Orangulas: effect of scheduled visual enrichment on behavioral and endocrine aspects of a captive orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus)

Captivity may have adverse effects on captive great apes, as they spend much more of their time engaged in foraging and other activities in the wild. Enrichment interventions have the potential to alleviate the adverse effects of captivity by introducing novel stimuli. In orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), interactive digital enrichment has proven effective at engaging users out of their own free will, in exchange for nothing but the experience. This article reports the results of scheduled visual enrichment in the form of “orangulas”—one-hour long videos of footage consisting mainly of open spaces in different environments, with which the pongid participant could engage at free will. The efficacy of the orangulas were measured with both behavioural and endocrine measurements, concluding that scheduled visual enrichment has the potential to improve the welfare of captive orangutans by providing novel stimuli in the context of largely stable environments

The ongoing transition at an exponential speed from Conservation genetics to Conservation genomics

Conservation genetic disciplines have greatly progressed during the last thirty years, mainly thanks to the continuous development of molecular biological knowledge and the implementation of molecular tools used to describe diversity at the DNA level. The ongoing transition from Conservation genetics to Conservation genomics is showing to increase at an exponential speed as the integrated use of various kinds of molecular genetic data and bioinformatic approaches may improve our theoretical knowledge and practical approaches in the conservation and wise use of biodiversity. Aim of this mini-review is to push forward the ongoing transition, bearing in mind that most of the applied conservation programs would not need entire genomic data set, which are still expensive and time consumin

EDITORIAL: Asymmetry Indexes, Behavioral Instability and the Characterization of Behavioral Patterns

A change in a behavior is often the first and fast reaction to an environmental (external) or physiological (internal) stimulus that animals (and plants) are exposed to [...

On the brink between extinction and persistence

The nature of size fluctuations is crucial in forecasting future population persistence, independently of whether the variability stems from external forces or from the dynamics of the population renewal process. The risk of intercepting zero is highly dependent on the way the variance of the population size relates to its mean. The minimum population size required for a population not to go extinct can be determined by a scaling equation relating the variance to the arithmetic mean. By the use of a derived expression for the harmonic mean defined by the parameters of the scaling equation we show how it is possible to separate the domains of persistence from those of extinction and to facilitate the identification of populations on the brink of extinction

In Search of Species-Specific SNPs in a Non-Model Animal (European Bison (Bison bonasus))—Comparison of De Novo and Reference-Based Integrated Pipeline of STACKS Using Genotyping-by-Sequencing (GBS) Data

SIMPLE SUMMARY: The European bison is a dramatically low-diversified species, commonly analyzed using cattle-dedicated tools. Our aim was to compare two genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) pipelines: de novo and reference pipeline, using the STACKS software and to reveal the maximum possible number of species-specific SNPs for our further project on European bison health. Therefore, we compared two genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) pipelines: de novo (non-reference based) and a reference-based, using the STACKS software. We found a higher number of polymorphic loci from the reference pipeline in comparison to the de novo one. Next, we compared the results of the reference pipeline for the draft genome of European bison and completely annotated the Bos taurus genome. Higher numbers of polymorphic loci were revealed in European bison than in Bos taurus through the reference pipeline. We observed a possible effect of PCR duplicates on GBS data, as previously reported with the RADSeq approach. We recommend using a reference pipeline without PCR duplicates as a more efficient tool for species with low genetic diversity. ABSTRACT: The European bison is a non-model organism; thus, most of its genetic and genomic analyses have been performed using cattle-specific resources, such as BovineSNP50 BeadChip or Illumina Bovine 800 K HD Bead Chip. The problem with non-specific tools is the potential loss of evolutionary diversified information (ascertainment bias) and species-specific markers. Here, we have used a genotyping-by-sequencing (GBS) approach for genotyping 256 samples from the European bison population in Bialowieza Forest (Poland) and performed an analysis using two integrated pipelines of the STACKS software: one is de novo (without reference genome) and the other is a reference pipeline (with reference genome). Moreover, we used a reference pipeline with two different genomes, i.e., Bos taurus and European bison. Genotyping by sequencing (GBS) is a useful tool for SNP genotyping in non-model organisms due to its cost effectiveness. Our results support GBS with a reference pipeline without PCR duplicates as a powerful approach for studying the population structure and genotyping data of non-model organisms. We found more polymorphic markers in the reference pipeline in comparison to the de novo pipeline. The decreased number of SNPs from the de novo pipeline could be due to the extremely low level of heterozygosity in European bison. It has been confirmed that all the de novo/Bos taurus and Bos taurus reference pipeline obtained SNPs were unique and not included in 800 K BovineHD BeadChip

Increased Fluctuating Asymmetry in a Naturally Occurring Hybrid Zone between the Stick Insects Bacillus Rossius Rossius and Bacillus Rossius Redtenbacheri

The impact of interracial hybridization on fluctuating asymmetry (FA) and phenotypic variability (σ2p) in a presumed natural hybrid zone between the stick insects, Bacillus rossius rossius Rossi and Bacillus rossius redtenbacheri Nasceti & Bullini (Phasmatodea: Bacillidea), found on the Italian island Sardinia was investigated. The lengths of three bilateral traits and three unilateral traits were measured, and each individual was genotyped by five microsatellite loci. The genotypic data clearly confirmed the existence of the hybrid zone on Sardinia. A significantly increased FA was found in the hybrids when compared to both parental subspecies, which this study attributes to genetic incompatibilities in the hybrids. The increase in FA was not correlated with any increase in σ2P in the hybrids, which indicates that in this case σ2p and FA originate from separate processes