Project Summary In Invasion Biology

The second factor, allopatric speciation, occurred between the two rodents’ habitat. This is when a population is divided by a geographic barrier which prevents interbreeding between the two populations. These species are found on two different islands, so the water in between separates the two populations from interacting with one another. Due to this, both species could have developed changes in courtship rituals, developed new traits, and undergone changes to adapt to their environment.

Smith, Wesley J. “The Grim Good of Animal Research.” Scientific Research, edited by Sylvia Engdahl, Greenhaven Press, 2015. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints In Context, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/EJ3010948220/OVIC?u=scschools&sid=OVIC&xide9245e81. Accessed 26 Apr. 2018. Originally published in www.firstthing.com, 18 Oct.

The issue on whether or not to keep animals in captivity has been debated heavily for a long time. With species such as the panda on the verge of extinction to mistreatment of marine mammals in theme parks such as Sea World, keeping wild animals under the care of humans has been a struggle and a highly controversial topic. Even though many people believe that animals should not be kept in captivity because humans are incapable of fully understanding and providing specific needs for wild animals, certain animals can be kept happy and healthy in captivity, and these animals are an important educational tool for teaching people of all ages about biology, biodiversity, and the ecosystems of the world.

Reproductive monogamy is defined as an exclusive sexual relationship between a female and a male based on their sexual interactions. Social Monogamy refers to male and female’s social living arrangement without sexual interactions. It refers to the living patterns, raising offsprings, and obtaining food. Monogamy is common in birds, but also occurs in invertebrates. Why would a male mammal choose to mate with one female when he can mate with more than one? Why would the male stay around instead of finding another female to live with? Many researchers have attempted to answer this question of why some mammals prefer monogamy over polygamy. Vole rats, one of the species that perform monogamous mating, demonstrate pair boding. Male and female pairs of vole rats have been observed together over several months, and the males stay with females even when the female is not reproductively active. A typical vole family in the wild is almost always consisted of one male, one female, and their offspring. In addition, unlike other species in which females are the only ones taking care of the offspring, vole rats share parental roles and even build nests together. Because they show these monogamous behaviors, they have served as a good species/model to learn about monogamy for neuroscientists. In this paper, monogamy, specifically in vole rats, will be explained along with its proximate and ultimate causes of this adaptation.

More than 90 percent in about 1000 scientists around the world, “felt that animal research is essential to scientific advancement” (Yoshida, 2011). One of the reasons that animals are used in labs is because it’s affordable, especially mice, since they are “mammals, […], [they] can be bred in a controlled manner, […], kept in a controlled environment”, and they don’t live long, plus fast reproduction (LifeVantage, 2017). Even though those are for science purposes and to help improve people’s lives and medicine’s quality, no living creature deserves to be locked up and live through pain, and then thrown away like garbage.

The Point Arena mountain beaver (Aplodontia rufa nigra) is a federally listed endangered subspecies that is restricted to the small area of Point Arena, in coastal Mendocino County, California (Zielinski, et al., 2013). (See Figure 1). The Point Arena mountain beaver is a dark brown, medium-sized burrowing rodent with small ears and eyes, and long whiskers and claws (National Park Service (NPS), n.d.). The subspecies is semi-fossorial, spending most of its five to six year lifespan in underground burrows (United States Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), 2011). The burrows are typically found on moist and steep north-facing slopes or in well-drained gullies; each burrow contains separate chambers for food storage, nesting, and excrement (NPS,

Speciation is when a population cannot exchange genes with another population. This occurs because of geographic, behavioral, and temporal isolation. The rodents in the St. Kitts island is a small species that has been threatened by development. The populace is extremely minuscule and the rodents are struggling in finding a mate. During my study, I noticed the Nevis rodent population were very healthy and could be used as potential mates for the rodents in the island of St. Kitts. Unfortunately, after 240 attempts to mate the populations no reproductive event was successful. The St. Kitts rodents and the Nevis rodents cannot exchange genes

In the beginning, the author introduces the nutria rat also known as coypu, it was first brought into the U.S. in 1899 in California for the fur industry. These creatures now live in 15 other states including Louisiana. They were released into “Louisiana wild by state and federal agencies to provide a new fur resource and to control problem plants such as the water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) and alligator weed (Alternanthera philoxeroides)” ( 1). It did not take long for them

The salt marsh harvest mouse is listed as an endangered species in 1970s. Its phylogeny is of the Kingdom Animalia, the Phylum Chordata, the Class Mammalia, the Order Rodentia, the Family Cricetidae, the Genus Reithrodontomys, and the Species raviventris. The closest living relative of the salt marsh harvest mouse, according to genetic mapping, is the plains harvest mouse, R. montanus, a western interior species that are found in Mexico and central US.

In the field of Invasion Ecology, understanding the four stages of invasion of a specific invader is imperative to understand the invader. This idea is well documented with the rusty crayfish, Orconectes rusticus. The rusty crayfish is a crustacean native to the Ohio River Basin (Hein et al. 2007). However, the rusty crayfish has invaded not only bordering states such as Wisconsin but also far away areas such as Ontario and Oregon (Hein et al. 2007, Sorenson et al. 2012). The reason that the invasion occurs both in nearby and far away areas is that the rusty crayfish moves to new areas through two different methods (Puth and Allen 2005).The rusty crayfish has invaded multiple places in the US and Canada through human mediated jump dispersal

Majority of mice in New Mexico’s Valley of Fire have dark color. The population increase of dark-colored mice in Valley of Fire happened because of natural selection. Mice that do not suit the environment, which are light-colored mice, cannot survive in Valley of Fire because they are easily noticed on dark soil by the predators. On the other hand, dark-colored mice can hide easily on dark soil, which made them survive. Whereas the mice near the desert are mutated, those near the lava are not mutated. Each mouse from different lava found to have a different gene. Whereas the mice near the desert’s color change was from a random mutation, that of the mice near the lavas was not random. Because, each dark-colored mouse from two different lavas

Captive breeding and reintroduction, translocations, population size estimates, inbreeding depression and avoidance, disease resistance, hybridization between introduced and native species, climate change and adaptation.

According to Van Driesche, nonnative species are more likely to establish if they invade habitats with lowered biotic resistance, encounter prey with poorly developed mechanisms of self-defense, or invade habitats unaccompanied by their specialized natural enemies or when their invasion is facilitated by earlier invaders (2000).  Damage to these communities, then, can be seen both in cumulative effects and in a cycle of self-reinforcement.  Although pristine environments are still at risk from invasion, this positive feedback loop makes habitats already with a disturbance by exotics even more vulnerable to other invasions.

They reproduce rapidly, as generally it is the case with small prey animals. No matter how well they are cared for, they possess somewhat short life span. Generally they have short gestational periods and their quick sexual maturity makes effective rodent control decisive. The reproductive cycle and the number of these rodent’s offspring increases with sufficient water, food and harbourage.

The A line in Table 1 is the first group of mice that they bred and B line is the second line is the second group of mice that were bred [4]. Of these two groups 171 mice had more than 10 offspring [4]. Table one shows that without considering the mice with less than 10 offspring that the number of mosaic mice account for a higher percentage of the mice 36% versus 25% [4].