A glimpse at Ethology in Latin America

The state of the art of Ethology in five Latin America countries is briefly presented here. The overall outlook regarding research laboratories and themes is promising: the community is numerous, active and there are topics addressing all aspects of animal behavior, especially in large countries like Brazil and Argentina. Ethology as an undergraduate discipline is generally a subcategory of Biology, being taught mainly at Zoology/ Psychology/ Ecology/ Agriculture Courses and at Medical Veterinary Schools, often as an eligible discipline. Ethology as a formal major Graduate Program is rare and mainly restricted to Brazil.Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Muse

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF SEXUAL BEHAVIOR IN TWO SYNMORPHIC SPECIES OF THE GENUS LYCOSA (ARANEAE, LYCOSIDAE) AND THEIR HYBRID PROGENY

Volume: 28Start Page: 237End Page: 24

Three Decades of Subterranean Acoustic Communication Studies

The subterranean environment has strongly influenced the evolution of the sensory biology of subterranean rodents. While dark and monotonous tunnels have led to reductions in the visual capabilities of some species, other senses appear to be highly developed in contrast. Among them, the emission of acoustic and seismic signals plays a major role in communication and alertness of subterranean mammals. In this chapter, the ecological and evolutionary conditions that influence the characteristics of vibrational communication in subterranean rodents are reviewed. First, the characteristics of rodents’ burrows and how they dictate the methods used to study subterranean communication are discussed. Second, the properties and roles of vocalizations and seismic signals in subterranean species are examined, including the main hypotheses about the evolution of these signals. Third, what is understood about social and vocal complexity in subterranean rodents is summarized and the similarities and differences in the vocal repertoires of social and solitary groups are analyzed. The chapter ends with a short summary and a consideration of future challenges in the field of subterranean acoustic communication in rodents.Fil: Schleich, Cristian. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Mar del Plata. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras; ArgentinaFil: Francescoli Gilardini, Gabriel Enrique. Universidad de la República; Urugua

Locomotory adaptations in entoptychine gophers (Rodentia: Geomyidae) and the mosaic evolution of fossoriality

Pocket gophers (family Geomyidae) are the dominant burrowing rodents in North America today. Their fossil record is also incredibly rich; in particular, entoptychine gophers, a diverse extinct subfamily of the Geomyidae, are known from countless teeth and jaws from Oligocene and Miocene-aged deposits of the western United States and Mexico. Their postcranial remains, however, are much rarer and little studied. Yet, they offer the opportunity to investigate the locomotion of fossil gophers, shed light on the evolution of fossoriality, and enable ecomorphological comparisons with contemporaneous rodents. We present herein a quantitative study of the cranial and postcranial remains of eight different species of entoptychine gophers as well as many contemporary rodent species. We find a range of burrowing capabilities within Entoptychinae, including semifossorial scratch-digging animals and fossorial taxa with cranial adaptations to burrowing. Our results suggest the repeated evolution of chisel-tooth digging across genera. Comparisons between entoptychine gophers and contemporaneous rodent taxa show little ecomorphological overlap and suggest that the succession of burrowing rodent taxa on the landscape may have had more to do with habitat partitioning than competition