Is passive observation of habituated animals truly passive?

The term “habituated” is sometimes used to imply that animals no longer respond to the presence of a human observer. There is an accumulating body of evidence, however, suggesting that habituated animals that no longer perceive humans as a direct threat nevertheless continue to respond to their presence in other ways. Data were collected from a troop of free-ranging vervet monkeys in the Klein Karoo of South Africa for months 5–12 of their habituation period to determine how self-directed behaviour (SDB) was affected by human presence across time. SDB decreased across the 8 month period, indicating that habituation was ongoing. The human observer’s location in relation to the focal animal had a significant effect on SDB. Furthermore, when the habituation period was divided into an early and a late phase this pattern did not arise until the later habituation period (9–12 months). This evidence suggests that animals continue to respond to human presence as they become habituated, although the observed responses change.     

Relationships among somatic cell count, California mastitis test, impedance and bacteriological status of milk in goats and sheep in early lactation

The objectives of this trial were to evaluate and compare the test characteristics of a number of indirect tests of bacteriological status of the milk from goats and sheep and to assess the affect of varying levels of prevalence of infection on the performance of those tests.The somatic cell count, California mastitis test (CMT) score, electrical impedance and the bacteriological status of 220 and 262 milk samples from the glands of lactating dairy goats and sheep, respectively, were determined. The sensitivity and specificity of indirect tests in predicting the bacteriological status were compared by analyzing the areas under the receiver operating characteristic curve and calculating the likelihood ratio at various cut-off values.Bacteria were isolated from 17.7 and 4.6% of glands from goats and sheep, respectively. Somatic cell count was a better predictor of bacteriological status than either the CMT score or impedance in both goats and sheep. However, knowledge of the CMT score in both sheep and goats and the impedance in goats increases the likelihood of predicting the presence of a bacterial pathogen compared to no testing at all (P<0.05). Knowledge of the age and days postpartum of the animals at the time of testing did not increase the probability that infection status could be predicted. Variation in cut-off levels to predict infection status reported in the literature may be due to variation in the prevalence of infection in the populations studied. Use of likelihood ratio allows comparison of tests over a range of prevalence’s as likelihood ratios are independent of prevalence. The prevalence of infection within a herd should be considered when selecting a cut-off value for indirect testing for the presence of bacteria in milk of small ruminants.     

Structural confirmation of dihydrocinnamic acids from Adiscanthus fusciflorus by 13C NMR

In the wood of Adiscanthus fusciflorus six known alkaloids 4-methoxy-2-quinolone, 1-methyl-4-methoxy-2-quinolone, dictamine, skimmianine, γ-fagarine and N-methylflindersine and two new dihydrocinnamic acids 3-[2′,6′-dimethoxy-6″,6″-dimethylpyrano(2″,3″:4′, 3′)phenyl]-propionic acid and its methyl ester were identified. The structures of the dihydrocinnamic acid derivatives were confirmed by ¹³C NMR.     

Transferrin polymorphism and serum proteins of some British deer

Polymorphism of serum proteins has been described in a number of animals. The complexity of the phenotype pattern and the number and relative frequencies of the variants differ from species to species. Within a species, the variants have sometimes been found to characterize breeds and races. In this investigation the variants of transferrin in the serum proteins of three British deer, Red (Cervus elaphus L.), Fallow (Dama dama (L)) and Sika (Cervus nippon Temminck) have been studied and compared with those of other wild and domesticated ruminants for which data are available. In Red deer their distribution differed in samples from Rhum and Braemar. On Rhum, their distribution did not indicate any significant genetic differences between the stock in the six areas onto which the population appeared to be hefted. However, there appeared to be a difference corresponding to the main east and west division of the island, the significance of which is not apparent.