Suckling behaviour and allonursing in the Apennine chamois

Maternal cares and, in particular, suckling behaviour, are fundamental for early growth and survival of offspring ungulates. In turn, factors influencing maternal cares can have important effects at individual and population levels, with consequences at both short and long temporal scales. We assessed monthly variation of behavioural indices of suckling and nursing, as well as occurrence of allosuckling, in a mountain-dwelling ungulate, the Apennine chamois Rupicapra pyrenaica ornata, on summer-early autumn 2013â\u80\u932014. Not surprisingly, duration of suckling events and frequency of suckling solicitations by kids, decreased throughout months, whereas the proportion of grazing kids increased from July to October, indicating a growing reliance on pasture. Conversely, the probability of suckling success kept stable from July to October, suggesting a constant willingness of females to allow kids to suckle. Of all suckling events, 63% involved more than one kid, indicating allosuckling. On average, multiple suckles were shorter than those involving one kid and occurred in all months with the same proportion. Our results suggest the occurrence of high levels of maternal cares in a gregarious herbivore, with frequent allosuckling and apparent willingness of females to nurse offspring throughout summer-autumn. These results suggest that the motherâ\u80\u99s role does not terminate with weaning

Cutting bamboo down to size

This paper studies the problem of programming a robotic panda gardener to keep a bamboo garden from obstructing the view of the lake by your house. The garden consists of $n$ bamboo stalks with known daily growth rates and the gardener can cut at most one bamboo per day. As a computer scientist, you found out that this problem has already been formalized in [Gąsieniec et al., SOFSEM'17] as the emph{Bamboo Garden Trimming (BGT) problem}, where the goal is that of computing a perpetual schedule (i.e., the sequence of bamboos to cut) for the robotic gardener to follow in order to minimize the emph{makespan}, i.e., the maximum height ever reached by a bamboo. Two natural strategies are educemax and educefastest{x}. educemax trims the tallest bamboo of the day, while educefastest{x} trims the fastest growing bamboo among the ones that are taller than $x$. It is known that educemax and educefastest{x} achieve a makespan of $O(log n)$ and $4$ for the best choice of $x=2$, respectively. We prove the first constant upper bound of $9$ for educemax and improve the one for educefastest{x} to rac{3+sqrt{5}}{2} < 2.62 for $x=1+rac{1}{sqrt{5}}$. Another critical aspect stems from the fact that your robotic gardener has a limited amount of processing power and memory. It is then important for the algorithm to be able to emph{quickly} determine the next bamboo to cut while requiring at most linear space. We formalize this aspect as the problem of designing a emph{Trimming Oracle} data structure, and we provide three efficient Trimming Oracles implementing different perpetual schedules, including those produced by educemax and educefastest{$x$}

Competition between wild herbivores: Reintroduced red deer and Apennine chamois

Coevolved species should avoid competition through resource partitioning, but human-induced alteration of plant/animal communities may facilitate the onset of competitive interactions. In herbivores, access to high-quality forage in the warm months, that is, during nursing and weaning, influences growth and survival of offspring. In turn, resource exploitation by a reintroduced, superior competitor should affect offspring survival of the inferior one, by decreasing foraging efficiency and diet quality of mothers and young. We assessed the negative effects of reintroduced red deer Cervus elaphus on grassland, on foraging behavior of female Apennine chamois Rupicapra pyrenaica ornata (July–October 2012–2013) and on winter survival of chamois kids, across 3 study sites with different deer densities (great/intermediate/extremely low). The size of bare soil patches was positively associated with deer density and, in areas with deer, it increased throughout July–October. The volume of nutritious plants (i.e., legumes) in the diet of female chamois was lower and decreased faster between summer and autumn, in areas with deer than in that with an extremely low deer density. Feeding intensity (bite rate) of female chamois was significantly lower and their food searching (step rate) was greater in areas with deer. Chamois kids showed a significantly greater winter mortality, with a lower proportion of younger individuals, in areas with deer than in that with an extremely low deer density. In human-altered ecosystems, unpredictable consequences can follow interspecific interactions within restored animal communities. In turn, patterns of ecological relationships among ecosystem components may be modified, with an increase of the potential for competitive interactions

Survey on parasitic infections in wildcat (Felis silvestris silvestris Schreber, 1777) by scat collection.

Wildcats are endangered felid species living in Europe, Asia, and Africa. Regrettably, scientific information on parasites of wildcats is particularly meager and they often rely on data gained by necropsies of a small number of animals. In the present study, scat collection was used to assess the parasite spectrum of European wildcats living in the Etna Park (Sicily, Italy). Scat collection was performed from May to September 2010 by weekly walking four transects for a total of 391 km. Samples were then analyzed by flotation and sedimentation techniques to investigate wildcat parasitic fauna. A total of 121 scats of wildcats were collected, and parasitic forms (i.e., oocysts, eggs, and larvae) were retrieved in 110 (90.9 %) of the samples. Parasites found were Physaloptera sp. (52.1 %), tapeworms (45.5 %), Toxocara cati (43.8 %), Eucoleus aerophilus (27.3 %), Ancylostoma sp. (22.3 %), Troglostrongylus brevior (15.7 %), trematodes (9.9 %), Isospora felis (4.1 %), Cylicospirura sp. (1.7 %), and Acanthocephala (0.8 %). The prevalence of endoparasitic infections herein recorded is similar to that described in other studies conducted using necropsy technique. The species richness of parasites found in the present survey, with a total of nine helminths and one protozoon, is the highest ever reported for wildcat in Europe. Scat collection and examination are reliable and rapid non-invasive tools which can be used in a systematic survey design to study the parasite spectrum of wildcat as well as that of other endangered wild species