Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) build nests at night for sleeping and occasionally during daytime for resting. Over the course of seven years, forest fragments in Bulindi, Uganda, were reduced in size by about 80% when landowners converted forest to agricultural land. However, unlike other studies on nesting behavior in response to habitat disturbance, chimpanzees at Bulindi had no opportunity to retreat into nearby undisturbed forest. To understand behavioral adaptations to forest clearance, we compared Bulindi chimpanzees' nesting characteristics before and after this period of major deforestation. After deforestation, chimpanzees built nests at lower heights in shorter trees, and reused a larger proportion of their nests. Additionally, average nest group size increased after deforestation, even though community size declined by approximately 20% over the same period. The substantial decrease in available forest habitat may have caused the chimpanzees to aggregate for nesting. However, more cohesive nesting may also have been influenced by dietary shifts (increased reliance on agricultural crops) and a need for enhanced safety with increased human encroachment. Conversely, the chimpanzees selected similar tree species for nesting after deforestation, apparently reflecting a strong preference for particular species, nested less often in exotic species, and built integrated nests (constructed using multiple trees) at a similar frequency as before fragment clearance. Chimpanzees living in unprotected habitat in Uganda, as at Bulindi, face mounting anthropogenic pressures that threaten their survival. Nevertheless, our study shows that chimpanzees can adjust their nesting behavior flexibly in response to rapid, extensive habitat change. While behavioral flexibility may enable them to cope with deforestation, at least to a certain point, the long-term survival of chimpanzees in fast-changing human-modified landscapes requires intensive conservation efforts.
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PeerJ
January 2025
Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo, Laboratório de Genética e Evolução Molecular, Vitória, Espírito Santo, Brazil.
Sea turtles are highly migratory and predominantly inhabit oceanic environments, which poses significant challenges to the study of their life cycles. Research has traditionally focused on nesting females, utilizing nest counts and mark-recapture methods, while male behavior remains understudied. To address this gap, previous studies have analyzed the genotypes of females and hatchlings to indirectly infer male genotypes and evaluate the extent of multiple paternity within populations.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFEnviron Manage
January 2025
United States Department of Agriculture, Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, Wildlife Services, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
The great horned owl (Bubo virginianus) is a generalist predator that inhabits wide-ranging territories that are relatively stable throughout the year. These owls are also involved in a variety of human-owl conflicts, including killing of domestic poultry, predating colonially nesting seabirds and shorebirds, and pose a hazard to safe aircraft operations. Managing these conflict situations presents unique challenges as great horned owls are nocturnally active and occupy a wide range of habitats.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Biol Sci
January 2025
Faculty of Life Sciences, School of Zoology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel.
Understanding how wildlife responds to the spread of human-dominated habitats is a major challenge in ecology. It is still poorly understood how urban areas affect wildlife space-use patterns and consistent intra-specific behavioural differences (i.e.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNutrients
December 2024
School of Healthcare, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK.
Objective: To investigate primiparous women's partners for knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding the physical home food environment (PHFE), and to assess if the first pregnancy provides a teachable opportunity to enhance the PHFE of first-time pregnant couples.
Design: This was a two-phase longitudinal in-depth qualitative study involving questionnaires and individual interviews during and after pregnancy.
Participants: Fifteen male partners of primigravida women.
Sci Rep
January 2025
Department of Behavioural Neurobiology, Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, Seewiesen, Germany.
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