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Comparative psychopathology of captive great apes: towards understanding psychological disturbances in captive orangutans
Odzganová Leskovská, Linda ; Fraňková, Slávka (advisor) ; Špinka, Marek (referee)
The purpose of this paper is a qualitative insight into the problem of psychopathological phenomena in captive orangutans. The theoretical part deals with the elementary zoology of genus Pongo, and offers philosophical and ethical considerations of "animal kind", "captivity", "norm and psychopathology" as well as some methodological aspects of animal study. The aim of my empirical research design was to gather as much information as possible about the phenomena in question. This study is meant to provide preliminary ideas for further research and by no means aspires to cover the topic to the full. There are 5 zoos in Czech Republic and Slovakia that have orangutans, and I have visited 4 of them. Each group of orangutans was reported on by at least 2 people in direct contact with these animals (caretakers, veterinarians or curators). I have attempted to objectify my findings by individually interviewing 10 professionals, all of whom have provided their reports independently and confidentially. The caretakers reported on a total of 16 animals in their custody, out of which, there were 7 adult males, 5 adult females, 3 sub-adult males and 1 male infant. Of these, 8 were Sumatran orangutans, 6 Borneans and 2 crossbreeds. Three animals that entered the record were no longer present at the zoo by the time...
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Vliv sourozenecké kompetice během přítomnosti u struku na mateřské chování u prasete domácího
Leszkowová, Iva ; Illmannová, Gudrun (advisor) ; Špinka, Marek (referee)
This diploma thesis deal with the neonatal sibling competition during nursing within first day after farrowing, focusing on maternal reaction on neonatal sibling competition during nursing. We predicted that the sow will terminate nursing by a changing posture or by a non- nutritive nursing (i.e. nursing without milk ejection) with increasing number of fights and screams. A total of 19 healthy sows and their litters were directly observed and video recorded during first day after farrowing for 6 h. The behaviour of piglets (fighting, screaming, presence at the udder) in the pre massage and the post massage was scored every 15 seconds. Piglets which missed milk ejection, posture changing of the sow and whether the nursing involve milk ejection were noted. A sum of fighting and screaming piglets in the pre massage and the post massage was calculated. A higher sum of fighting and screaming piglets correlated with a higher proportion of non-nutritive nursing (P<0.001) as well as with a higher proportion of sow posture changing in the pre massage (P<0.01). However, a higher sum of fighting and screaming piglets did not increase the probability of sow posture changing in the post massage. The results show a positive correlation between the litter size and the sum of fighting and screaming piglets in the...
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Acoustic communication and its variability in selected populations of ground squirrels of the genus Spermophilus
Schneiderová, Irena ; Vohralík, Vladimír (advisor) ; Sedláček, František (referee) ; Špinka, Marek (referee)
The thesis deals with vocalizations produced by Eurasian ground squirrels of the genus Spermophilus. It is mainly focused on inter-species and intra-species variability in acoustic structure of alarm calls which are emitted in presence of predators.The major part of the thesis deals with intra-species variability in acoustic structure of the alarm calls in five Eurasian ground squirrels, Spermophilus citellus, S. taurensis, S. xanthoprymnus, S. suslicus and S. fulvus. It has been confirmed that the alarm calls of these ground squirrels show a high level of species specificity. The thesis further describes another vocalizations produced by three Eurasian ground squirrel species, Spermophilus suslicus, S. citellus and S. fulvus, and shows that with the exception of the alarm calls, vocal repertoires of these three ground squirrels are remarkably similar. The last part of the thesis deals with individual distinctiveness of the alarm calls of three Eurasian ground squirrels, Spermophilus citellus, S. taurensis and S. xanthoprymnus. It has been shown that the alarm calls of these species have a significant potential to encode information about caller identity.
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Reaction of Palearctic and Nearctic chickadees to sympatric and allopatric predators using feeder experiments: do regional differences in recognition of predators and determination of threat they are posing exist?
Lončík, Lukáš ; Fuchs, Roman (advisor) ; Špinka, Marek (referee)
We have examined wild palearctic and nearctic parids in their ability to recognize and assess a threat level of sympatric and allopatric predators. The study was conducted in Prague, Czech republic, on great tits (Parus major) and blue tits (Parus caeruleus) during the winter of 2013, and the following year in the city of Calgary, Canada, on black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus). Three species of falcons (merlin (Falco columbarius), common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) and american kestrel (Falco sparverius)), were chosen, two of which were sympatric and one was allopatric to the studied parid species in each area. We have also tested their reaction to nest predators magpies (eurasian magpie (Pica pica), black-billed magpie (Pica hudsonia)). Using two ground feeders in the winter time, we gave parids a choice between a feeder with either one of the three dummies of falcons, or a magpie, and a feeder with a dummy of either a hawk (the most dangerous predator of small birds) or a dove (a harmless bird of the same size as falcons). As a control we have only used sympatric species: eurasian sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus), Cooper's hawk (Acipiter cooperii), eurasian collared dove (Streptopelia decaocto) and mourning dove (Zenaida macroura). Results from the city of Calgary did not produce any...
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Sociální vztahy a synchronizace ve stádech přežvýkavců - vliv na pastevní chování
Šárová, Radka ; Špinka, Marek (advisor) ; Červený, Jaroslav (referee) ; Nekovářová, Tereza (referee)
This thesis addresses the relationships between beef cattle (Bos taurus) group behaviour on pasture, social dominance and individual characteristics such as body weight and age. The thesis is based on three studies performed in a herd of female beef cattle. In the first two studies, GPS collars were used as the main data-collection method, while the third study relied on an extensive dataset of cow dominance relationships. The first study focused on activity synchronization. We assessed whether cows similar to each other in body weight or in reproductive status were more synchronized and whether the timing of activity switches was determined by specific leading animals. We found that the body weight difference in a dyad of animals had a negative influence on their mutual synchronization. There were no leading animal initiating switches in activity. The second study focused on the role of dominant animals in group movements of the herd. There were positive correlations between dominance status of an individual and several measures of leadership during movements, namely the position of the animal at the front of the herd, more direct and shorter trajectories and higher alignment with nearest neighbours and with the whole herd. These results show that herd movements on pasture behaviour were...
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Gender differences in behavioral changes induced by latent toxoplasmosis
Lindová, Jitka ; Flegr, Jaroslav (advisor) ; Špinka, Marek (referee) ; Ditrich, Oleg (referee)
Summaryof resultsofpresentedresearch Toxoplasmagondiiis a protozoanparasiteinfectingabout30%ofour population.After a shortphaseof acuteinfection,the parasitosistums into the lifelong latents.tagewhich is usuallyconsideredasymptomatic.However,in thestudiesperformedby our researchteam, latenttoxoplasmosiswasťoundto havespecificeffectson personality,behavior,morphology andphysiotogy.Interestingly'in manyaspects,theseeffectswereclearlygender-dífferent. My thesis was motivatedby results of previous questionnairestudies which found toxoplasmosisto haveoppositeinfluenceon men's and women'spersonalitytraitswarmth, conscíentiousnessandvigilancemeasuredby Cattell's16PersonalityFactorQuestionnaire (Flegretď. L996,1999,2000'FlegrandHavlíček1999'FlegrandHrdý 1994).Bothinfected womenand men werealso foundto score lower in novelryseeking(Skallová et al. 2005' Flegretal.2003). The resultof lowernoveltyseekingwas confirmedby thefirst studyperformedwith my contribution(lt{ovotnáet al. 2005).Moreover,this studyshowedthat regardingnovelty seeking,similar changeswere observedin subjectsinťectedby cytomega|ovirus.This was interprétedasevidenceforthehypothesisthatbehavioral/personalityshifu inducedby latent toxoplasmosiscouldbenonspecificchanges,causedby mildchronicbraininfections.Lower novelty seeking is thought to be associated...
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Individual differences in maternal behavior (maternal style) of mammals
Leszkowová, Iva ; Špinka, Marek (advisor) ; Polák, Jakub (referee)
The expression "maternal style" in the wider sense serves to describe the interspecies interindividual and intraindividual, variability in the maternal care. In the narrow sense it is used only to designate permanent variability in the maternal behaviour among different mothers of the same species. The concept of the maternal style is based on a well-documented fact, that individual parts of maternal behaviour correlate with one another and this mutual bond enables to describe the varied repertoire of the mothers' behaviour by a few dimensions, such as e.g. protectiveness, restrictive, rejection and laissez-faire. Maternal style of primates was described in a wide range (e.g. Berman, 1990; Fairbanks, 1996). Up to today the existence of maternal style has been confirmed also with some rodents (guinea-pig: Albers, 1999; mouse: Benus a Rondigs, 1996), domestic animals (pig: e.g. Špinka et al., 2000; sheep: Dwyer a Lawrence, 2010; goat: O'Brien, 1984) and predators (dog: Wilsson, 1984). KEYWORDS : Maternal style, Maternal behavior, Individual differences, Parent-offspring conflict, Protectiveness, Rejection
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Mice and Rats: Space, Smell and Methods of Detection
Kaftanová, Barbora ; Frynta, Daniel (advisor) ; Sedláček, František (referee) ; Špinka, Marek (referee)
The coexistence of humans and rodents lasts from the beginnings of the history of agriculture. Many rodent populations accepted to synanthropic way of life and as commensals accompany human societies until today. In the first study we wanted to find out, how the evolution of non-commensal rodent species, a Cypriot mouse (Mus cypriacus), was influenced by people. This endemic island species evolved on the Cyprus Island without presence of any mammalian competitors or predators. In last 10.000 years humans arrived on the island, bringing several mammalian species, which affected the environment markedly. A black rat (Rattus rattus) is now dominant species there and presumably it is an important competitor for the Cypriot mouse. We supposed that the mice should avoid its odour. Nevertheless the rats odour was preferred by the mouse, probably as an odour of phylogenetically related species. On the contraty, the odour of domestic cat (species, which is also widespread on the island), was avoided. In conclusion, the long-term isolation from mammalian predators did not affect the antipredatory reactions of the Cypriot mouse. Our next study was focuse on changes in behavioural strategies of different populations of mice: the main question was how the commensal way of life affects their exploratory...
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Parent-offspring play behaviour in phylogenetic comparison
Letová, Eliška ; Špinka, Marek (advisor) ; Maruščáková, Iva Linda (referee)
The bachelor's thesis provides an overview of the current literature, which deals with the research of the play of parents with offspring in humans and selected species of mammals. The literature review briefly introduces the concept of play and summarizes opinions on motivation for playful behaviour. It presents the benefits of playful behaviour. It includes an overview of current research findings that compare the playful behaviour of fathers with offspring and mothers with offspring. The aim of the research is to compare the course of paternal and maternal play in humans and in biparental species. The research will be carried out using the transcription of a freely available video. Research data help answer the question of whether there are different differences in paternal and maternal play across species. Research data help answer the question of whether there are differences in paternal and maternal play across species of mammals. Keywords Play; Playful behaviour; Motivation for play; Parental play; Maternal play; Paternal play; Phylogenetic comparison
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Assortative mating in humans.
Štěrbová, Zuzana ; Weiss, Petr (advisor) ; Lindová, Jitka (referee) ; Špinka, Marek (referee)
Human mate choice is far from random. Assortative mating can be either positive (homogamy), when people prefer and choose partners with self-similar characteristics, or negative (heterogamy, complementarity), when people prefer self-dissimilar partners. Over one hundred years of research, it has been shown that people generally couple based on the principle of homogamy. This thesis seeks to address the following two goals. First, it critically reviews the current state of knowledge in positive assortative mating (in particular, empirical support, factors affecting homogamy, mechanisms of homogamy, relationship and genetic impact of homogamy, and methodological pitfalls of research). This section includes theoretical papers deal with further mechanisms of assortative mating (homogamy, imprinting-like effect, heterogamy, complementarity). Second, the thesis provides further test of assortative mating in 'ideal partners' (preferences) and actual partners, in the context of sex, sexual orientation (heterosexual and non-heterosexual), and population (Brazil and Czech Republic). Results of these studies show that the principle of homogamy is valid irrespective of sex and population. However, they find a stronger tendency for homogamy in actual partners among heterosexuals than in homosexuals, although...
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