Giant panda loan exhibitions in China underdeliver on educating visitors: insights and recommendations for improvements

Giant panda Ailuropoda melanoleuca exhibits are popular attractions for zoos and wildlife parks. However, it remains to be investigated whether such exhibits enhance visitor knowledge about pandas and broader conservation issues. We conducted questionnaire surveys at giant panda exhibits at three city zoos and five wildlife parks in China. Although visitors were generally interested in the giant panda, this was not reflected in their post-exhibit knowledge of giant panda biology. Socio-demographically, men were more knowledgeable of giant panda biology than women. Knowledge correlated positively with respondent level of education. Younger respondents (< 45 years) knew most about giant pandas and expressed an interest in learning more about them using social media. The most informed respondents had visited other giant panda exhibits previously. Respondents were generally satisfied with the giant panda exhibits (mean score 4.44/5). Wildlife parks delivered a better educational outcome than city zoos. We recommend approaches to improve the visitor experience further and to leverage public interest in broader conservation engagement and action in China

Low incidence of miscarriage induced by the scent of male littermates of original mates: male kinship reduces the bruce effect in female mice, Mus musculus.

The scent of a novel male can elicit pregnancy block in recently mated female mice (Mus musculus), a phenomenon known as the Bruce effect. Despite abundant literature on the Bruce effect in rodents, it remains unclear whether males related to a female's original mate can induce the Bruce effect in out-bred, communally living mice. We investigated this question using Kunming (KM) male mice of varying genetic relatedness. Recently mated females were subjected to three treatments: exposure to the urine of the mate, urine of the mate's male littermate, and urine of a male unrelated to the mate. It was found that the urine of male littermates of the females' mates did not elicit more pregnancy block than that of the females' mates. However, the urine of novel males caused a higher rate of female miscarriage than that of the females' mates. By using a habituation-dishabituation paradigm, we found that unmated females could discriminate the urine scents of two male littermates from those of a novel male unrelated to the littermates. To understand how females use urinary cues to discriminate between males with different genetic relationships, we used gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) to examine the volatile composition of urine from males with varying relatedness. It was found that KM male littermates shared similar volatile compositions in their urine. Our results suggest that male kinship reduces the Bruce effect in female KM mice, and provide additional evidence for mate choice being partly mediated by the Bruce effect in KM mice

Aggression and Plasma Testosterone in Response to Encounters with Receptive vs. Non-receptive Females in Male Golden Hamsters

Exposure to sexual stimuli can lead to increased aggression in male mammals, but it is unclear whether the aggression is related to the receptiveness of the females. Interactions with receptive females elicit testosterone (T) pulses that are important for sexual behaviors. We investigated the effects of male-female interactions on subsequent aggressive behaviors and T responses in the golden hamster, Mesocricetus auratus (Waterhouse, 1839). Fifty-three males were exposed to receptive, non-receptive females and blank (control), respectively. Then, we randomly chose 24 animals and measured their aggression toward an unfamiliar male conspecific; the remaining 29 males were used for a T assay (to avoid effects of aggression on T levels). The results show that interactions with females led to significantly higher male aggression and T levels than were found in control males. The increased aggression was not related to the receptiveness of the females, but receptive females elicited higher levels of T in males than non-receptive females. Our findings suggest that the elevated aggression following the sexual encounter may serve to defend female, by enhancing the ability of males to exclude other males from the vicinity of females; while the post-encounter T release may serve to assist mating behaviors and reproductive success.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

Relative abundance of volatiles in the urine of male KM mice (mean ± SD), and individual variation (RSD) in their relative abundance in mice from different litters.

<p>A, B, C: individuals from litters A, B and C, respectively, purchased from the Laboratory Animal Center of Academy of Military Medical Sciences. W: individuals of unknown relationship (but unrelated to A, B, or C males) purchased from the Weitong-Lihua Experimental Animal Company.</p><p>RSD: Relative Standard Deviation.</p

Component loadings for the first 4 PCs of the GC-MS peak areas in urine.

<p>PC: Principal Component.</p

The effectiveness of male urine in inducing pregnancy block in newly mated female mice.

<p>Groups with shared letters do not differ from each other statistically.</p

Kinship alters the effects of forced cohabitation on body weight, mate choice and fitness in the rat-like hamster Tscheskia triton

It has been documented that social isolation imparts deleterious effects on gregarious rodents species, but caging in group imparts such effects on solitary rodents. This study was attempted at examining how kinship to affect body weight, behavioral interaction, mate choice and fitness when we caged male and female rat-like hamsters Tscheskia triton in pair, a solitary species. We found that females paired with nonsibling males became heavier than the females paired with sibling males, but both agonistic and amicable behavior between paired males and females did not differ between sibling and nonsibling groups. This indicated that kinship might reduce females’ obesity in response to forced cohabitation, and dissociation might exist between physiological and behavioral responses. Furthermore, binary choice tests revealed that social familiarity between either siblings or nonsiblings decreased their investigating time spent in opposite sex conspecific of cage mates and/or their scents as compared with those of non-mates, suggesting effects of social association on mate and kin selection of the hamsters. On the other side, both females and males caged in pair with siblings show a preference between unfamiliar siblings or their scents and the counterparts of nonsiblings after two month separation, indicating that the kin recognition of the hamsters might also rely on phenotype matching. In addition, cohabitation (or permanent presence of fathers) elicited a lower survival of pups in nonsibling pairs than sibling pairs, but did not affect litter size, suggesting that kinship affects fitness when housing male and female ratlike hamsters together. Therefore, inbreeding might be adapted for rare and endangered animals [Current Zoology 55(1): 41–47, 2009]

Scatter plots based on the results of PCA.

<p>(a) PC₁ versus PC₃; (b) PC₁ versus PC₂; (c) PC₁ versus PC₄; (d) PC₂ versus PC₃; (e) PC₂ versus PC₄; (f) PC₃ versus PC₄. Group 1: litter A, n = 4; group 2: litter B, n = 5; group 3: litter C, n = 7; group 4: individuals unrelated to the males in the other groups, n = 6. Each solid line encircling the plots encloses individuals from the same litter.</p

Time spent by females investigating the urine of three different donor males.

<p>Urine A: urine of male A; Urine B: urine of male A’s male littermate (male B); Urine C: urine of a male unrelated to males A and B. Females were habituated to the urine of one male and then tested in a dishabituation trial with the urine of the familiar male’s male littermate and a male unrelated to both other males (mean ± SE, n = 13; ***: p<0.001, *: p<0.05).</p

The metabolic function of giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) gut microbiota decreased compared with other mammals

Different responses of gut microbiota diversity affect host health in term of nutrient metabolism and disease immunity, the reason and the impact of low diversity level of giant panda needs to be studied. Therefore, to explore the impact of intestinal type and diet on gut microbiota diversity of giant pandas, we conducted a multi-species comparison (n=73), and the effects of different diets on gut microbiota function of giant panda were analyzed by PICRUSt method. The gut microbiota of giant panda was significantly lower than the same diets type herbivores and the same intestinal type carnivores. High-fiber bamboo culm diet significantly reduced the gut microbiota diversity of giant panda than bamboo shoot and leaf. The low diversity of gut microbiota led to the low nutritional metabolic function of giant panda, including energy metabolism and amino acid metabolism. These results showed that the short intestinal tract and high fiber diet caused the decrease of gut microbiota diversity of giant pandas