How did they get here from there? Detecting changes of direction in terrestrial ranging

Efficient exploitation of large-scale space is crucial to many species of animal, but the difficulties of studying how animals decide on travel routes in natural environments have hampered scientific understanding of environmental cognition. Field experiments allow researchers to define travel goals for their subjects, but practical difficulties restrict large-scale studies. In contrast, data on natural travel patterns are abundant and easy to record, but hard to interpret without circularity and subjectivity when making inferences about when and why an animal began heading to a particular location. We present a method of determining objectively the point at which an animal’s travel path becomes directed at a location, for instance a distant feeding site, based on the statistical characteristics of its route. We evaluate this method and illustrate how it can be tailored to particular problems, using data that is (a) synthetic; (b) from baboons, where travel is from a single sleeping site in an overlapping home range, and (c) from chimpanzees, where sleeping sites are unlimited within a large territory. We suggest that this ‘change- point test’ might usefully become a routine first step in interpreting the decision- making behind animal travel under natural conditions

Wild chacma baboons (Papio ursinus) remember single foraging episodes

This study was supported by grants from Zürcher Hochschulverein, Schweizerische Akademie für Naturwissenschaften, Stiftung Thyll-Dürr, and Stiftung Annemarie Schindler, to R.N.Understanding animal episodic-like memory is important for tracing the evolution of the human mind. However, our knowledge about the existence and nature of episodic-like memory in non-human primates is minimal. We observed the behaviour of a wild male chacma baboon faced with a trade-off between protecting his stationary group from aggressive extra-group males and foraging among five out-of-sight platforms. These contained high-priority food at a time of natural food shortage. In 10 morning and eight evening trials, the male spontaneously visited the platforms in five and four different sequences, respectively. In addition, he interrupted foraging sequences at virtually any point on eight occasions, returning to the group for up to 2 h. He then visited some or all of the remaining platforms and prevented revisits to already depleted ones, apparently based on his memory for the previous foraging episode about food value, location, and time. Efficient use of memory allowed him to keep minimal time absent from his group while keeping food intake high. These findings support the idea that episodic-like memory offers an all-purpose solution to a wide variety of problems that require flexible, quick, yet precise decisions in situations arising from competition for food and mates in wild primates.PostprintPeer reviewe

Attitudes About COVID-19 and Health (ATTACH): Online Survey and Mixed Methods Study

Background: Behavioral mitigation strategies to slow the spread of COVID-19 have resulted in sweeping lifestyle changes, with short- and long-term psychological, well-being, and quality of life implications. The Attitudes About COVID-19 and Health (ATTACH) study focuses on understanding attitudes and beliefs while considering the impact on mental and physical health and the influence of broader demographic and geographic factors on attitudes, beliefs, and mental health burden. / Objective: In this assessment of our first wave of data collection, we provide baseline cohort description of the ATTACH study participants in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Mexico. Additionally, we assess responses to daily poll questions related to COVID-19 and conduct a cross-sectional analysis of baseline assessments collected in the UK between June 26 and October 31, 2020. / Methods: The ATTACH study uses smartphone app technology and online survey data collection. Participants completed poll questions related to COVID-19 2 times daily and a monthly survey assessing mental health, social isolation, physical health, and quality of life. Poll question responses were graphed using 95% Clopper–Pearson (exact) tests with 95% CIs. Pearson correlations, hierarchical linear regression analyses, and generalized linear models assessed relationships, predictors of self-reported outcomes, and group differences, respectively. / Results: By October 31, 2020, 1405, 80, and 90 participants had consented to participate in the UK, United States, and Mexico, respectively. Descriptive data for the UK daily poll questions indicated that participants generally followed social distancing measures, but worry and negative impacts on families increased as the pandemic progressed. Although participants generally reported feeling that the reasons for current measures had been made clear, there was low trust that the government was doing everything in its power to meet public needs. In the UK, 1282 participants also completed a monthly survey (94.99% [1326/1396] White, 72.22% [1014/1404] female, and 20.12% [277/1377] key or essential workers); 18.88% (242/1282) of UK participants reported a preexisting mental health disorder, 31.36% (402/1282) reported a preexisting chronic medical illness, and 35.11% (493/1404) were aged over 65; 57.72% (740/1282) of participants reported being more sedentary since the pandemic began, and 41.89% (537/1282) reported reduced access to medical care. Those with poorer mental health outcomes lived in more deprived neighborhoods, in larger households (Ps<.05), had more preexisting mental health disorders and medical conditions, and were younger than 65 years (all Ps<.001). / Conclusions: Communities who have been exposed to additional harm during the COVID-19 pandemic were experiencing worse mental outcomes. Factors including having a medical condition, or living in a deprived neighborhood or larger household were associated with heightened risk. Future longitudinal studies should investigate the link between COVID-19 exposure, mental health, and sociodemographic and residential characteristics

A Simple Iterative Model Accurately Captures Complex Trapline Formation by Bumblebees Across Spatial Scales and Flower Arrangements

PMCID: PMC3591286This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Anticancer Gene Transfer for Cancer Gene Therapy

Gene therapy vectors are among the treatments currently used to treat malignant tumors. Gene therapy vectors use a specific therapeutic transgene that causes death in cancer cells. In early attempts at gene therapy, therapeutic transgenes were driven by non-specific vectors which induced toxicity to normal cells in addition to the cancer cells. Recently, novel cancer specific viral vectors have been developed that target cancer cells leaving normal cells unharmed. Here we review such cancer specific gene therapy systems currently used in the treatment of cancer and discuss the major challenges and future directions in this field

Forest chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) remember the location of numerous fruit trees

It is assumed that spatial memory contributes crucially to animal cognition since animals’ habitats entail a large number of dispersed and unpredictable food sources. Spatial memory has been investigated under controlled conditions, with different species showing and different conditions leading to varying performance levels. However, the number of food sources investigated is very low compared to what exists under natural conditions, where food resources are so abundant that it is difficult to precisely identify what is available. By using a detailed botanical map containing over 12,499 trees known to be used by the Taï chimpanzees, we created virtual maps of all productive fruit trees to simulate potential strategies used by wild chimpanzees to reach resources without spatial memory. First, we simulated different assumptions concerning the chimpanzees’ preference for a particular tree species, and, second, we varied the detection field to control for the possible use of smell to detect fruiting trees. For all these assumptions, we compared simulated distance travelled, frequencies of trees visited, and revisit rates with what we actually observed in wild chimpanzees. Our results show that chimpanzees visit rare tree species more frequently, travel shorter distances to reach them, and revisit the same trees more often than if they had no spatial memory. In addition, we demonstrate that chimpanzees travel longer distances to reach resources where they will eat for longer periods of time, and revisit resources more frequently where they ate for a long period of time during their first visit. Therefore, this study shows that forest chimpanzees possess a precise spatial memory which allows them to remember the location of numerous resources and use this information to select the most attractive resources

Reaching a Consensus: Terminology and Concepts Used in Coordination and Decision-Making Research

Research on coordination and decision-making in humans and nonhuman primates has increased considerably throughout the last decade. However, terminology has been used inconsistently, hampering the broader integration of results from different studies. In this short article, we provide a glossary containing the central terms of coordination and decision-making research. The glossary is based on previous definitions that have been critically revised and annotated by the participants of the symposium “Where next? Coordination and decision-making in primate groups” at the XXIIIth Congress of the International Primatological Society (IPS) in Kyoto, Japan. We discuss a number of conceptual and methodological issues and highlight consequences for their implementation. In summary, we recommend that future studies on coordination and decision-making in animal groups do not use the terms “combined decision” and “democratic/despotic decision-making.” This will avoid ambiguity as well as anthropocentric connotations. Further, we demonstrate the importance of 1) taxon-specific definitions of coordination parameters (initiation, leadership, followership, termination), 2) differentiation between coordination research on individual-level process and group-level outcome, 3) analyses of collective action processes including initiation and termination, and 4) operationalization of successful group movements in the field to collect meaningful and comparable data across different species