Wednesday, June 07, 2023

Why are dog breeds with innate diseases popular?

Instead, the emphasis should be on highlighting that health issues should not be considered normal or acceptable characteristics because they often cause pain and suffering for the dogs.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

EÖTVÖS LORÁND UNIVERSITY (ELTE), FACULTY OF SCIENCE

Photos of dog face expressions 

IMAGE: FLAT-FACED DOGS, SUCH AS FRENCH AND ENGLISH BULLDOGS, ARE EXTREMELY POPULAR DESPITE SUFFERING FROM SEVERE INNATE DISEASES view more 

CREDIT: PHOTO: ZSOFIA BOGNAR / ELTE



Flat-faced dogs, such as French and English Bulldogs, are extremely popular despite suffering from severe innate diseases. Hungarian researchers have attempted to uncover the explanation for this paradox. In the end, they concluded that although enthusiasts of flat-faced dogs are aware of the health issues and strive to provide the best for their dogs, they are likely to normalize health problems.

The French and English Bulldogs are among the most popular breeds in both the United States and Europe, but Pugs and Boston Terriers also have a significant fan base. This is surprising considering the several innate health problems these breeds face. At least half of them struggle with breathing difficulties, they frequently have eye problems, and over eighty percent of them require C-sections during delivery. Due to their health issues, flat-faced dogs typically live three to four years less than what would be expected based on their body size. The life expectancy of French Bulldogs is only around four and a half years.

If these breeds have so many problems, what could be causing their popularity?

"Previously, we observed that flat-faced breeds are more inclined to form eye contact with humans. We assumed that this trait is appealing to owners. We also considered the possibility that the enthusiasts of these dogs might not be aware of the innate health issues," - said Zsófia Bognár, PhD student at the Department of Ethology, Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), and the lead author of the study published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science.

The researchers presented 25 pairs of photos of dogs looking into the camera and looking away, in an online survey. Furthermore, they assessed the respondents' personality traits, whether they liked flat-faced dogs, and whether they were aware of their health problems. A total of 1156 participants took part in the survey. Some results contradicted the researchers' expectations. It turned out that those who had a positive attitude towards flat-faced breeds randomly selected among the images. This finding suggests that despite the inclination of these dogs to form eye contact, it likely does not play a role in their popularity. On the other hand, those who preferred the photos of dogs looking into the camera were those who were sociable, easily made friends, and were capable of putting themselves in the position and perspective of others.

Interestingly, the respondents who liked flat-faced dogs were the most aware of the health problems. Overall, 99 percent of the respondents associated flat-faced breeds with breathing difficulties, 90 percent with dystocia, 61 percent with corneal ulceration, and only a few respondents associated them with fewer than four health problems. So, the health issues associated with flat-face are very much in public awareness.

In addition, it was also revealed that compared to the group who were neutral towards or disliked flat-faced breeds, enthusiasts of flat-faced dogs tend to be younger, have lower levels of education, and typically have no professional experience with dogs. In comparison to the neutral group, the enthusiasts are more likely to be women and have children. Compared to those who disliked flat-faced breeds, enthusiasts have higher emotional empathy, meaning they are more inclined to feel for the suffering of another living being.

"We expected that one of the main attractiveness of flat-faced dogs lies in their large eyes and that their owners would be delighted when the dogs look at them," said Eniko Kubinyi, head of the MTA-ELTE "Momentum" Companion Animal Research Group at ELTE. "However, we did not find this to be true, at least not from the photographs. It is also not true that enthusiasts of flat-faced breeds are unaware of the dogs' health problems or are insensitive to their emotions. On the other hand, it has been revealed that they are relatively inexperienced dog owners. Thus, it is most likely that they are unaware of the dogs' communication signals, may not necessarily recognize signs of pain, and likely consider health problems as normal breed characteristics.

For example, a snoring and grunting Bulldog appears cute to them, rather than sick and struggling for breath."

According to the results, therefore, even though enthusiasts of flat-faced dogs are aware of the innate health problems of these breeds, it does not discourage them from continuing to love these dogs.

"In many countries, there are awareness campaigns about the health issues of flat-faced breeds. However, the growing popularity of flat-faced dogs suggests that these campaigns are not very effective. It is clear that simply listing the health problems does not deter people from purchasing these dogs. Instead, the emphasis should be on highlighting that health issues should not be considered normal or acceptable characteristics because they often cause pain and suffering for the dogs. Dog owners need to be made aware that their choices play a significant role in shaping the health of dog breeds," said Zsófia Bognár.

  

Flat-faced dogs, such as French and English Bulldogs, are extremely popular despite suffering from severe innate diseases


CREDIT

Photo: Zsofia Bognar / ELTE

JOURNAL

Applied Animal Behaviour Science

DOI

10.1016/j.applanim.2023.105948 

ARTICLE TITLE

The brachycephalic paradox: The relationship between attitudes, demography, personality, health awareness, and dog-human eye contact

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LGBTQ+

Health equity is the focus of LBGTQ+ Pride Month celebrations across the country


As Pride Month is commemorated by the LGBTQ+ community and allies, the American Heart Association seeks to increase awareness of the importance of health and wellness for all

Business Announcement

AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION



DALLAS, June 6, 2023 — According to a study recently published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, lesbian and bisexual women in France had poorer heart health than heterosexual women, a finding that could be attributed to discrimination and other stressors faced by the LGBTQ+ community. In support of Pride Month, the American Heart Association, a global force for longer, healthier lives for all, is promoting awareness and health education for all people across the spectrum of diversity, including those who identify as LGBTQ+.

For more than 50 years, the LGBTQ+ community has spent the month of June marching to commemorate its struggle and fight against discrimination in health care, employment, and housing across the country and around the globe. According to the American Heart Association’s 2021 scientific statement “Assessing and Addressing Cardiovascular Health in People Who Are Transgender and Gender Diverse”, higher levels of heart disease among transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people are linked to the stress of experiencing discrimination and transphobia at personal and societal levels. This population faces unique personal stressors that often result in negative coping behaviors that may complicate an individual’s cardiovascular health including a poor diet, elevated body mass index[1], low physical activity[2], and a smoking rate up to 2.5 times higher than heterosexual and cisgender adults[3].

“Recognizing and addressing the health care needs specific to the LGBTQ+ community is vital to the American Heart Association’s mission,” said volunteer president of the American Heart Association Michelle A. Albert, M.D., M.P.H., FAHA, who is the Walter A Haas-Lucie Stern Endowed Chair and professor of medicine, director of the CeNter for the StUdy of AdveRsiTy and CardiovascUlaR DiseasE (NURTURE Center) and associate dean of admissions at the University of California, San Francisco. “More research and advocacy are needed to understand this community’s unique health challenges. The Association is helping fill in the gap by funding innovative research, advocating for public health equity and sharing easily accessible lifesaving resources.”

The first step in improving cardiovascular health is knowing and understanding current risks. Since better cardiovascular health helps lower the risk of heart disease, stroke, dementia, diabetes and other major health problems, the American Heart Association has defined key measures for improving and maintaining cardiovascular health. Life’s Essential 8, focuses on eating better, increasing physical activity, quitting smoking, and improving sleep habits, while also recommending steps that can be taken to reach a healthy weight, control cholesterol, and manage both blood sugar and blood pressure.

Science-based downloadable resources are available to provide guidance to address each of the eight points. For example, they include information about how to read food labels, avoid trans fats, set physical activity goals and provide successful tips to quit smoking and reduce tech activity before going to sleep. Education about health risk factors and incorporating and addressing these eight items may be the key to improving and maintaining cardiovascular health as they provide a foundation for living a longer, healthier life.

The Association supports public policies that improve access to quality, affordable health care, including provisions of the Affordable Care Act that have increased the number of people with quality health coverage. We also support policies that prevent the tobacco industry from targeting LGBTQ+ communities and others with deadly tobacco products. We work to educate youth and young adults who are LGBTQ+ and their allies about the importance of advocating for such policies.

Additional Resources:

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About the American Heart Association

The American Heart Association is a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives. We are dedicated to ensuring equitable health in all communities. Through collaboration with numerous organizations, and powered by millions of volunteers, we fund innovative research, advocate for the public’s health and share lifesaving resources. The Dallas-based organization has been a leading source of health information for nearly a century. Connect with us on heart.org, Facebook, Twitter or by calling 1-800-AHA-USA1.   

​[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5343694/

[2] Assessing and Addressing Cardiovascular Health in LGBTQ Adults: A Scientific Statement from the American Heart Association | Circulation (ahajournals.org)

[3] https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/18/4/275.long?subject=


Women who identify as bisexual women at higher risk of suicide and suicide attempts, study finds


Peer-Reviewed Publication

YORK UNIVERSITY



Toronto, ON, June 7, 2023 – Women who identify as bisexual were more than three times more likely to attempt suicide compared to heterosexual women, according to a new study by a group of researchers at York University and ICES published online today.

The research, which is the first to link population-based survey data with health records for over 123,000 individuals, also found that gay men and gay women/lesbians were twice as likely to attempt suicide, both fatal and non-fatal, which the team refers to as a suicide-related behaviour (SRB) event, compared to heterosexual individuals. The findings point to an urgent need for better mental health supports within the LGBTQ+ community.

“We wanted to better characterize the disparity in suicide-related behaviours across sexual orientations and gender,” says lead author Antony Chum, a Faculty of Health assistant professor and Canada Research Chair in Population Health Data Science at York University and adjunct scientist at ICES. “Prior research on suicide attempts has mostly relied on self-reported data from surveys, which means we don’t have information on people who are too sick to participate or have died by suicide.”

Published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, the study looked at Ontario participants from the Canadian Community Health Survey, which was linked to anonymous administrative health data such as emergency room visits or hospitalizations for non-fatal self-harm and fatal suicide events between 2002 and 2019.

The researchers, who include York University postdoctoral fellows Gabriel John Dusing and Chungah Kim, found:

  • Overall prevalence of one or more SRB events was around two per cent in heterosexual individuals, five per cent in gay/lesbian individuals, and eight per cent in bisexual individuals.
  • Sexual minority individuals were at higher risk of SRB events, ranging from 2.10 to 4.23 times more likely when compared to heterosexual people.
  • After adjusting for age and gender, the risk of a SRB event was more than three times greater among bisexual individuals, and this risk was most pronounced for bisexual women.

“The higher risk for bisexual women could be attributed to greater discrimination that bisexual people face within the LGBTQ+ community, as well as higher rates of violence, trauma, and caregiving burden that bisexual women may experience in opposite-sex relationships,” says Chum.


One limitation of the study is that data were not available for non-binary individuals and sexual orientations such as asexual and queer. Nevertheless, this was the first study to use a large representative sample linked with medical records, which improves the generalizability of the findings for other regions and populations.

“The study shows a clear need for better funding, policy and programming to address LGBTQ+ suicide risk,” says Chum. “We also need increased training for healthcare workers to address LGBTQ+ suicide risk. Further, we want to encourage hospitals and clinics to collect sexual orientation data as part of routine patient care.”

Chum also notes the increasing creep of healthcare privatization and that publicly funded mental health supports need to be increased not just for LGBTQ+ people, but across the board.

The findings align with the authors’ related study published in March in PLOS One, which found that both sexual minority status and residing in under-resourced neighbourhoods with poor access to healthcare, were independent risk factors for suicide-related behaviours. Future research needs to explore interventions that improve the mental health of LGBTQ+ people while addressing social determinants of health, such as neighbourhood-level disparities and barriers to healthcare.

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York University is a modern, multi-campus, urban university located in Toronto, Ontario. Backed by a diverse group of students, faculty, staff, alumni and partners, we bring a uniquely global perspective to help solve societal challenges, drive positive change, and prepare our students for success. York's fully bilingual Glendon Campus is home to Southern Ontario's Centre of Excellence for French Language and Bilingual Postsecondary Education. York’s campuses in Costa Rica and India offer students exceptional transnational learning opportunities and innovative programs. Together, we can make things right for our communities, our planet, and our future. 

ICES is an independent, non-profit research institute that uses population-based health information to produce knowledge on a broad range of healthcare issues. Our unbiased evidence provides measures of health system performance, a clearer understanding of the shifting healthcare needs of Ontarians, and a stimulus for discussion of practical solutions to optimize scarce resources. ICES knowledge is highly regarded in Canada and abroad and is widely used by government, hospitals, planners, and practitioners to make decisions about care delivery and to develop policy. In October 2018, the institute formerly known as the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences formally adopted the initialism ICES as its official name. For the latest ICES news, follow us on Twitter: @ICESOntario

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Emina Gamulin,
York University Media Relations,
437-217-6362, egamulin@yorku.ca

Misty Pratt
Senior Communications Officer, ICES
Misty.Pratt@ices.on.ca 613-882-7065

JOURNAL

American Journal of Psychiatry

ARTICLE TITLE

Disparities in Suicide-Related Behaviors Across Sexual Orientations by Gender: A Retrospective Cohort Study Using Linked Health Administrative Data

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Jun-2023

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Order in chaos: Atmosphere’s Antarctic oscillation has natural cycle

Researchers discover natural 150-day period in north-south oscillation of Southern Hemisphere’s westerlies

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RICE UNIVERSITY


Pedram Hassanzadeh 

IMAGE: PEDRAM HASSANZADEH IS AN ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AND OF EARTH, ENVIRONMENTAL AND PLANETARY SCIENCES AT RICE UNIVERSITY view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT: RICE UNIVERSITY

HOUSTON – (June 6, 2023) – Climate scientists at Rice University have discovered an “internally generated periodicity” — a natural cycle that repeats every 150 days — in the north-south oscillation of atmospheric pressure patterns that drive the movement of the Southern Hemisphere’s prevailing westerly winds and the Antarctic jet stream.

“This is something that arises from the internal dynamics of the atmosphere,” said Pedram Hassanzadeh, co-author of a study about the discovery in the open-access journal AGU Advances. “We were playing with some new equations that we had derived for the atmosphere’s turbulent circulation, and we found they predicted the possibility of natural periodicity in the Southern Annular Mode (SAM). We were skeptical, but we went to the observational data and we actually found it.”

Co-author Sandro Lubis said, “It was really a surprise, because it goes against the conventional wisdom that the atmosphere is all chaos and disorganization.”

SAM, which is also known as the Antarctic oscillation, is an important climate driver for Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica and has been well-studied for decades.

“It has been very important to the climate community,” said Hassanzadeh, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Rice. “People always look at the SAM because it affects so much in the Antarctic: the ice, the ocean, the ozone layer, almost everything. But the oscillations, which you can see in the north-south movements of the jet stream winds, happen randomly with timescales of 10-20 days.”

It was surprising to find that a simultaneous, organized oscillation occurs 10 times more slowly, he said, but the periodicity of the slower oscillation was even more surprising.

Lubis, a research scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and former postdoctoral research fellow in Hassazadeh’s lab at Rice, said the 150-day oscillation clearly influences the variability of the hemispheric-scale precipitation and ocean surface wind stress, which suggests it could have broader impacts on the weather and climate of the Southern Hemisphere and its ocean and cryosphere.

Hassanzadeh and Lubis each said the paper’s biggest impact will likely be in the arena of climate modeling.

“Significantly, we found that many state-of-the-art climate models cannot reproduce this periodicity,” Lubis said. “This helps explain some of the previously reported shortcomings of these models in simulating the SAM variability. Based on those findings, we were able to propose new metrics and ideas for evaluating how well climate models simulate the SAM and for understanding their shortcomings and potentially improving them.”

The jet stream results from two large-scale features of Earth's atmospheric circulation, the tendency for air to sink in the subtropics, about 30 degrees latitude north or south of the equator, and to rise as it nears the pole, around 60 degrees latitude. Where air sinks, pressure increases and areas of high pressure develop. Where air rises, pressure drops, resulting in areas of low pressure.

The mid-latitudes between the 60th and 30th parallels, in both hemispheres, are therefore bounded by globe-wrapping bands of low pressure on their poleward sides and high pressure on their subtropical sides. The low pressure zones correspond with strong upper-level winds known as the polar jet stream, which trace almost circular, or annular, paths around the poles.

The polar jet stream around Antarctica regularly migrates between southerly tracks that hug the icy continent and northerly tracks that cross or come near Australia, South Africa and South America. These north-south oscillations typically last about two weeks, but their timing and duration are random.

The oscillations correspond with balanced air pressure anomalies of one sign near the 60th parallel and the opposite sign near the 30th parallel. The SAM is a statistical index of these anomalies, which oscillate in a seesaw pattern, rising and falling on opposing boundaries as the westerlies move north and south.

When the SAM index is positive, the jet stream is enhanced and cold air stays bottled up around the pole. When the index is negative, atmospheric lows — and rain and storms — are more frequent in the mid-latitudes.

Hassanzadeh said the discovery of the SAM’s 150-day periodicity came from rethinking the conventional mathematical and statistical approaches to understanding atmospheric circulation.

“For whatever you’re interested in, like wind or temperature, you can reduce it to the leading pattern, the second leading pattern, the third leading pattern, and so on,” he said. “And the way this statistical analysis, called principal component analysis, has been done, the patterns are all supposed to be independent of one another.”

Based on previous studies by other groups, Hassanzadeh and Lubis thought, some of the patterns might be dependent at some lag times.

“We relaxed some of the assumptions, created a new mathematical model and then wrote a very technical paper showing that it was a better model,” Lubis said. “And at some point we looked at the model and said, ‘This says there is a periodicity. Of course, that cannot be right! But let’s go to the data and look.’”

Hassanzadeh said the 150-day periodicity occurs because the SAM’s leading patterns of north-south movements are not independent. Rather, they interact with and are acted upon by other leading wind patterns.

“The leading pattern is the SAM, the regular movement of the jet to the north or south,” Hassanzadeh said. “The second pattern is the jet stream becoming faster or slower. The way this periodicity works is that the first pattern, the SAM, reinforces itself and makes itself stronger. And the second pattern also makes the SAM stronger. But then, when the SAM becomes very strong, it starts reducing the second pattern, which in turn reinforces the SAM less.”

Hassanzadeh said the next step in the research is investigating why some state-of-the-art climate models fail to capture those interactions and the 150-day periodicity of the SAM.

“In the long run, our hope is that this new knowledge will help improve model accuracy for climate change projections,” he said.

The research was supported by the Office of Naval Research (N00014-20-1-2722), the National Science Foundation (2046309, 1921413) and the Department of Energy (DE-AC05-76RL01830). Computational resources were provided by the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the Rice University Center for Research Computing.

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Peer-reviewed paper:

“The Intrinsic 150-day Periodicity of the Southern Hemisphere Extratropical Large-Scale Atmospheric Circulation” | AGU Advances | DOI: 10.1029/2022AV000833

Authors: Sandro W. Lubis and Pedram Hassanzadeh

https://doi.org/10.1029/2022AV000833

Video:

"Understanding the Southern Annular Mode (SAM)"

Australian Bureau of Meteorology

https://youtu.be/KrhWsXCB3u8

Image downloads:

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2023/06/0605_SAM-fig-lg.jpg
CAPTION: Panels showing lagged composited differences for (b-d) anomalous total precipitation, (f-h) zonal wind stress, and (j-l) meridional wind stress for the Southern Hemisphere below the 20th parallel. Composites were computed by first averaging the anomalies at lags of 0, -75, or +75 days with respect to dates local maxima or minima reached, and then calculating the difference (maxima minus minima) for each lag. (Figure courtesy of Hassanzadeh Group/Rice University)

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/sam/
CAPTION: The Southern Annular Mode (SAM) is a climate driver that can influence rainfall and temperature in Australia. The SAM refers to the (non-seasonal) north-south movement of the strong westerly winds that blow almost continuously in the mid- to high-latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere. This belt of westerly winds is also associated with storms and cold fronts that move from west to east, bringing rainfall to southern Australia. The SAM has three phases: neutral, positive and negative. Each positive or negative SAM event tends to last for around one to two weeks, though longer periods may also occur. The time frame between positive and negative events is quite random, but typically in the range of a week to a few months. The effect that the SAM has on rainfall varies greatly depending on season and region. (Figures by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology)

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/sam/images/SAM-in-Australia.pdf
DESCRIPTION: Inforgraphic explaining how the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) affects Australia's weather.
(Infographic by Australian Bureau of Meteorology)

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2023/06/0605_SAM-ph-lg.jpg
CAPTION: Pedram Hassanzadeh (Courtesy: Rice University)

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2023/06/0605_SAM-sl-lg.jpg
CAPTION: Sandro Lubis (Photo courtesy of S. Lubis)

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https://news.rice.edu/news/2021/pedram-hassanzadeh-wins-nsf-career-award

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Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 4,240 undergraduates and 3,972 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 4 for quality of life by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.

Figure describing the 150-day periodicity of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) 

Panels showing lagged composited differences for (b-d) anomalous total precipitation, (f-h) zonal wind stress, and (j-l) meridional wind stress for the Southern Hemisphere below the 20th parallel. Composites were computed by first averaging the anomalies at lags of 0, -75, or +75 days with respect to dates local maxima or minima reached, and then calculating the difference (maxima minus minima) for each lag. (Figure courtesy of Hassanzadeh Group/Rice University)

CREDIT

Figure courtesy of Hassanzadeh Group/Rice University



JOURNAL

AGU Advances

DOI

10.1029/2022AV000833 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

The Intrinsic 150-day Periodicity of the Southern Hemisphere Extratropical Large-Scale Atmospheric Circulation

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Predictive models show wildlife managers where to find destructive feral swine


Research conducted on invasive wild pigs in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PENN STATE



UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Feral swine are considered one of the top invasive species of concern in North America because of the damage they do to agricultural and natural systems. To best manage them, resource management agencies need to know more precisely where and when to implement control methods. A new study by a Penn State-led research team developed a method to help guide control efforts in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Descended from wild European boars imported centuries ago that bred with escaped domestic pigs, feral swine cause widespread damage to ecosystems by wallowing — rolling about or lying in water, creating muddy depressions — and rooting, destroying vegetation. Controlling feral swine can be logistically difficult and costly due to the large areas they traverse, their early reproductive age and their large litter sizes.

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a 522,427-acre park, divided almost evenly between the states of North Carolina and Tennessee. Besides the damage that wallowing does to the fragile ecosystem that has not evolved with native animals that wallow, the behavior is a significant source of silting and contamination of streams inhabited by native brook trout, which have a low tolerance for contaminated or silted waters.

Feral swine’s voracious appetite reduces natural food stocks such as acorns, which directly effects deer, black bears and other native species that inhabit the park. They are also carriers of diseases dangerous to both humans and wildlife.

The research involved trapping, anesthetizing and fitting 16 female feral swine with global positioning system — better known as GPS — collars to track where the invasive animals traveled within the park.

“Using these locations, we developed predictive models for the summer and winter to determine the most likely places to find feral swine,” said team leader Frances Buderman, assistant professor of quantitative wildlife ecology in the College of Agricultural Sciences. “We created a straightforward method that accounts for general, large-scale space-use, and fine-scale preferences for specific habitat.”

In findings recently published in Biological Invasions, the researchers reported that in summer, feral swine used lower slopes regardless of elevation, especially those closer to human dominated spaces such as along paved and gravel roadways. When moving around the landscape in winter, feral swine showed a preference for higher elevations with lower slopes. They also avoided trails, highly developed areas and oak-dominated areas of the park.

Importantly, the work looked at two different scales of habitat preference, Buderman explained.

“Most animals limit their daily movement to a general area, or home range, and within that home range, they select certain areas more than others,” she said. “However, these fine-scale preferences might not explain why they selected that home range in the first place. For instance, if you looked at my daily movements, you would say I like college campuses, but I wouldn’t choose to live in the town with the most college campuses."

In terms of feral swine, although in the winter they preferred higher elevation areas with less oak habitat within their home ranges, their home ranges were located in lower elevation areas with more oak habitat relative to the entire park landscape. When acorns were abundant, they constituted up to 84% by volume of the documented diet of feral swine in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, according to researchers.

Focusing on only one type of selection, such as within home-range, can lead to erroneous extrapolations when considering the park as a whole, Buderman pointed out.

The research could help result in more effective control of feral swine in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, according to Buderman — an expert on animal habitat selection, space use and movement — because it resolves some misconceptions. The park is huge, and managers need to consider individual differences, seasonal variation, and multiple levels of habitat selection.

Wildlife managers can use these models to better focus feral swine surveillance and management in the park, Buderman explained, adding that managers can identify areas of high use by season and plan control activities that are both accessible and highly efficient.

This research was a large collaborative effort, and included contributions from P.J. Helm, Department of Forestry, Wildlife and Fisheries, University of Tennessee; J. D. Clark, U.S. Geological Survey, Northern Rocky Mountain Science Center, Southern Appalachian Research Branch, University of Tennessee; R. H. Williamson and J. Yarkovich, National Park Service, Great Smoky Mountains National Park; and J. M. Mullinax, Department of Environmental Science and Technology, University of Maryland.

Funding for this study was provided by the National Park Service, Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, the Tallassee Fund and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

JOURNAL

Biological Invasions

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

A multi-level modeling approach to guide management of female feral hogs in great smoky mountains National Park

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