Influence of Zoo Visitor Presence on the Behavior of Captive Indian Gaur (Bos gaurus gaurus) in a Zoological Park
Visitors to zoos can be a source of potential disturbance and stress to some captive, nonhuman animals in the wild. To determine the influence of visitor presence on captive bison (Bos gaurus gaurus), the study analyzed the behavior of 4 individuals at the Arignar Anna Zoological Park, India. The study often observed the behavior of […]
Glucocorticoids of bison bulls in relation to social status
A primary response to stress is an increase in circulating adrenal glucocorticoids (GC) such as cortisol. Two hypotheses propose differential stress responses to agonistic and aggressive interactions in social groups. If subordinate animals are subjected to social and psychological stressors leading to chronic GC elevation, the [`]stress of subordination’ hypothesis predicts that GCs will be […]
Fecal androgens of bison bulls during the rut
The influence of sex hormones is a key proximate factor underlying male reproductive behavior in mammals. Effective conservation policies for the remaining purebred plains bison (Bison bison bison) herds require knowledge of the physiology underlying bison reproductive biology. We used fecal steroid analysis to characterize androgen levels in adult bison bulls before, during, and after […]
Search efficiency of free-ranging plains bison for optimal food items
Optimal decisions in classical foraging models depend on the encounter rate with food items that are often distributed heterogeneously at one or multiple spatial scales. Only a few studies, however, provide a detailed assessment of the determinants of foraging efficiency by free-ranging animals across spatial scales. We evaluated multilevel search efficiency of free-ranging plains bison, […]
Acoustic cues to size and quality in the vocalizations of male North American bison, Bison bison
Source-filter theory provides a framework to interpret the acoustic structure of vertebrate vocalizations in relation to biophysical production, and it predicts that specific acoustic parameters can encode information about callers. Because formant frequencies are determined by vocal tract dimensions, with longer vocal tracts producing lower formants, they can be reliable indicators of body size, as […]