Dataset Information

Investigating Unused Tools for the Animal Behavioral Diversity Toolkit.

ABSTRACT: Behavioral diversity is a commonly used tool used to quantify the richness and evenness of animal behaviors and assess the effect of variables that may impact an animal's quality of life. The indices used in behavioral diversity research, and the study subjects, have not been formally reviewed. This paper aims to identify which indices are being used in behavioral diversity research, and under which scenarios, and uncover novel indices from other disciplines that could be applied to behavioral diversity. To investigate the techniques and species investigated in behavioral diversity literature, a Web of Science literature search was conducted. Two methods: behavioral richness and the Shannon-Wiener index, were the most frequently used indices, whereas the Behavioral Variability index featured rarely. While a range of species appeared in the behavioral literature, mammals were the most frequently studied Class, whereas amphibians did not feature in any papers. There are several diversity indices which did not feature in behavioral diversity including Simpson's index, and Chao. Such indices could be used to better understand animal behavioral study outputs or be used to estimate the number of 'unobserved' behaviors that an animal may express. Future studies could therefore extend beyond the Shannon-Wiener and richness indices.

SUBMITTER: Brereton JE

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9654576 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Investigating Unused Tools for the Animal Behavioral Diversity Toolkit.

Brereton James Edward JE Fernandez Eduardo J EJ

Animals : an open access journal from MDPI 20221030 21

Behavioral diversity is a commonly used tool used to quantify the richness and evenness of animal behaviors and assess the effect of variables that may impact an animal's quality of life. The indices used in behavioral diversity research, and the study subjects, have not been formally reviewed. This paper aims to identify which indices are being used in behavioral diversity research, and under which scenarios, and uncover novel indices from other disciplines that could be applied to behavioral d ...[more]

PMID: 36359107

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Project description:Accredited zoological facilities are committed to fully understanding the behavioral, mental, and physical needs of each species to continuously improve the welfare of the animals under their professional care and detect when welfare has diminished. In order to accomplish this goal, internally consistent and externally valid indicators of animal welfare are necessary to advance our understanding of the current welfare status of individual animals. Historically, efforts have focused on monitoring visible or observable signs of poor health or problem behavior, but lack of signs or problems does not necessarily demonstrate that an individual animal is thriving. The current study examined fecal hormone metabolite levels and behavior for two species of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus and Tursiops aduncus) from 25 different accredited zoological facilities. At the time of the study, all facilities were accredited by the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums and/or the Association of Zoos and Aquariums. This was part of the multi-institutional study 'Towards understanding of the welfare of cetaceans in zoos and aquariums" commonly referred to as the Cetacean Welfare Study. Behavioral diversity was calculated using the Shannon Diversity Index on species-appropriate behavioral events. Behavioral diversity was compared to the fecal metabolites of cortisol, aldosterone, and the ratio of cortisol to dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) as well as the stereotypic behavior of route tracing. Similar to previous studies on other species, there was a significant inverse relationship between behavioral diversity and both fecal cortisol metabolites and route tracing. Additionally, a significant inverse relationship also exists between behavioral diversity and the ratio of fecal cortisol to DHEA metabolites. Behavioral diversity and fecal aldosterone metabolites were not associated. Additional research is still needed to validate behavioral diversity as an indicator of positive animal welfare for bottlenose dolphins and across species. However, based on current results, facilities could utilize behavioral diversity combined with other measures of welfare to more comprehensively evaluate the welfare of bottlenose dolphins.

Project description:Haemophilus influenzae(Hi) is a gram-negative rod shaped bacterium that lives symbiotically in the upper respiratory tract of humans. Capsulated Hi, as well as non-capsulated strains are known to cause a number of significant infections. Recognizing and understanding the links between the phenotypic traits and the genetic background has paramount epidemiological and clinical importance. To date, a panoply of microbiological and molecular biology tools have been developed and utilized by researchers aimed at identifying the evolutionary links among strains and isolates. Comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) has been shown to be a useful tool for screening strains for their genetic content. However, there is a major limitation when CGH is conducted on a microarray based on a single reference genome. CGH results report which genes are present or absent relative to the genome. Hence the information about novel genetic content that the query strain possesses remains obscure. We report here the construction of the first Hi pan-genome microarray representing ca. 4600 features by 70-mers. In addition to those from the Rd strain, new features originate from the unfinished genome sequences present in NCBI database and from our novel gene discovery project efforts using strain HK1212. Genomes of 20strains belonging to different phylogenetic lineages were screened for their gene loss and gain utilizing the species microarray. The results obtained by employing the multistrain species microarray provide comprehensive information about the genomic content of uncharacterized strains. The trees generated by CGH, in general, do not reproduce the phylogeny of a species in terms of vertical evolution, but instead represents the overall relatedness of genomes to one another and provide an assessment about the species genome evolution. Keywords: Comparative Genomic Hybridization Twenty query strains (denoted HKxxxx) were investigated in this study, with each query strain hybridized against the reference strain, KW20. Two dye-swap experiments were performed, for a total of four hybridizations per query strain. Each 70mer oligo spotted on the H. influenzae species microarray is replicated six times. Positive controls on the array consist of oligos designed from the sequenced reference genome, KW20, and negative controls on the array consist of oligos designed from the thale cress plant, Arabidopsis thaliana.

Dataset Information

Investigating Unused Tools for the Animal Behavioral Diversity Toolkit.

Publications

Investigating Unused Tools for the Animal Behavioral Diversity Toolkit.

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