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Quantitative photogrammetric methodology for measuring mammalian belly score in the painted dog.

ABSTRACT: The use of "belly scoring" can offer a novel, non-invasive objective management tool to gauge food intake between individuals, groups, and populations, and thus, population fitness. As food availability is increasingly affected by predation, ecological competition, climate change, habitat modification, and other human activities, an accurate belly scoring tool can facilitate comparisons among wildlife populations, serving as an early warning indicator of threats to wildlife population health and potential population collapse. In social species, belly scores can also be a tool to understand social behavior and ranking. We developed and applied the first rigorous quantitative photogrammetric methodology to measure belly scores of wild painted dogs (Lycaon pictus). Our methodology involves: (1) Rigorous selection of photographs of the dorso/lateral profile of individuals at a right angle to the camera, (2) photogrammetrically measuring belly chord length and "belly drop" in pixels, (3) adjusting belly chord length as a departure from a standardized leg angle, and (4) converting pixel measurements to ratios to eliminate the need to introduce distance from the camera. To highlight a practical application, this belly score method was applied to 631 suitable photographs of 15 painted dog packs that included 186 individuals, all collected between 2004-2015 from allopatric painted dog populations in and around Hwange (n = 462) and Mana Pools National Parks (n = 169) in Zimbabwe. Variation in mean belly scores exhibited a cyclical pattern throughout the year, corresponding to biologically significant patterns to include denning demand and prey availability. Our results show significant differences between belly scores of the two different populations we assessed, thus highlighting food stress in the Hwange population. In the face of growing direct and indirect anthropogenic disturbances, this standardised methodology can provide a rapid, species-specific non-invasive management tool that can be applied across studies to rapidly detect emergent threats.

SUBMITTER: Rasmussen G

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8670687 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:Transcriptomic and peptidomic analysis of skin secretions from the Painted-belly leaf frog Phyllomedusa sauvagii led to the identification of 5 novel phylloseptins (PLS-S2 to -S6) and also of phylloseptin-1 (PSN-1, here renamed PLS-S1), the only member of this family previously isolated in this frog. Synthesis and characterization of these phylloseptins revealed differences in their antimicrobial activities. PLS-S1, -S2, and -S4 (79-95% amino acid sequence identity; net charge = +2) were highly potent and cidal against Gram-positive bacteria, including multidrug resistant S. aureus strains, and killed the promastigote stage of Leishmania infantum, L. braziliensis and L. major. By contrast, PLS-S3 (95% amino acid identity with PLS-S2; net charge = +1) and -S5 (net charge = +2) were found to be almost inactive against bacteria and protozoa. PLS-S6 was not studied as this peptide was closely related to PLS-S1. Differential scanning calorimetry on anionic and zwitterionic multilamellar vesicles combined with circular dichroism spectroscopy and membrane permeabilization assays on bacterial cells indicated that PLS-S1, -S2, and -S4 are structured in an amphipathic α-helix that disrupts the acyl chain packing of anionic lipid bilayers. As a result, regions of two coexisting phases could be formed, one phase rich in peptide and the other lipid-rich. After reaching a threshold peptide concentration, the disruption of lipid packing within the bilayer may lead to local cracks and disintegration of the microbial membrane. Differences in the net charge, α-helical folding propensity, and/or degree of amphipathicity between PLS-S1, -S2 and -S4, and between PLS-S3 and -S5 appear to be responsible for their marked differences in their antimicrobial activities. In addition to the detailed characterization of novel phylloseptins from P. sauvagii, our study provides additional data on the previously isolated PLS-S1 and on the mechanism of action of phylloseptins.

Project description:There is an ethical and scientific need for objective, well-validated measures of low mood in captive chimpanzees. We describe the development of a novel cognitive task designed to measure 'pessimistic' bias in judgments of expectation of reward, a cognitive marker of low mood previously validated in a wide range of species, and report training and test data from three common chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). The chimpanzees were trained on an arbitrary visual discrimination in which lifting a pale grey paper cone was associated with reinforcement with a peanut, whereas lifting a dark grey cone was associated with no reward. The discrimination was trained by sequentially presenting the two cone types until significant differences in latency to touch the cone types emerged, and was confirmed by simultaneously presenting both cone types in choice trials. Subjects were subsequently tested on their latency to touch unrewarded cones of three intermediate shades of grey not previously seen. Pessimism was indicated by the similarity between the latency to touch intermediate cones and the latency to touch the trained, unreinforced, dark grey cones. Three subjects completed training and testing, two adult males and one adult female. All subjects learnt the discrimination (107-240 trials), and retained it during five sessions of testing. There was no evidence that latencies to lift intermediate cones increased over testing, as would have occurred if subjects learnt that these were never rewarded, suggesting that the task could be used for repeated testing of individual animals. There was a significant difference between subjects in their relative latencies to touch intermediate cones (pessimism index) that emerged following the second test session, and was not changed by the addition of further data. The most dominant male subject was least pessimistic, and the female most pessimistic. We argue that the task has the potential to be used to assess longitudinal changes in sub-clinical levels of low mood in chimpanzees, however further work with a larger sample of animals is required to validate this claim.

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Quantitative photogrammetric methodology for measuring mammalian belly score in the painted dog.

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