Eurasian lynx ( Lynx lynx ) and wolverine ( Gulo gulo ) response to seasonal variation in prey availability: influences on space use, seasonal site fidelity and reproduction

Masterin applied ecology. Evenstad 2015In systems with migratory prey, resource availability varies seasonally and can modify the spatialorganization of carnivores. Pred ators within these systems must therefore adopt a strategy to deal with prey movements when resources are seasonally unavailable. The seasonal migration of semidomesticated reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) in northern Norway creates large temporal variation in prey availability for carnivores in this area. In this study, I investigate the response of Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) and wolverine (Gulo gulo) to seasonal reindeer migration in Finnmark and Troms counties, Norway. I examine the space use of these solitary carnivores in two areas: one with migratory reindeer (Finnmark) and another with seasonally stable reindeer availability (Troms). I use GPS data to examine seasonal home range overlap and centroid shift distances to investigate how temporally changing prey abundance influences carnivore space use. I further investigate the influence of reindeer availability on lynx reproduction and recruitment rates. Lynx and wolverine largely maintained stable residency, even within a system of migratory prey. Mean proportion of seasonal home range overlap for lynx and wolverine was >50% for all individuals. Male lynx showed a higher degree of home range stability than females while wolverines showed no intersexual differences. When reindeer were not seasonally available, most individuals exhibited directional home range overlap suggesting that winter home range expansion is necessary to obtain adequate food resources. In both species, females exhibited greater winter home range expansion and shift distances. Contrary to expectations, some carnivores that overlapped winter reindeer grazing areas showed less stability than either those that were completely lacking winter reindeer or those that had stable reindeer presence year around. This was evident in both lynx and wolverine. Female lynx showed restricted range use in summer, related to denning behavior, while reproduction increased winter home range expansion in females. However, reproduction was not influenced by winter reindeer availability. Recruitment was lower in areas without winter reindeer presence (20%) than in areas with reindeer (47%) indicating that winter reindeer availability may influence kitten survival. The results of this study indicate that the decreased lynx recruitment seen may be related to the costs of living within a system with seasonally marginal resources. Further research is needed investigating a link between foraging behavior and demographic processes in lynx. Overall, my findings suggest that the space use of carnivores in areas of predictable reindeer presence is more stable than carnivores with seasonal variation in prey availability. It may be important to consider the effect of seasonal resource distribution on carnivore demography and overall spatial stability in population management planning as well

Does recursive use of resource locations shape a home range? Exploring the red fox's cognitive map.

A home range represents the outcome of the interplay between an environment, an animal’s understanding of that envi-ronment, and its subsequent movement decisions. Yet, recent studies suggest that recursive movement strategies have been overlooked in the shaping of animal home range patterns. Using fourteen GPS collared red foxes, we investigated within home range movements for recursive movement behaviour, suggesting a cognitive map, and explored how these shape ani-mal space-use patterns. We found that red foxes showed significant clustering in recorded positions, indicative of recursive site use. An average of 43% of positions were found in defined clusters that covered a proportional area of only 1% of their recorded range. Ground-truthing revealed that clusters were attributed to recursive visits, and extended residence time at clumped food sources, bed or den sites, routes and vantage points in the landscape. Our results provide evidence that, while red foxes maintained exploratory movement, recursive site use played a significant role in optimising movements between distinct core areas. We conclude that these patterns support the concept of cognitive mapping enabling recursive resource use, which can lead to emergence of bounded space use, rather than a continuous drifting across the landscape. We propose that by identifying resource locations that are used recursively; it is possible to move a step closer in revealing an animal’s cognitive map, or indeed, the movement behaviour underlying home range formation.publishedVersio

Declining survival rates of red foxes Vulpes vulpes during the first outbreak of sarcoptic mange in Sweden

Rapid declines in red fox Vulpes vulpes populations have followed outbreaks of epizootic mange caused by the mite Sarcoptes scabiei. In Sweden, the first outbreak of sarcoptic mange started in 1977/1978 and affected the whole country by 1984. Here we used data on the number of harvested red foxes (51 480) from Gävleborg county (18 199 km2) in Sweden between 1970 and 1994. We used data on the prevalence of sarcoptic mange in a sample of harvested red foxes (2694) from 1974 to 1982. A rapid decline in harvested foxes occurred two to three years after the prevalence of sarcoptic mange first became evident. In the same period, mark–recovery data were used to estimate changes in survival rates, and the best model included an effect of age (young or adult) and period (annual) on the survival and recapture probabilities. The analysis was based on data from 701 young foxes of which 523 were recovered, and 133 adults of which 131 were recovered. Average annual survival was 0.55 (range = 0.53–0.58) for adults and 0.36 (range = 0.32–0.39) for young foxes in the three years preceding the outbreak. During the outbreak and the remaining six years of the study, the average survival was reduced to 0.41 (range = 0.30–0.48) for adults and to 0.25 (range = 0.17–0.30) for young foxes. A population model, based on results on our survival analysis and literature data on fecundity, was developed to project the decline of the fox population. The rate and magnitude of the reduction in projected population and harvested foxes were similar, with both reduced by almost ninety percent. Harvest statistics indicate the fox population recovered to pre-mange densities in less than 10 years after the first detection of mange indicating a rapid development of resistance in the host. This study shows the importance of long-term population monitoring in combination with large-scale field-experiments to devise alternative management options.publishedVersio

Long-distance dispersal in red foxes Vulpes vulpes revealed by GPS tracking

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Åndelig omsorg. Hvilke aspekter ved muslimsk tro og praksis bør en sykepleier kjenne til for å kunne bidra til at døende muslimske pasienters åndelige behov blir ivaretatt?

Problemstilling: “Hvilke aspekter ved muslimsk tro og praksis bør en sykepleier kjenne til for å kunne bidra til at døende muslimske pasienters åndelige behov blir ivaretatt?” Metode: Litteraturstudie. Jeg har benyttet meg av relevante forskningsartikler, selvvalgt pensum og pensumlitteratur. Funn: Det ble funnet ti relevante artikler. De fleste artiklene handler om pasientens åndelige behov i møte med døden sett fra både pasientens og sykepleiers perspektiv, resten omhandler Islam, og muslimske ritualer. Drøfting: Drøftingen er basert på artiklene og annen relevant litteratur. Det blir drøftet pasientens behov for åndelig omsorg, og hva sykepleieren bør kjenne til i møte med den døende muslimske pasienten. Konklusjon: Det kommer frem at det er viktig at sykepleieren har kunnskap om den muslimske pasientens åndelige behov, og hvordan det kommer til uttrykk. Viktige aspekter å kjenne til er pasientens behov for bønn, rituell renhet, diett, og at familien har en viktig rolle for pasienten

Life in 2.5D: Animal Movement in the Trees

The complex, interconnected, and non-contiguous nature of canopy environments present unique cognitive, locomotor, and sensory challenges to their animal inhabitants. Animal movement through forest canopies is constrained; unlike most aquatic or aerial habitats, the three-dimensional space of a forest canopy is not fully realized or available to the animals within it. Determining how the unique constraints of arboreal habitats shape the ecology and evolution of canopy-dwelling animals is key to fully understanding forest ecosystems. With emerging technologies, there is now the opportunity to quantify and map tree connectivity, and to embed the fine-scale horizontal and vertical position of moving animals into these networks of branching pathways. Integrating detailed multi-dimensional habitat structure and animal movement data will enable us to see the world from the perspective of an arboreal animal. This synthesis will shed light on fundamental aspects of arboreal animals’ cognition and ecology, including how they navigate landscapes of risk and reward and weigh energetic trade-offs, as well as how their environment shapes their spatial cognition and their social dynamics

The twilight of the Liberal Social Contract? On the Reception of Rawlsian Political Liberalism

This chapter discusses the Rawlsian project of public reason, or public justification-based 'political' liberalism, and its reception. After a brief philosophical rather than philological reconstruction of the project, the chapter revolves around a distinction between idealist and realist responses to it. Focusing on political liberalism’s critical reception illuminates an overarching question: was Rawls’s revival of a contractualist approach to liberal legitimacy a fruitful move for liberalism and/or the social contract tradition? The last section contains a largely negative answer to that question. Nonetheless the chapter's conclusion shows that the research programme of political liberalism provided and continues to provide illuminating insights into the limitations of liberal contractualism, especially under conditions of persistent and radical diversity. The programme is, however, less receptive to challenges to do with the relative decline of the power of modern states

Constitutivism

A brief explanation and overview of constitutivism

Philosophy of action

The philosophical study of human action begins with Plato and Aristotle. Their influence in late antiquity and the Middle Ages yielded sophisticated theories of action and motivation, notably in the works of Augustine and Aquinas.1 But the ideas that were dominant in 1945 have their roots in the early modern period, when advances in physics and mathematics reshaped philosophy

Worldwide trends in underweight and obesity from 1990 to 2022: a pooled analysis of 3663 population-representative studies with 222 million children, adolescents, and adults

Background Underweight and obesity are associated with adverse health outcomes throughout the life course. We estimated the individual and combined prevalence of underweight or thinness and obesity, and their changes, from 1990 to 2022 for adults and school-aged children and adolescents in 200 countries and territories. Methods We used data from 3663 population-based studies with 222 million participants that measured height and weight in representative samples of the general population. We used a Bayesian hierarchical model to estimate trends in the prevalence of different BMI categories, separately for adults (age ≥20 years) and school-aged children and adolescents (age 5–19 years), from 1990 to 2022 for 200 countries and territories. For adults, we report the individual and combined prevalence of underweight (BMI 2 SD above the median). Findings From 1990 to 2022, the combined prevalence of underweight and obesity in adults decreased in 11 countries (6%) for women and 17 (9%) for men with a posterior probability of at least 0·80 that the observed changes were true decreases. The combined prevalence increased in 162 countries (81%) for women and 140 countries (70%) for men with a posterior probability of at least 0·80. In 2022, the combined prevalence of underweight and obesity was highest in island nations in the Caribbean and Polynesia and Micronesia, and countries in the Middle East and north Africa. Obesity prevalence was higher than underweight with posterior probability of at least 0·80 in 177 countries (89%) for women and 145 (73%) for men in 2022, whereas the converse was true in 16 countries (8%) for women, and 39 (20%) for men. From 1990 to 2022, the combined prevalence of thinness and obesity decreased among girls in five countries (3%) and among boys in 15 countries (8%) with a posterior probability of at least 0·80, and increased among girls in 140 countries (70%) and boys in 137 countries (69%) with a posterior probability of at least 0·80. The countries with highest combined prevalence of thinness and obesity in school-aged children and adolescents in 2022 were in Polynesia and Micronesia and the Caribbean for both sexes, and Chile and Qatar for boys. Combined prevalence was also high in some countries in south Asia, such as India and Pakistan, where thinness remained prevalent despite having declined. In 2022, obesity in school-aged children and adolescents was more prevalent than thinness with a posterior probability of at least 0·80 among girls in 133 countries (67%) and boys in 125 countries (63%), whereas the converse was true in 35 countries (18%) and 42 countries (21%), respectively. In almost all countries for both adults and school-aged children and adolescents, the increases in double burden were driven by increases in obesity, and decreases in double burden by declining https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/images/research_banner_face_lab_290.jpgunderweight or thinness. Interpretation The combined burden of underweight and obesity has increased in most countries, driven by an increase in obesity, while underweight and thinness remain prevalent in south Asia and parts of Africa. A healthy nutrition transition that enhances access to nutritious foods is needed to address the remaining burden of underweight while curbing and reversing the increase in obesity