Impact of food availability on ranging behaviour of the Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) at the Suaq Balimbing population

Orangutans are the largest arboreal mammals on Earth, one of human’s closest relatives, and a keystone species for biodiversity conservation, but they are threatened by extinction. Factors such as slow life history, large body size, frugivory, arboreal lifestyle, and low population density make them particularly vulnerable to population decline, especially when they face fragmentation and loss of habitat and wildlife trade. Therefore, scientists and conservationists alike are interested in their spatial and temporal ranging behavior and their ecological needs. Since they face different food availability in different tropical forests, orangutans likely adopt different strategies to ensure sufficient energy intake. Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) in Suaq Balimbing spend most of their day searching for fruit. Further, they live in a habitat with higher fruit availability, in higher densities, and are more sociable than orangutans at other research sites. However, past studies found very little to no evidence that habitat fruit availability, represented as the percentage of fruit-bearing trees, has an effect on their ranging behavior. In contrast, several studies showed that the fluctuation of fruit availability in Bornean rain forests impacted the orangutans’ range behavior in Tuanan on Borneo. In the first part, this thesis aims to find an alternative way to represent food availability by looking at the actual feeding behavior of orangutans. I introduced a new food availability index called ‘experienced FAI’ (eFAI) and two sub-indices, which are based on this eFAI but split into a fruit (fruit eFAI) and non-fruit component (non-fruit eFAI). I analyzed and compared behavioral and GPS data from 2007 to 2021, collected in 1743 focal follow days and in accordance with standardized field methods by the Department of Anthropology of the University of Zurich and the Development and Evolution of Cognition Research Group at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz, Germany. The eFAI was calculated based on a ratio of GPS points taken at fixed intervals throughout the focal follow to GPS points taken whenever the focal individual was feeding. I divided orangutans into four age-sex classes: adult females, flanged males, unflanged males, and independent immatures. The results show that the comparison of behavioral and GPS data was needed to validate the accuracy of GPS points, complement feeding locations, and improve the eFAI calculation. A bootstrapping analysis revealed a minimum number of 10 follows per month to be an appropriate threshold. Regarding the traditional, habitat-centered fruit availability (termed hFAI in this study), I confirmed that Sumatran orangutans at Suaq do not face fruit scarcity throughout the year. Nevertheless, experienced food availability (eFAI) varied depending on the age-sex classes. Results suggest that flanged males spend extended time exploiting one resource rather than switching between resources. Independent immatures are most likely less competent at locating big food patches, and thus they end up switching between food patches faster than other individuals. However, I noticed that orangutans of different age-sex classes have similar diet compositions, except for adult females that showed broader diets, which may relate to maintaining lactation and pregnancy by consuming nutrient- and protein-rich food. The spatial and temporal analysis of the eFAI suggests that fruit availability patterns may be associated with the layout of the research site and vary between forest types. In contrast, non-fruit food items can be found everywhere. In the second part, I investigated the effect of food availability on socio-spatial movement patterns. Therefore, I derived the Day Journey Length (DJL), Total Displacement Distance (TDD), and two tortuosity indices, the Straightness Index (SI) and the sinuosity index for the different age-sex classes and individuals. Fruit eFAI and non-fruit eFAI showed contradicting effects on the DJLs of orangutans and highlighted that an overall eFAI can explain less variation in ranging behavior. Fruit availability in the habitat (hFAI) could not explain any variation in the movement of orangutans, as expected based on the findings of previous studies, most likely because of the high abundance of fruit in Suaq. In contrast, I detected significant effects of fruit eFAI and non-fruit eFAI on DJL and sinuosity of movement but not on TDD and SI. When flanged males increased their non-fruit consumption, they had shorter DJL. Shorter distances may relate to longer feeding times at their feeding locations. Further results suggest that adult females move the shortest distances but the most tortuous. Moving after independently moving but still dependent offspring or carrying their young offspring may lead to higher sinuosity and slow adult females down. Furthermore, adult females traveled longer and straighter distances when consuming more fruit but shorter distances when focusing on non-fruit food items. This behavior suggests that adult females know the locations of the fruit trees and how to get to them when fruit are available. However, on a focal level, I found that older females tend to stay put when more non-fruit food items are available, and younger females tend to travel more, suggesting they actively search for those items. Results for unflanged males and independent immatures suggest that the ranging behavior of both age-sex classes is not influenced by food availability. For unflanged males, the mating strategy may have a greater effect on their ranging behavior than food availability. In contrast, for independent immatures, social factors most likely play a more prominent role as they are more gregarious and social than adult orangutans. In conclusion, comparing and complementing data sets and establishing new ways of representing food availability for Suaq proved to be meaningful, as I discovered different significant effects of experienced food availability on the movement parameters of Sumatran orangutans. However, differentiating between the availability of different food types is essential when looking at the effects of food availability on ranging. I suggest testing the approach in this thesis further at other research sites, which may help to understand the ranging behavior of orangutans better and protect them

Siany Riegger

What viewers should be able to see in my artwork revolves around the concepts of the sublime and of nature in general. I am inspired by wildlife and encountering new birds on trips and am curious about the idea of nature in my work. For example, a painting that was done for an art history class in Baroque, depicts a robin on a branch, which is supposed to represent humility and how humans can look to nature as something of reverence. In terms of sublime, I create artwork about monsters and use compositions with unsettling conceptual themes or aesthetics. As far as a specific medium goes, I work mostly with oil paint on canvas. My work Inner Demons was a response to The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters by Francisco Goya. It emulates the sublime and the idea that certain thoughts, or lack of, can create personal monsters within. Another work like this is a painting that incorporates the use of complex color schemes by having intense red and green artificial light with clashing same colored objects. The colors in the composition are what convey the idea of the sublime due to the eerie nature that is typically associated with red and green. Some of the paintings made more recently have been utilizing the sublime in nature by using the theme of predator and prey. One of these works in particular, depicts a display where 2-D painted versions of origami birds are placed in a naturalistic setting. Some of the prey birds are seen floating in the water, while others are hanging by strings to mimic flight. Meanwhile, a naturalistic representation of a hawk is in the process of swooping down to tear apart one of the inanimate birds in the water. By using the theme of “survival of the fittest” in my artwork, it bridges the gap between horror and nature to create the sublime, a more complex theme.https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art399/1050/thumbnail.jp

Restitution of Property and Religious Discrimination in Eastern Europe

This work centers on the religious liberty situation in Eastern Europe, including countries such as Hungary and Romania. The article discusses disputes over property rights and titles since the fall of communism, focusing on how these have been closely interconnected with the religious background and history of diferent ethnic groups.Cet ouvrage porte sur l'état des libertés religieuses en Europe de l'est, y compris dans des pays comme la Hongrie et la Roumanie. L'article discute des différends qui ont éclaté autour des droits et des titres de propriété depuis la chute du communisme, et examine de près le fait que ces différends ont été étroitement liés avec le passé historique et religieux des divers groupes ethniques

Scattered

What viewers should be able to see in my artwork revolves around the concepts of the sublime and of nature in general. This is done by utilizing the theme of predator and prey relationships to portray the sublime. One side of this work involves the predator and prey relationships with animals, particularly birds. This is where I am inspired by wildlife, which makes me curious about the idea of nature presented in my work. By using the theme of “survival of the fittest” in my artwork, it can bridge the gap between horror and nature to create the sublime. For these works, I tend to work mostly with oil paints on canvas. The other side of my work involving the sublime engages in conversation about Catholicism, and the nature of demons in this sect of religious faith. It is an interesting concept because the way evil is interpreted in theism is not as widely accepted as the good in theistic faiths. This is a new addition to the current sublime concept, which forces how to gauge predator and prey relations along with different topics revolving around religious culture today. The way this happens is by forming a satire of how demons are portrayed within the Catholic sect of Christianity and how they are portrayed in media. This is a way of satirizing this theme through real life means, and from widely accepted portrayals in media. For artworks like this I use painting materials and drawing materials to conceptualize my work.https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art499/1024/thumbnail.jp

Recognition of the Proper Shoeing of the Normal Working Horse

Horseshoeing is a vast and complex art and science, and it has many areas which will not be discussed here. Rather, I will limit its discussion to the proper shoeing of the normal working horse. The average Quarter Horse with a sound healthy foot will be considered the normal working horse for the purposes of this article. It must be remembered that horses with a gait or conformation problems will be shod as variations to the normal

Legal Profession

During 1967, the California courts made decisions dealing with admission to the bar, discipline, the statute of limitations in legal malpractice, and just compensation. The legislature also affected the legal profession by expanding the power of local government to employ private counsel, by changing the rules governing admission of out-of-state attorneys to the bar, and by changing certain fee provisions. The California Supreme Court decided several important bar admission cases. In Hallinan v. Committee of Bar Examiners and March v. Committee of Bar Examiners, the Committee of Bar Examiners made value judgments and, in effect, by refusing certification, attempted to punish past conduct of the applicants

Design and fabrication of a centrifugally driven microfluidic disk for fully integrated metabolic assays on whole blood

For the first time, we present a novel and fully integrated centrifugal microfluidic “ lab-on-a-disk” for rapid metabolic assays in human whole blood. All essential steps comprising blood sampling, metering, plasma extraction and the final optical detection are conducted within t = 150 s in passive structures integrated on one disposable disk. Our technology features a novel plasma extraction structure (V = 500 nL, CV < 5%) without using any hydrophobic microfluidics where the purified plasma (cRBC< 0.11%) is centrifugally separated and subsequently extracted through a capillarily primed extraction channel into the detection chamber. While this capillary extraction requires precisely defined, narrow micro-structures, the reactive mixing and detection is most efficient within larger cavities. The corresponding manufacturing technique of these macro- and micro structures in the range of 30 µ m to 1000 µ m is also presented for the first time: A novel, cost-efficient hybrid prototyping technique of a multiscale epoxy master for subsequent hot embossing of polymer disks

Legal Profession

During 1967, the California courts made decisions dealing with admission to the bar, discipline, the statute of limitations in legal malpractice, and just compensation. The legislature also affected the legal profession by expanding the power of local government to employ private counsel, by changing the rules governing admission of out-of-state attorneys to the bar, and by changing certain fee provisions. The California Supreme Court decided several important bar admission cases. In Hallinan v. Committee of Bar Examiners and March v. Committee of Bar Examiners, the Committee of Bar Examiners made value judgments and, in effect, by refusing certification, attempted to punish past conduct of the applicants