Water bathing alters the speed-accuracy trade-off of escape flights in European starlings

Birds of most species regularly bathe in water, but the function of this behaviour is unknown. We tested the hypothesis that water bathing is important in feather maintenance, and hence should enhance flight performance. We manipulated European starlings', Sturnus vulgaris, access to bathing water in a 2 × 2 design: birds were housed in aviaries either with or without water baths for a minimum of 3 days (long-term access) before being caught and placed in individual cages either with or without water baths for a further 24 h (short-term access). We subsequently assessed the speed and accuracy of escape flights through an obstacle course of vertical strings. Birds that had bathed in the short-term flew more slowly and hit fewer strings than birds that were deprived of bathing water in the short term, whereas long-term access to bathing water had no significant effect on flight performance. Thus recent access to bathing water alters flight performance by altering the trade-off between escape flight speed and accuracy. We hypothesize that lack of bathing water provision could increase anxiety in captive starlings because of an increase in their perceived vulnerability to predation. This study therefore potentially provides an important functional link between the expression of natural behaviours in captivity and welfare considerations. © 2009 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour

Water bathing alters threat perception in starlings.

The majority of bird taxa perform water bathing, but little is known about the adaptive value of this behaviour. If bathing is important for feather maintenance then birds that have not bathed should have poorer feather condition, compromised escape ability and therefore increased responsiveness to cues of predation. We conducted two experiments examining the behaviour of captive starlings responding to conspecific alarm calls. Birds that had no access to bathing water showed a decreased willingness to feed and increased their vigilance behaviour following an alarm call. We argue that birds denied access to bathing water interpreted an ambiguous cue of threat as requiring more caution than birds that had access, consistent with higher levels of anxiety. Our results support the provision of bathing water for captive birds as an important welfare measure

Quantification of abnormal repetitive behaviour in captive European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris).

Stereotypies are repetitive, unvarying and goalless behaviour patterns that are often considered indicative of poor welfare in captive animals. Quantifying stereotypies can be difficult, particularly during the early stages of their development when behaviour is still flexible. We compared two methods for objectively quantifying the development of route-tracing stereotypies in caged starlings. We used Markov chains and T-pattern analysis (implemented by the software package, Theme) to identify patterns in the sequence of locations a bird occupied within its cage. Pattern metrics produced by both methods correlated with the frequency of established measures of stereotypic behaviour and abnormal behaviour patterns counted from video recordings, suggesting that both methods could be useful for identifying stereotypic individuals and quantifying stereotypic behaviour. We discuss the relative benefits and disadvantages of the two approaches

Critical care survival rates in COVID-19 patients improved as the first wave of the pandemic developed

No abstract available

Stereotyping starlings are more 'pessimistic'.

Negative affect in humans and animals is known to cause individuals to interpret ambiguous stimuli pessimistically, a phenomenon termed 'cognitive bias'. Here, we used captive European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) to test the hypothesis that a reduction in environmental conditions, from enriched to non-enriched cages, would engender negative affect, and hence 'pessimistic' biases. We also explored whether individual differences in stereotypic behaviour (repetitive somersaulting) predicted 'pessimism'. Eight birds were trained on a novel conditional discrimination task with differential rewards, in which background shade (light or dark) determined which of two covered dishes contained a food reward. The reward was small when the background was light, but large when the background was dark. We then presented background shades intermediate between those trained to assess the birds' bias to choose the dish associated with the smaller food reward (a 'pessimistic' judgement) when the discriminative stimulus was ambiguous. Contrary to predictions, changes in the level of cage enrichment had no effect on 'pessimism'. However, changes in the latency to choose and probability of expressing a choice suggested that birds learnt rapidly that trials with ambiguous stimuli were unreinforced. Individual differences in performance of stereotypies did predict 'pessimism'. Specifically, birds that somersaulted were more likely to choose the dish associated with the smaller food reward in the presence of the most ambiguous discriminative stimulus. We propose that somersaulting is part of a wider suite of behavioural traits indicative of a stress response to captive conditions that is symptomatic of a negative affective state

Glasgow Geothermal Energy Research Field Site : ground motion survey report

The report describes the main findings associated with the baseline monitoring of ground motion for the Glasgow Geothermal Energy Research Field Site (GGERFS) as part of the UK Geoenergy Observatories (UKGEOS) project. The analysis is based on the interpretation of Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) data acquired for the period 1995-2017. Overall, the GGERFS sites are stable, small areas near the 2014 Commonwealth Games athletes’ village show a minor subsidence pattern, with rates of ~5mm/yr, observed for the 2015-2017 period between sites GGERFS04 (site currently ‘on hold’) and GGERFS10. This motion is interpreted to relate to settling of relatively thick superficial and anthropogenic deposits, which have recently been built upon for the development associated with the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Overall Glasgow and the surrounding area appears relatively stable for the three decades for which InSAR data has been processed. There are notable small areas of ground motion, which appear to relate to both natural (volume change of peat deposits, compressible ground) and anthropogenic (settling of made ground and landfill) factors

User guide for the British Geological Survey Property Subsidence Assessment Dataset

This report describes the BGS Property Subsidence Assessment data product. The methods used to create the component datasets have been critically assessed and its fitness for purpose determined by specialists in BGS. The BGS Property Subsidence Assessment data product looks specifically at the geological factors that influence the susceptibility to Shrink-Swell hazard and combines these with the level of susceptibility due to proximity to trees and the characteristics of a building to provide a more complete understanding of all factors involved. This document outlines the background to why the dataset was created, its potential uses and gives a brief description of the data layers. Technical information regarding the GIS and how the data was created is described and advice is provided on using the dataset

Can consumers learn to ask three questions to improve shared decision making? A feasibility study of the ASK (AskShareKnow) Patient–Clinician Communication Model® intervention in a primary health-care setting

Funded by Informed Medical Decisions Foundation. Grant Number: #0175-1 National Health and Medical Research Council Public Health Training Fellowship. Grant Number: 568962Peer reviewedPublisher PD