran on the treadmill.

The experiments clearly showed that vampire bats use amino acids as their main fuel source while running. Since running is a major hunting mode for this species, they literally bleed prey to run, and run to bleed…

Further reading:

‘Vampire bats rapidly fuel running with essential or non-essential amino acids from a blood meal’, 2024, Rossi, G.S. & Welch, K.C., Biology Letters, available: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0453

‘How blood-sucking vampire bats get their energy’, 2024, The Economist, available: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2024/11/06/how-blood-sucking-vampire-bats-get-their-energy

Author bio:

Mike Fainzilber’s day job is a biologist. He began writing haiku and senryu during the pandemic, and this side effect of COVID-19 has not worn off yet. Editors in his two spheres of activity have been known to suggest that he should best restrict his efforts to the other sphere. Find out more about Mike’s research via his lab’s website and connect with him on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/mfainzilber.bsky.social

Read more sciku by Mike here.

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Down Dog by James Penha

I knew my dog sensed
my anxiety he scents—
and empathizes!

by James Penha

A new study shows that not only do dogs smell human stress, they are themselves depressed as a result.

Further reading:

‘The odour of an unfamiliar stressed or relaxed person affects dogs’ responses to a cognitive bias test’, 2024, Parr-Cortes, Z., Müller, C.T., Talas, L., Mendl, M., Guest, C., & Rooney, N.J., Scientific Reports. Available: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-66147-1

‘Dogs can smell human stress and it bums them out, study shows’, 2024, Page, S., The Washington Post. Available: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2024/08/08/dogs-smell-human-stress-study/

Author bio:

Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him ?) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. Penha edits TheNewVerse.News, an online journal of current-events poetry. You can find out more about James’ poetry on his website https://jamespenha.com and catch up with him on Twitter @JamesPenha

Read more of James’ sciku here.

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Boys Whale Be Boys by James Penha

humpbacks copulate
in photos for the first time—
out of the closet

by James Penha

The world’s first photographs of humpback whales copulating are even more groundbreaking because both individuals were male.

Further reading:

‘An observation of sexual behavior between two male humpback whales’, 2024, Stack, S.H., Krannichfeld, L. & Romano, B., Marine Mammal Science. Available: https://doi.org/10.1111/mms.13119

‘Humpback Whale Sex Observed for the First Time Ever, between Two Males’, 2024, Hobson, M., Scientific American. Available: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humpback-whale-sex-observed-for-the-first-time-ever-between-two-males/

Author bio:

Expat New Yorker James Penha (he/him ?) has lived for the past three decades in Indonesia. Nominated for Pushcart Prizes in fiction and poetry, his work is widely published in journals and anthologies. His newest chapbook of poems, American Daguerreotypes, is available for Kindle. Penha edits TheNewVerse.News, an online journal of current-events poetry. You can find out more about James’ poetry on his website https://jamespenha.com and catch up with him on Twitter @JamesPenha

Read more of James’ sciku here.

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Sentient Sea Play by Douglas J. Lanzo

sentient sea play
upside-down tentacles swirl
through schools of minnows

by Douglas J. Lanzo

Watching a common octopus in the movie ‘My Octopus Teacher’ harmlessly herd tide-surged minnows into a school and repeatedly maneuver its tentacles through it, harmlessly playing with it, I was astounded by its high level of intelligence. Despite interacting with the helpless minnows for an extended period of time, the recreational creature did not eat or catch a single minnow.

Further reading:

For additional information, besides watching the movie ‘My Octopus Teacher’, please take a look at a fascinating article on adaptive behavior in the March-April Issue of Harvard Magazine entitled ‘Inner Senses’ and a recent Harvard Law School article entitled ‘All Creatures Great and Small’ that chronicles the exploratory behavior and ability of octopi to individually recognize humans.

Author bio:
Doug is an international author whose Newbery-nominated novel, The Year of the Bear, won the 2023 Ames Award for Young Adult literature, was a finalist for the 2023 Hawthorne Prize and is a 2022 Firebird Award Winner. He has published 337 poems in 70 literary publications in 10 countries. He and his twin son poets enjoy nature, fishing, tennis, hiking and snorkeling. His Author’s website is at www.douglaslanzo.com .

Check out other sciku by Doug here.

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Ornamental Defense by Douglas J. Lanzo

Christmas ornaments
pursued seabed octopus
adorns legs with shells

by Douglas J. Lanzo

I was inspired to write this Sciku by watching the movie ‘My Octopus Teacher’ and observing a highly intelligent Common Octopus evade a Pyjama shark predator in a kelp forest in False Bay, South Africa by covering its arms with seafloor seashells.

Its amazingly high level of intelligence was reflected in its recognition of the free diver who dove to its lairs in the kelp forest on a daily basis to interact with it, its playing with fish with its tentacles in the tide, its cloaking itself with strands of kelp to temporarily escape from a Pyjama shark, its dashing onto a sand beach to escape the jaws of the menacing shark and its riding atop the startled shark and slipping off its back to complete its getaway.

Further reading:

Please check out ‘My Octopus Teacher’ for more information about the intelligence and remarkable sentience and adaptive behaviors of octopi as well as the recent article ‘Inner Senses’ by Jonathan Shaw in Harvard Magazine for information about its adaptive behavior at https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2023/03/feature-nicholas-bellono-animal-adaptations

Author bio:
Doug is an international author whose Newbery-nominated novel, The Year of the Bear, won the 2023 Ames Award for Young Adult literature, was a finalist for the 2023 Hawthorne Prize and is a 2022 Firebird Award Winner. He has published 337 poems in 70 literary publications in 10 countries. He and his twin son poets enjoy nature, fishing, tennis, hiking and snorkeling. His Author’s website is at www.douglaslanzo.com .

Check out other sciku by Doug here.

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Civil Disobedience by Jerome Berglund

honeyed words profess
or letter wrapped around brick
different windows

By Jerome Berglund

From Minneapolis – where belligerent citizens have nearly achieved meaningful abolition of their existing law enforcement institutions, are presently excitingly experimenting with innovative alternate approaches to policing not rooted in ‘slave patrols’, and utilizing social workers who do not view citizens as enemy combatants rather than goons trained to react violently – one distinctly appreciates the power and potency of responsible, cautious exertion of civil disobedience in achieving critical goals.

Just as salty suffragettes employed outside the box solutions to win their votes, one wonders what sort of inspired disruptions, boycotts and protests will become obliged to convince venal, bought politicians who ‘vote with their wallets’ to finally act in their species’ interest to seriously address the devastating industrial destruction well on its way to making the planet uninhabitable, already having wiped out 70% of existing animal populations in the span of half a century.  

Further reading: Conservative republicans highly skeptical of climate scientists

Author bio:

Jerome Berglund, recently nominated for the 2022 Touchstone awards, graduated from USC’s film program, worked in the entertainment industry before returning to the midwest where he has been employed as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves.  Jerome has exhibited many haiku, senryu and haiga online and in print, most recently in the Asahi Shimbun, Bear Creek Haiku, Bamboo Hut, Cold Moon Journal, Daily Haiga, Failed Haiku, Haiku Dialogue, Scarlet Dragonfly, Under the Basho, and the Zen Space. You can follow him on Twitter @BerglundJerome and find more of his poetry here:  https://flowersunmedia.wixsite.com/jbphotography/post/haiku-senryu-and-haiga-publications

Check out more sciku from Jerome here.

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Silver linings

feeling like a fraud
open handed, steady eyed
gaining patient trust

Imposture syndrome affects people in all areas of life, and particularly in professional working life. It’s a behaviour where an individual doubts their own skills, abilities and accomplishments and are afraid of being exposed as a fraud. It’s thought that nearly 70% of people feel symptoms of imposture syndrome at one or more times in their life, and the phenomenon can impact mental and physical wellbeing.

Whilst the consequences of imposture syndrome are generally negative, a recent study suggests that there may be some benefits too. Basima Tewfik (2022) studied over 3,600 employees from a broad range of sectors, including from an investment advisory firm and a physician-training program. She found that people with workplace imposter thoughts become more other-oriented, getting evaluated as being higher in interpersonal effectiveness.

For instance, trainee doctors with more impostor thoughts were rated by their patients as being more interpersonally effective, more empathetic, as better listeners and better able to draw out information during doctor-patient interactions. The trainee doctors with imposture thoughts were exhibiting greater eye gaze, more open hand gestures and more nodding – all indicators of an other-focused orientation.

Importantly, Tewfik found that workplace imposter thoughts didn’t significantly affect objective performance – you might feel like a fraud but your colleagues wouldn’t guess from the quality of your work.

Original research: https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2020.1627

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The Core Correlate of COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance by Dr Michael J. Leach

vaccine acceptance
correlates with a belief
in the greater good

by Dr Michael J. Leach

During 2020 and 2021, acceptance of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) vaccines has been among the most topical areas of health science research. As COVID-19 vaccine availability continues to rise worldwide in a global effort to combat the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, more and more people are faced with the question of whether or not to get vaccinated. Even when an approved COVID-19 vaccine is readily available to a particular subgroup of the global population, a high level of vaccine uptake cannot be guaranteed. For one reason or another, individuals within the population may be hesitant to roll up their sleeves to receive the COVID-19 vaccine.

In a UK population-based study, Freeman et al. (2021) investigated factors related to vaccine hesitancy through an online survey completed by 5,114 adults over September-October 2020. The research team measured vaccine hesitancy within the study population using a specially developed tool—the Oxford COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy scale. While 71.7% of surveyed adults expressed willingness to accept the COVID-19 vaccine, 16.6% were very unsure about vaccination and 11.7% showed strong vaccine hesitancy.

Among the various beliefs, views, attitudes, and past experiences considered by the researchers in their analysis, the factor most strongly correlated with vaccine hesitancy was whether or not individuals believed in the collective importance of COVID-19 vaccination. An individual’s belief in the collective importance of COVID-19 vaccination is defined as the recognition that getting vaccinated protects the community and saves lives. This belief is consistent with the critically important field of public health and with the idea of doing something—in this case, getting vaccinated—for ‘the greater good’.

Based on the results of their study, Freeman et al. suggest that public health messages highlighting the societal benefits of vaccination could be broadcast in an effort to increase belief in the collective importance of COVID-19 vaccination and, thus, improve vaccine acceptance and uptake.

The original research article described here is available open access online:
Freeman D et al. (2021). COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the UK: the Oxford coronavirus explanations, attitudes, and narratives survey (Oceans) II. Psychological Medicine 1–15. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7804077/pdf/S0033291720005188a.pdf

Michael J. Leach (@m_jleach) is an Australian epidemiologist, biostatistician, and poet based at the Monash University School of Rural Health. His debut poetry collection is Chronicity (Melbourne Poets Union, 2020).

Check out more sciku by Michael, including ‘Drug-Induced Hip Fractures‘, ‘The Psychopharmacological Revolution‘, ‘Quality of Life at Seven Years Post-Stroke‘, ‘The Early Impacts of COVID-19 on Australian General Practice‘, ‘The Burden of Bushfire Smoke‘, and ‘Australian Science Poetry‘ with science communicator Rachel Rayner. Michael also has another Covid-19-related sciku published in Pulse which is well worth checking out: ‘flu shot announcement‘.

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Xenopus Enrichment

Smooth frogs and fake plants
embracing in the water.
Happiness is here.

The African Clawed Frog, Xenopus laevis, is a common laboratory model species of amphibian, used in research primarily for their embryos and eggs. Yet despite their popularity little attention has been given to the housing and husbandry – what is the best way to keep the African Clawed Frog?

Recently, however, things have begun to change as more attention is being given to the welfare of ‘lower’ vertebrates and invertebrates. Indeed, in 2016 we published research demonstrating that a darker tank background resulted in lower levels of corticosterone (a stress hormone), lower instances of stereotypical behaviour and less change in body mass (Holmes et al, 2016). The results suggest that darker backgrounds are better for African Clawed frog welfare in captivity (check out the sciku ‘Clawed frogs indicate‘ for more information about the study and the likely reasons behind the preference).

Now in 2021 new research has been published by Ramos and Ortiz-Díez that examines X. laevis preferences for types of physical enrichment within their tanks. The researchers provided tanks of frogs with artificial plants and opaque PVC tunnels and checked on the frogs three times a day for 6 weeks to see where in the tanks they were spending their time – with the plants, tunnels or in the open areas of the tanks. The results indicate that the frogs preferred the plants 40% more than the tunnels, although both were preferred over the areas of open space in the tank.

As research into the welfare of amphibians gains momentum it’s good to see more work focussing on this common laboratory animal and how it’s kept in captivity. Particularly warming is that in the experimental methods the researchers specifically state that tanks with dark sides and bases were used to reduce visual stress, referencing our earlier work.

Original research: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F00236772211011290

A note about the sciku: The phrase ‘smooth frogs’ that starts the poem is a reference to the meaning of the name laevis – smooth (the word Xenopus means ‘strange foot’).

Interested in African clawed frogs? Check out these other Xenopus sciku: ‘Clawed frogs indicate‘, ‘Have frog, will travel‘, ‘Fungal culprit‘ and ‘Reservoir or predator‘.

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Violent Aftershocks

Gender violence.
The ripples of disaster,
exacerbating.

Natural disasters and hazards are increasing in frequency, severity and duration worldwide, with evidence suggesting that the cause is anthropogenic climate change. Whilst this means we need improved and increased disaster management policies and practices for the immediate impacts of disasters (e.g. the collapse of a building during an earthquake), it is just as important to understand the wider implications natural disasters.

Women and girls are disproportionately impacted by natural disasters and hazards, including having higher mortality rates. The causes of this discrepancy include “discriminatory practices in relief efforts, lower access to information and resources, care responsibilities and gendered poverty”, with women’s perspectives in disaster management “not adequately considered and met”.

Yet new research by Thurston et al. (2021) also suggests that violence against women and girls also increases following natural disasters. Reviewing 37 previous studies the team found positive associations between disaster exposure and increased gender-based violence, with 12 of the 20 quantitative studies showing a positive association and all 17 of the qualitative and mixed methods studies describing post-disaster violence against women and girls.

The researchers suggest three reasons behind this increase, with natural disasters and hazards:

  • Increasing stressors that trigger gendered violence (e.g. trauma, mental health issues, financial insecurities).
  • Increasing enabling environments (e.g. the absence of police, health and support services, a breakdown of family structure, social isolation).
  • Exacerbating the underlying drivers of violence against women and girls (e.g. gender and social inequalities, lack of female representation and inclusion).

Whilst the researchers acknowledge their work has some limitations (due to the limitations of the studies they examined), their findings make it clear that disaster risk-reduction policies must be gender sensitive and women need to be included in all aspects of disaster management, from policy to practice.

Original research: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2020-004377

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The Masterplan by Dr Lisa Holmes

Zoo science prevails

Conservation cannot wait

“Prevent extinction”

By Lisa Holmes

Celebrating its 90th year, Chester Zoo is one of the world’s leading zoo’s, housing more than 500 species and dedicated to their mission of “Preventing extinction”.

This week marks the release of their new 10 year Conservation Masterplan; a bold vision with the aim to tackle the global extinction crisis using six key targets:

  • Preserve options for future conservation for an additional 150 species through conservation breeding and propagation.
  • Halt or reverse the decline of 200 highly threatened populations of plants and animal species in the wild.
  • Improve landscapes for wildlife totalling 250,000 hectares.
  • Train 5,000 conservationists to deliver positive change for wildlife.
  • Empower 10 million people to live more sustainably.
  • Influence change in five major policy areas for wildlife.

Chester Zoo has an integrated approach to conservation using the skills and expertise of their staff, conservation partners, students, academics and supporters.

Dr Lisa Holmes is the Lead Conservation Scientist for Behaviour and Welfare at the zoo. She works closely with the animal curators and teams to provide an evidence-base for management decisions. With her team of staff and students, she conducts research to monitor the wellbeing of all species and is developing tailored welfare assessments for use within the zoo. She is also Vice-Chair of the Animal Welfare Working Group for the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA).

Check out Lisa’s previous sciku ‘A Zoo Without Bars’.

You can read Chester Zoo’s Conservation Masterplan by clicking on the image below:

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Backlit Billboards in the Sea by Prof Teena Carroll

Sending messages,

luminescent Humboldt Squid

flicker in the deep.

by Teena Carroll

A group of scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute conducted a study of Humboldt squid using remote operated vehicles.  They wanted to determine how a group of squid could execute complex behaviors in low light deep sea conditions.  For instance, the squid avoid body contact with each other even when pursuing the same prey.

Burford and Robison (2020) found that the squid used specific color patterns on their bodies primarily when they were hunting in groups.  Normally, such color changes would not be visible in the deep sea; Humboldt squid are bioluminescent which researchers hypothesize essentially provides backlighting to highlight the color changes.

The complexity of the color changes prevented the researchers from translating exactly what the squid are communicating.  However they were able to document that the patterns are a consistent and effective communication method.  After observing repeated patterns, they think that the visual language of the squid may be evolved enough to use syntax.

Original research: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1920875117

Additional information: https://www.mbari.org/humboldt-squid-signaling/

Teena Carroll is a mathematics professor at Emory & Henry College in Southwest Virginia and has been a poet longer than she has been a mathematician. @Teena Carroll

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Braking Decisions

Too posh to push? No?
How about too rich to brake?
Poor pedestrians!

Road safety and awareness is crucial for pedestrians and drivers alike, particularly when it comes to crossing the road. Yet not everyone is made equal so understanding the decisions and interactions that occur between driver and pedestrian is crucial for public health and safety.

Coughenour et al. (2020) examined driver yielding rates at a midblock crosswalk in Las Vegas. Their results reveal worrying tendencies for road safety based on both the identity of the driver and the pedestrian.

Drivers of more expensive cars were less likely to stop for pedestrians at cross walks, with yielding decreasing by 3% for each $1,000 increase in car cost. The identity of the pedestrian mattered too – cars yielded more frequently for women and white pedestrians compared to males and non-white pedestrians.

Perhaps most worryingly of all, only 28% of drivers actually yielded to pedestrians at the crosswalks, despite being legally obliged to do so.

Original research: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jth.2020.100831

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Indigenous Engagement

The benefits of
indigenous engagement:
Ethics and Science.

Local knowledge and an awareness of local context can be integral to conducting a variety of research. However, one thing that’s less often considered is the impact of the diversity of the research team itself.

Conservation research by Ward-Fear et al (2019) into the impact of cane toads on yellow-spotted monitor lizards in Australia has unintentionally produced evidence of the scientific benefits of collaborating with local indigenous people.

Large cane toads are spreading through tropical Australia but are fatally toxic if eaten by yellow-spotted monitor lizards. Ward-Fear et al (2016) trained lizards with smaller, non-lethal cane toads and then compared the survival rates of trained and non-trained lizards in the wild over an 18 month period. They found that trained lizards had a greater survival rate than non-trained lizards, suggesting that the training helped the lizards to avoid eating the larger toxic cane toads.

Yet their study also revealed the importance of researcher diversity. In monitoring the population of lizards over 18 months, the research team included western scientists (professional, nonindigenous ecologists) and indigenous rangers (Australian-Aboriginal Traditional Owners of the region).

The indigenous rangers saw lizards from a greater distance, in more dense vegetation, under poorer light levels, and more frequently when the lizard was stationary. Additionally, when assessing the behavioural traits of the lizards, those that were spotted by the indigenous rangers were found to be more shy. What’s more, the ranger caught lizards appeared to benefit more from the training against the toxic cane toads.

All this highlights the importance of cultural diversity within research teams and in particular shows that indigenous collaboration can be utterly crucial for conservation efforts.

Original research:

Training of predatory lizards reduces their vulnerability to invasive toxic prey: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2015.0863

Collaboration with indigenous peoples can alter the outcomes of conservation research: https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12643

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Resources forecast

Resources forecast

bat foraging. Alone? Group?

You are what you eat.

 

Whilst Darwin’s finches are a classic example of selection acting on bird morphology and resulting in species that are able to eat different seed sizes and shapes, food characteristics can result in evolutionary impacts that are less immediately obvious.

Egert-Berg et al (2018) investigated the impact of ephemeral food sources on bat social behaviour. By tracking the foraging behaviour of 5 species of bats the researchers found that in bat species where food sources were predictable individual bats foraged alone, reducing the impacts of conspecific competition. In contrast, where food resources were unpredictable and transient bat species foraged in groups. The research is a fantastic example of a collaboration between researchers in different countries and continents.

Original research: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2018.09.064

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Ensnared

Poor social spider.

Ensnared, building its own tomb.

Parasitoid wasp.

 

Parasitoid wasps are known to lay eggs on their victims which are then consumed by the hatching larvae. Some species will even paralyse their victim and place them in a nest to be eaten alive by their offspring. Yet behaviour observed by Fernandez-Fournier et al (2018) has revealed a wasp species that behaves even more disturbingly.

Adult Zatypota sp. wasps were found to target a species of social spider that lives in a colony web and rarely leaves it. The wasps lay their eggs on the abdomen of the spider and when the larvae hatches it attaches to the spider. The larvae influences the spider to then leave its colony and spin a cocoon web in which the spider then waits until the larvae finally kills it. Its meal consumed, the larvae then spins a pupal cocoon within the protection of the outer cocoon web and a few days later emerges as an adult.

The results reveal that the spider is manipulated into performing unusual behaviours, since such social spiders rarely leave their colony and the cocoon web is a complete different form of web. The infected spider makes its own tomb before being eaten alive within it.

Original research: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/een.12698

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Domino effect

Domino effect.

Ocean-behaviour-hookworms

lead to seal pup deaths.

 

The web of life, food chains, ecological balance – there are a lot of terms that indicate how interlinked ecosystems are. A recent, tragic example of this is how a rise in ocean temperatures can indirectly result in increased seal pup death from hookworm infection.

Seguel et al (2018) found that sea temperatures influenced the survival of South American fur seal pups. Sea temperatures effect wind patterns and ocean currents, changing the abundance of nutrients and as a result fishes. Higher sea temperatures resulted in lower fish abundance, meaning that fur seal mothers needed to spend more time at sea feeding, consequentially spending less time with their pups. The reduced maternal care led to lower pup growth rates and a less effective immune system, making the fur seal pups more susceptible and less likely to successfully fight off hookworm infection.

Original research: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.38432

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What welcome awaits?

Drought. The water’s gone.

A forced move to find new homes.

What welcome awaits?

 

Relocation due to environmental problems can be a dangerous process. Linke et al (2018) interviewed individuals in Kenya who have been forced to relocate as a result of drought. They found that people forced to move are more likely to be victims of violence than the general population. The research also found that such displaced individuals only support the use of violence if they themselves have been victims of violence. This suggests that such migrant populations are unlikely to be the sources of violence unless victimized first.

Original research: http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aad8cc

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Drive safe!

Why would you risk kids?

Is social media so

important? Drive safe!

 

Car accidents frequently occur when drivers are distracted. New research suggests that the temptations offered by mobile phones is too much, even when driving children.

A survey of 760 adults from the USA by McDonald et al (2018) found that 47% of respondents have driven children aged between 4 and 10 whilst on a hand held phone without hands-free. The statistics get worse: 33% of parents had read text messages, 26% had written text messages and 13% had used social media whilst driving with children.

Original research: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpeds.2018.06.003

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Eggy difference

The Baltic flounder:

Native to namesake region.

Eggy difference.

 

A new species of flounder has been identified as separate from the European flounder by Momigliano et al (2018). The Baltic flounder (Platichthys solemdali sp.) is native only to the Baltic Sea – the first fish species to be identified as endemic to the area.

Its reproductive behaviour differs from the European flounder, spawning eggs that sink in coastal areas as opposed to buoyant eggs in open water. There are also differences between the species in egg morphology, egg and sperm physiology. Unfortunately, the small morphological differences mean that it is difficult to unambiguously distinguish the species and genetic methods or egg/sperm analyses are required.

Original research: http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2018.00225

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Parental problem

Lack of sleep presents

a parental problem. Sleep

well to parent well.

 

All parents know what it’s like to miss out on sleep, yet it appears that a lack of quality sleep is associated with parenting ability. Tu et al (2018) found evidence that mothers who reported a lack of quality sleep were more permissive parents to their adolescent children – that is parenting marked by lax or inconsistent discipline.

The findings also indicate that this might be particularly relevant for African-American mothers and mothers from socioeconomically disadvantaged households. Is this a vicious cycle – tired mothers struggling to enforce consistent discipline and ultimately losing sleep because of it?

Original research: https://doi.org/10.1111/jsr.12676

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You aren’t one of us.

Help! Help! Predator!

Guys, why aren’t you helping me?

You aren’t one of us.

 

Jackdaws respond to anti-predator calls to join the caller in mobbing the predator and driving it away. Yet researchers have now found that who the caller is will affect the level of response.

In playback experiments Woods et al (2018) that the highest response was to nestbox residents who would be highly familiar with the caller. The level of response to an anti-predator call diminished as familiarity decreased from colony members to non-colony members and then to rooks (a species that often lives alongside jackdaws).

Original research: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-25793-y

 

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How you handle mice

How you handle mice

affects response to rewards.

Science improves too!

 

There is an increasing body of research to suggest that handling laboratory mice by the tail is both bad for their welfare and the science that the mice are studied for. Tail handling has negative impacts on mouse behaviour and physiology, with tunnel and cupping handling techniques resulting in behavioural improvements across various common behavioural bioassays, including the elevated plus maze, the open field test and the habituation-dishabituation paradigm.

Now new research suggests that handling is also important for reward-based behavioural assays. A study by Clarkson et al (2018) examined mouse response to sucrose solution (a common reward). They found that tail handled mice showed a reduced response to the sucrose than the tunnel handling method, a finding indicative of the tail handled mice having a ‘decreased responsiveness to reward and potentially a more depressive-like state’.

Across eight years and five research papers, from three distinct research groups in two countries, the field of laboratory mouse research has been irrevocably changed. Combined, the research suggests that tail handling results in poor animal welfare and potentially erroneous scientific results. The National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement & Reduction of Animals in Research now has extensive information on mouse handling techniques, example videos, tips and testimonials for researchers and animal carers to find out more about changing their current mouse handling methods to the tunnel or cupping techniques.

Original research: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-20716-3

 

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Tunnels and cupping

Tunnels and cupping

beat tail handling mice for

behavioural tests.

 

Laboratory mouse handling method can affect mouse behaviour and physiology, and new research suggests that it can also impinge on mouse performance in behavioural tests. Research by Gouveia and Hurst (2017) found that tail handled mice performed poorly in a habituation-dishabituation paradigm test in comparison to cupped or tunnel handled mice. The tail handled mice ‘showed little willingness to explore and investigate test stimuli’ and even prior familiarisation with the test arena didn’t improve their performance much.

Combined with the previous research findings on mouse handling this research continues to expand on the long-reaching impacts of mouse handling technique on both mouse welfare and scientific experimental rigour and asks the question – just how valid are behavioural tests using laboratory mice that have been tail handled? Yet the story of mouse handling is not yet done, click here for the final instalment of this tale/tail!

Original research: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep44999

 

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Cup handled mice

Cup handled mice show

improved glucose tolerance

and less anxiousness.

 

When performing scientific research with animals, it’s important to ensure that the procedures used do not themselves impact upon the results obtained. Laboratory mouse handling method has already been shown to impact upon mouse anxiety in common behavioural tests. However it seems that handling can have physiological impacts too.

Ghosal et al (2015) compared the behavioural and physiological responses of laboratory mice to either tail handling or cupped handling techniques. Cupped handled mice showed fewer anxious behaviours in a common behavioural test, reduced blood glucose levels and a lower stress-induced plasma corticosterone concentration in response to an overnight fast compared to tail handled mice. The researchers also found that obese laboratory mice handled using the cupped method demonstrated improved glucose tolerance.

Replication and repeatability are crucial components of science and this paper is a perfect demonstration of this – the researchers are from different research laboratories and in a different country to the mouse handling work that preceded it. In this way not only does it build on what came before, it also strengthens those earlier findings. Yet the mouse handling story is not finished yet, click here for the next chapter of this tale/tail!

Original research: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2015.06.021

 

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Reducing mouse anxiety

Further reducing

mouse anxiety using

familiar tunnels.

 

Building on the finding that handling laboratory mice using a tunnel resulted in lower anxiety than picking them up by the tail, Gouveia and Hurst (2013) next investigated whether familiarity with the tunnel might be an important factor. Once again they found that tunnel handling resulted in lower anxiety than tail handling during an elevated plus maze (a common behavioural test for laboratory mice).

This time they found differences between mouse strains, with C57BL/6 mice being most interactive towards tunnels from their home cage and ICR mice showing no difference in interaction between familiar home cage tunnels and novel tunnels previously used for handling mice from other cages. The researchers suggest that ‘as home cage tunnels can further improve response to handling in some mice, we recommend that mice are handled with a tunnel provided in their home cage where possible as a simple, practical method to minimise handling stress’. The tunnel would also act as a form of environmental enrichment for the home cage.

In science it’s rare to tell a complete story through the findings of two research papers, click here for the next chapter of this tale/tail!

Original research: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0066401