Neophobia and exploration behavior in urban gulls: The Kelp Gulls (Larus dominicanus) as a study case.

Neophobia and exploratory behavior are personality traits through which organisms evaluate and respond to environment changes by adjusting their behavior. The Kelp Gull (Larus dominicanus) is a generalist seabird that consumes a wide variety of prey. Neophobia levels and exploratory behavior in novel circumstances were analyzed in urban adult (n = 13) and immature (n = 15) Kelp Gulls captured in the landfill of Mar del Plata city.

Long-term memory in wild falcons.

Long-term memory - information retention over long timescales - can allow animals to retain foraging skills and efficiently respond to seasonally available resources and changing environments. Most long-term memory research is with captive species, focusing on spatial, individual or object recognition, with less known about wild species and the retention of motor task abilities, as in the case of complex foraging skills. We have examined whether wild striated caracaras (Phalcoboenus australis), recently shown to rapidly and flexibly innovate with an eight-task puzzle box, retain task memories one year later.

Dietary combination of linseed and hazelnut skin as a sustainable strategy to enrich lamb with health promoting fatty acids.

This study investigated the effect of the inclusion of extruded linseed and hazelnut skin on fatty acid (FA) metabolism in finishing lambs. Forty lambs were divided into 4 groups and fed for 60 d with: a conventional cereal-based diet, or the same diet with 8% of extruded linseed, or 15% of hazelnut skin, or 4% of linseed plus 7.5% of hazelnut skin as partial replacement of maize.

Innovative problem solving by wild falcons.

Innovation (i.e., a new solution to a familiar problem, or applying an existing behavior to a novel problem) plays a fundamental role in species' ecology and evolution.

Performance and meat quality in pigs fed hydrolysable tannins from Tara spinosa.

This study aimed to assess the effect of dietary tara (Tara spinosa (Feuillée ex Molina) Britton & Rose) hydrolysable tannins on performance and meat quality of finishing pigs. Twenty barrows (crossbred PIC × Piétrain; age: 125 ± 5 d; bodyweight: 60.8 ± 3.