What do rates of deposition of dental cementum tell us? Functional and evolutionary hypotheses in red deer.

Cementum is a bone connective tissue that provides a flexible attachment for the tooth to the alveolar bone in many mammalian species. It does not undergo continuous remodelling, unlike non-dental bone, which combined with its growth pattern of seasonal layering makes this tissue uniquely suitable as a proxy for tracking changes in body repair investment throughout an animal´s life. We tested functional and sexual selection hypotheses on the rate of cementum deposition related to the highly polygynous mating strategy of red deer. We used a sample of 156 first lower molars from wild Scottish red deer of known age between 1 and 17 years old, approximately balanced by sex and age class. Cementum deposition on the inter-radicular pad increased with age at a constant average rate of 0.26 mm per year, with no significant differences between sexes. Cementum deposition was independent of (i) tooth wear, other than that associated with age, and (ii) enamel and dentine micro-hardness. The results partially supported the hypothesis that the main function of cementum is the repositioning of the tooth to maintain opposing teeth in occlusion. However, teeth that had more wear or males´ teeth that had faster rates of tooth wear than those of females did not present the expected higher rates of cementum deposition

Snout Shape in Extant Ruminants

Copyright: © 2014 Tennant, MacLeod. This 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. [4.0 license]. The attached file is the published version of the article

Assessing social perceptions of rewilding approaches in Spain using traditional domestic livestock

Rewilding is habitat restoration that attempts to return ecosystems to their state before human alterations were imposed. Rewilding might involve actions that are not desired by society. As a result, a compromised form of rewilding has been proposed that is generally known as rewilding lite, which involves some human intervention to achieve the goals of a more natural state of ecosystems that were historically disturbed by anthropogenic influences. Rewilding lite is gaining traction in Europe where marginal agriculture areas are being abandoned. We addressed a variant that we called livestock rewilding (LR) based on the use of herbivorous livestock species to restore ecological functions and trophic complexity (functional integrity) in abandoned agricultural landscapes. Our objective was to assess societal attitudes and awareness of LR in Spain based on the answers of 1,036 respondents of a self-selecting questionnaire of 27 closed-ended questions addressed to the general public using snowball sampling, conducted between March and July 2021. Seventy-five percent of the respondents supported LR but only on the condition of imposing minimum hazards to people, crops, and property. Ranchers were the least likely societal group to support LR (58%). Women had the greatest enthusiasm for LR (79% women vs. 71% men). Horses, donkeys, and goats were the most preferred species to be included in LR programs, with pigs as the least popular after cattle and sheep. There was support for the removal of excess individuals of rewilded livestock and for the use of their meat for human consumption, especially among male respondents. Respondents were reticent to accept mortality in LR populations caused by natural stochastic events and discriminated between livestock species for population control methods. Respondents preferred non-lethal methods of population control; involving hunters was a second choice. Some hunters were reluctant to participate in population control of rewilded livestock, especially if they had to pay, and were reticent to shoot equids but keen to shoot goats. There was general support among Spanish respondents for LR, though there were significant differences between societal groups in attitudes towards the type, species, and intensity of management required to minimize hazards to people's health, crops, and the environment. Livestock rewilding is a plausible tool for the restoration of trophic complexity in abandoned agricultural land in Spain that could be used to circumvent the introduction of allochthonous wild species

Legislative hurdles to using traditional domestic livestock in rewilding programmes in Europe

Rewilding is a restoration strategy that aims to return anthropogenic ecosystems to a “self-organized” state, by reinstating trophic complexity through disturbance (e.g. predation, herbivory), dispersal and connectivity. In depopulated areas of Europe, lite versions of rewilding, that maintain but minimize the management of rewilding species (e.g. predators, large herbivores) is gaining support. Livestock rewilding (LR) is a form of rewilding-lite, that uses livestock landraces as keystone species in the restoration of herbivory (the functional integrity of ecosystems) offering ecosystem services, such as ecotourism and the sale of livestock population surpluses, that can mitigate the economic and social effects of rural depopulation. Many challenges remain to implementing LR, including (i) more empirical evidence is required of the feasibility of LR across a variety of habitats and conditions, and (ii) understanding the hurdles that legislation poses for LR, the latter being the aim of this study. To accomplish this, we reviewed the EU legislation on environmental protection, animal health and welfare, identification and traceability, and ownership and civil responsibility, to assess how this might apply to LR. Although there is no specific EU legislation prohibiting LR, the review indicates that it is not clear what legislation applies to LR, as LR’s status lies between that of livestock and wild species. As such the existing legislation can be a serious impediment to the development of LR programmes. We highlight the needs for a legal definition, and status of LR species and their ownership. We propose ways to adapt this legislation to support the application of LR programmes in abandoned areas of EU, for example, by using legal exceptions intended for livestock under extensive animal farming systems

Sexual dimorphism, activity budget and synchrony in groups of sheep

SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe