Enriching Zoo-Housed Ring-Tailed Lemurs (): Assessing the Influence of Three Types of Environmental Enrichment on Behavior.

Environmental enrichment is a management tool used to promote positive animal welfare by stimulating species-specific behaviors and providing animals with opportunities to exert choice and control over the environment. Our study aimed to evaluate the combined effect of three enrichment types and environmental/individual factors (i.e.

Developmental exposure to low levels of ethinylestradiol affects social play in juvenile male rats.

Juvenile social play contributes to the development of adult social and emotional skills in humans and non-human animals and is therefore a useful endpoint to study the effects of endocrine disrupters on behavior in animal models. Ethinylestradiol (EE), a widely produced, powerful synthetic estrogen is widespread in the environment mainly because it is a component of the contraceptive pill. To understand whether clinical or environmental exposure to EE during critical perinatal periods can affect male social play, we exposed 72 male Sprague-Dawley rats to EE or vehicle either during gestation (from gestation day (GD) 5 through 20) or during lactation (from postnatal day (PND) 1 through 21).

Developmental Exposure to Low Levels of Ethinylestradiol Affects Play Behavior in Juvenile Female Rats.

Juvenile social play contributes to the development of adult social and emotional skills in humans and non-human animals, and is therefore a useful endpoint to study the effects of endocrine disrupters on behavior in animal models. Ethinylestradiol (EE) is a widely produced, powerful synthetic estrogen that is widespread in the environment mainly because is a component of the contraceptive pill. In addition, fetuses may be exposed to EE2 when pregnancy is undetected during contraceptive treatment.

Developmental Exposure to Very Low Levels of Ethynilestradiol Affects Anxiety in a Novelty Place Preference Test of Juvenile Rats.

Ethinylestradiol (EE), a synthetic mimic of 17β-estradiol, is widespread in the environment because of its use as a contraceptive. In mammals, recent research highlighted behavioral, physiological, and morphological effects of exposition to EE (this xenoestrogen). We studied if developmental exposure to environmental-like, low doses of EE affects measures of anxiety in Sprague-Dawley rats.

The trap of sex in social insects: from the female to the male perspective.

The phenotype of male Hymenoptera and the peculiar role of males has been neglected and greatly understudied, given the spectacular cooperative behavior of female social insects. In social insects there has been considerable progress in understanding the molecular mechanisms behind haplodiploid sex determination but, beyond that, very little is known concerning the neural, endocrine, and genetic correlates of sexual selection in males. An opportunity is being missed: the male phenotype in Hymenoptera is a natural experiment to compare the drives of natural versus sexual selection.