Winter in temperate regions is characteristically the coldest period of the year. Species in these regions adapt to freezing temperatures with physiological or behavioural mechanisms to mitigate the threats of cold exposure. For aquatic species, taking refuge under the ice...
Although it is sometimes difficult for researchers to ensure that their work is used by resource managers to make informed decisions, an example where this knowledge–action gap has been breached is in research published in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater...
The detection and monitoring of surface water and its extent are critical for understanding floodwater hazards. Flooding and undermining caused by surface water flow can result in damage to critical infrastructure and changes in ecosystems. Along major transportation corridors, such...
Measuring habitat suitability is important in conservation and in wildlife management. Measuring the abundance or presence–absence of a species in various habitats is not sufficient to measure habitat suitability because these metrics can be poor predictors of population success. Therefore...
Long-term studies in Ontario, Canada on Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides and Smallmouth Bass M. dolomieu have demonstrated that angling nesting males (both catch and harvest and catch and release) can have negative impacts on the reproductive success for the captured...
The density dependence of demographic parameters and its implications for population regulation have long been recognized. Recent work has revealed potential effects of density on mating systems and sexual selection, but few studies concurrently assess the consequences of density on...
Contemporary theory predicts that the degree of mimetic similarity of mimics towards their model should increase as the mimic/model ratio increases. Thus, when the mimic/model ratio is high, then the mimic has to resemble the model very closely to still...
Bycatch from marine commercial fisheries has been regarded as a global conservation concern for decades. Fortunately, some headway has been made in mitigating bycatch problems in marine fisheries. Freshwater commercial fisheries, however, have been relatively understudied. Although freshwater yields comprise...
Interest in female ornamentation has burgeoned recently, and evidence suggests that carotenoid-based female coloration may function as a mate-choice signal. However, the possibility that females may signal status with coloration has been all but ignored. Bill coloration of female American...
The mating system of self‐compatible plants may fluctuate between years in response to ecological factors that cause variation in the deposition of self pollen vs. outcross pollen on stigmas. Such temporal variation may have significant ecological and evolutionary consequences, but...
In several animal species, one male type coexists with two to several female types, a polymorphism often explained in the context of sexual selection. Where it occurs, one female morph typically resembles the conspecific male phenotype, but the degree of...
Animal signalling contests are used by males to advertise to choosy females and to repel male competitors. During countersinging interactions in songbirds, males vary the type and timing of songs with respect to their opponent's behaviour. In black-capped chickadees, Poecile...
This study was intended to discover whether forcing largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) to swim at 0.5 body lengths/second following exercise would expedite recovery relative to fish recovered in static water. Exercise resulted in a suite of physiological disturbances...
Recent attention has focused on genetic compatibility as an adaptive function for why females engage in extrapair mating. We tested the genetic compatibility hypothesis in tree swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) over five breeding seasons using data from ten microsatellite...
A whole‐lake acoustic telemetry observatory situated in eastern Ontario was used to continuously monitor the three‐dimensional position of 20 largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) over a 120‐h period during the winter and a separate 120‐h period during the early...
The goal of the current study was to examine the physiological disturbances in walleyes Sander vitreus that occurred during the different phases of a live‐release angling tournament. To achieve this, we took blood and white muscle samples from walleyes during...
Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) show one of the highest levels of extra-pair mating among bird species, yet extra-pair copulations are rarely observed. Despite the suggestion that extra-pair copulations could be taking place away from nest sites, very little is known...
Fish welfare issues are increasingly appearing on social and political agendas and have recently gained prominence in fisheries literature. By focusing on examples from recreational fishing, this paper challenges some of the previous accounts of fish welfare. Issues of concern...
Sperm competition results in the evolution of ejaculate characteristics such as high sperm density, high motility, and fast sperm swimming speed. A fundamental assumption of sperm competition theory is that ejaculates with high motility and fast-swimming sperm have an advantage...
Some, but not all, jurisdictions in North America have regulations in place designed to protect nesting male largemouth bass Micropterus salmoides and smallmouth bass M. dolomieu from angling. The underlying assumption that brood‐guarding males are particularly vulnerable to angling, however...
Male song reflects the quality of the singer in many animals and plays a role in female choice of social and copulation partners. Eavesdropping on male-male vocal interactions is a means by which females can compare different males’ singing behavior...
T.--We used data from an 11-year study of Red-winged Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) totest the hypothesis that fledging success is a reliable index of recruitment at the population and the individual level. Natal philopatry was only 2.37% overall (3.51% for males...
It has been suggested that fluctuating asymmetry (FA) is an indicator of perturbed development. Our study tests the validity of a fundamental assumption of asymmetry theory: that environmental stress imposed during development increases FA. We deprived tree swallow (Tachycineta...
The theoretical construct of an optimal offspring size remains widely cited in life history literature, despite the regular failure of the central prediction of that theory, that offspring size should not vary within populations. Here we used data from 77...
Mating systems and sexual selection are assumed to be affected by the distribution of critical resources. We use observations of 312 mating aggregations to compare mate-searching success of male northern water snakes (Nerodia sipedon) in two marshes in...
Floaters are sexually mature yet nonbreeding, nonterritorial individuals (Smith 1978). They are common in many passerine species and avian social systems (see Zack and Stutchbury 1992) but relatively little is known about them. Floating behavior ultimately arises through an excess...
Our aim was to determine the rate of extrapair paternity in Eastern Phoebes using DNA fingerprinting. We also wanted to see if the frequency of EPY changed between the first and second broods of the season.
Fluctuating asymmetry (FA) refers to random deviations from symmetry of otherwise bilaterally symmetric traits. Researchers have hypothesized that FA should be inversely related to individual quality or fitness. In this study, we tested for FA-quality and FA-fitness relations in the...
Divorcing a current partner to re-pair with a mate of higher quality may be a strategy to increase reproductive success used by socially monogamous birds. By increasing the availability of males through selective mate removal during the nest building period...
In the plant sexual polymorphism tristyly, disassortative mating among floral morphs should result in frequency-dependent selection leading to equal frequencies of the three morphs in populations at equilibrium. Direct evidence for frequency-dependent selection in natural populations is, however, lacking. Here...
Researchers have questioned whether variation in population density influence the maintenance of two or more morphs within and between insect populations.
This study compares the compensatory response of female tree swallows without their mate's parental assistance (when females are widowed) and with reduced male parental care (when males are handi-capped by cutting some feathers).
Females of the brood-parasitic brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) search for host nests in which to lay their eggs. Females normally return to lay a single egg from one to several days after first locating a potential host nest and lay...
Fluctuating asymmetry of the first tarsal segment of the proleg of the forest tent caterpillar moth Malacosma disstria Hbn. (Lepidoptera: Lasiocampidae) was significantly inversely related to survival ability in the lab. The monitoring of population levels of fluctuating asymmetry could...
Foraging behaviour of pumpkinseed (Lepornis gribbosus) was investigated in feeding arenas containing different habitat structures and prey types in two sets of experiments, each of three successive 10-d blocks.
In a Canadian population of tree swallows, Tachycineta bicolor, DNA fingerprinting has previously shown that half of all broods contain many offspring resulting from extra-pair copulations (EPCs), whereas the other half contain only legitimate offspring.
Recordings of dawn singing by male Black-capped Chickadees (Parus atricapillus) show that each individual sings its fee-bee song at a wide range of frequencies. Males tend to repeat songs at a given frequency but on average after every 41 ±...
The fish community of a small (2.7 ha) Ontario beaver pond was analyzed relative to predictions based on its small size, shallow depth, brief existence and isolation from more permanent water bodies.
In situations where foraging sites vary both in food reward and predation risk, conventional optimal foraging models based on the criterion of maximizing net rate of energy intake commonly fail to predict patch choice by foragers. Recently, an alternative model...
The exoskeletal morphology, muscular organization, and innervation patterns of the tymbals of seven sound‐producing species of tiger moths (Arctiidae) were compared with the undifferentiated episterna of two silent species. At least three muscles are involved in sound production: the tymbal...
Breeding female cowbirds at the Queen's University Biological Station are often aggressive when encountering other females within their ranges, but they do not defend exclusive territories. The likelihood of aggression appears to be a function of two factors. First, females...
Fecal sac removal by Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) was monitored for 10 "land" nest boxes (> 100 m from water) and 13 "water" nest boxes (adjacent to or over water). The mean distance from the nest at which...
The field component of this study compared feeding preferences of Umbra limi with available resources in the environment. The mudminnows preferred benthic coleopterans, anisopterans, and amphipods while avoiding planktonic and other benthic food types. The laboratory component tested for possible...
Young fish of six species in an open water community all began their exogenous feeding by taking nauplii and small cyclopoids of body length (less tail) of 0.1–0.3 mm. Appearance of larvae of the different species in the system was...
Analysis of the stomachs of 2435 pumpkinseeds (Lepomis gibbosus) showed that the diet was made up largely of chironomid larvae, molluscs, isopods, with lesser quantities of amphipods, Trichoptera larvae, and Ephemeroptera nymphs. Cladocera were only important to the...
A survey of fish distribution relative to depth in Lake Opinicon, Ontario, using the strip count method showed 80–90% of the biomass to be concentrated along the lake margins at a depth of up to 2.5 m.
This paper is a report of some of our efforts to increase knowl- edge about the feeding ecology of insectivorous bats. It includes some consideration of what insectivorous bats eat, structure in bat faunas, the role of activity in resource...
This study presents data on rates of food and water ingestion by captive Myotis lucifugus and Eptesicus fuscus, the size of prey selected by bats and the culling of insect parts by captive E. Fuscus prior to ingestion.
In Lake Opinicon, Ontario, the diet of the black crappie, Pomoxis nigromaculatus, undergoes a progressive change from one in which planktonic Crustacea and small-bodied Diptera larvae predominate (in fish of body length from about 60 to 115 mm), to a...
Principles of fluid mechanics are used to interpret the structures in high-grade metamorphic rocks which behaved like viscous fluids and thus were deformed by nonuniform laminar flow. The structures investigated are in a typical Grenville assemblage of gneisses, marbles, and...
