scholarly journals Species-Specific Knowledge About the Environment: A Biophilosophical View

Author(s):  
Alfredo Pereira Junior

The biological work of Jacob von Uexkull (1934) raised an hypothesis that different animal species living in the same environment would have different knowledge about it. He suggested that each species perceives the world according to the structure of their effectors. In this essay I discuss mechanisms in the animal brain possibly responsible for the "embodied" or "pragmatic" character of cognition.

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 1634
Author(s):  
Tatiana Carolina Gomes Dutra de Souza ◽  
Danielle Gava ◽  
Rejane Schaefer ◽  
Raquel Arruda Leme ◽  
Gisele da Silva Porto ◽  
...  

Porcine circovirus 3 (PCV-3) was identified in domestic pigs worldwide. Although PCV-3 has also been detected in wild boars, information regarding its circulation in this free-living animal species is scarce. To investigate PCV-3 occurrence in free-living wild boars in Brazil, 70 serum samples collected between January 2017 and June 2019 in Paraná state, Brazil were analyzed by PCR assay. Amplicons measuring 330 bp in length were amplified in seven (10.0%) of the serum samples and confirmed to be PCV3-specific by nucleotide (nt) sequencing. As the amplified products from the serum samples yielded only intermediate levels of viral DNA, lung samples from the seven PCR-positive wild boars were also evaluated by PCR. Of these samples, five lung samples were positive and provided high levels of viral DNA. The three lung samples that presented the highest levels of viral DNA were selected for amplification and sequencing of the whole PCV-3 genome. The three full-length sequences obtained were grouped in PCV-3 clade “a”, and the sequences exhibited 100% nucleotide similarity among them. The PCV-3 field strains of this study showed nucleotide and amino acid similarities of 98.5–99.8% and 98.8–100%, respectively, with whole-genome PCV-3 sequences from around the world.


2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teane M. A. Silva ◽  
Erica A. Costa ◽  
Tatiane A. Paixão ◽  
Renée M. Tsolis ◽  
Renato L. Santos

Brucellosis is a chronic infectious disease caused byBrucellaspp., a Gram-negative facultative intracellular pathogen that affects humans and animals, leading to significant impact on public health and animal industry. Human brucellosis is considered the most prevalent bacterial zoonosis in the world and is characterized by fever, weight loss, depression, hepato/splenomegaly, osteoarticular, and genital infections. Relevant aspects ofBrucellapathogenesis have been intensively investigated in culture cells and animal models. The mouse is the animal model more commonly used to study chronic infection caused byBrucella. This model is most frequently used to investigate specific pathogenic factors ofBrucellaspp., to characterize the host immune response, and to evaluate therapeutics and vaccines. Other animal species have been used as models for brucellosis including rats, guinea pigs, and monkeys. This paper discusses the murine and other laboratory animal models for human and animal brucellosis.


Author(s):  
Andrejs Vilks ◽  
Aldona Kipane

The spreading of COVID-19 since March 2020 has had a profound and irreversible impact on all spheres of life around the world. The long-term impact of the pandemic with unpredictable consequences will also be observed in the field of education. The aim of the article is to analyse the potential impact of COVID-19 on the providing of qualitative legal education.  Full-fledged assurance of the qualitative education is linked to common conditions for acquiring of knowledge, skills and competences. There are certain specifics in obtaining legal education, especially higher education. It is related to a combination of circumstances that are relevant to the specific knowledge, skills and competences to be acquired by lawyers and legal assistants. In 2020 a new standard for the legal profession was approved, which not only defines new qualitative requirements for the relevant profession, but also determines the need to make adjustments in the relevant study programs. The process of implementing and performing qualitative legal education in the current circumstances is being transformed in line with the international   and national regulatory frameworks in the context of management of COVID-19. As research methods descriptive, analytical and synthetic methods are used by the authors. 


2000 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 61 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Z. Woinarski ◽  
Greg Connors ◽  
Don C. Franklin

We create monthly maps of nectar availability for the 1.4 x 106 km2 jurisdiction of the Northern Territory, Australia. These are based on a combination of vegetation mapping and a series of indices of plant species specific nectar scoring. The maps reveal complex spatial and temporal variation in nectar availability, but most notably a greater nectar resource in the monsoon-influenced north than in the arid south, and a peak in nectar availability in the dry season. The latter is associated with the extensive tropical eucalypt forests (especially those co-dominated by Eucalyptus miniata and E. tetrodonta). In contrast, wet season nectar availability in these forests is limited, but riparian and swampland forests, typically dominated by Melaleuca species, provide rich but spatially restricted nectar resources. The extensive and rich nectar resources available in eucalypt forests in the dry season supplement the diets of many species which are not primarily nectarivorous. This resource helps shape the singularity of northern Australian eucalypt forests relative to other extensive forests elsewhere in the world. Nectarivores remain in the system through a combination of movements across a number of scales, habitat shifting, and diet shifting. The latter is aided by the peaking of invertebrate and fruit resources at the times of minimum nectar production; a shuffling in resource availability brought about by the extreme climatic seasonality.


2021 ◽  
pp. 298-319
Author(s):  
Lidija Bajuk

Trying to interpret oneself and the other in the world, the traditional Man has established a real world and an otherworld. Specific herbal and animal attributes were ascribed to particular people who allegedly had the power to communicate between worldliness and transcendence. Also some human characteristics were linked with herbal and animal mediators. These attributes were folklorized as miraculous powers. Such supernatural beings from South Slavic traditional conceptionsof the world have been largely associated with the pre-Christian deities and their degradations, based on the observed real attributes of the vegetal and animal species. The interdisciplinary comparative way of treating South Slavic folklore real-unreal motifs through time and space in this article is its ethnological, animalistic and anthropological contribution.


<em>Abstract</em>.—The objective of this study is to describe the distribution patterns of abundance and biomass, on a geographic and bathymetric basis, of the main macrourid species of Mozambique waters. Catch data from a demersal trawl survey (<EM>MOZAMBIQUE 07</EM>) were analyzed. The survey covered the continental shelf and upper-middle slope from 17°00’S to 26°50’S and from 100–700 m depth. Fourteen macrourid species were collected from 200 m and deeper. The most abundant species and the highest in biomass were <em>Coelorinchus braueri</em>, <em>C. trunovi, C. denticulatus</em>, <em>Ventrifossa nasuta</em>, and <em>Malacocephalus laevis</em>. Only those five species were analyzed in detail. The occurrence and yields by geographic and bathymetric range of these main species seem to reveal the existence of some species-specific preference for determinate depth ranges and/or geographic areas. Preanal length-weight relationships were estimated for <em>C. braueri, C. trunovi, </em>and <em>V. nasuta</em>: <em>a</em>= 0.00071; 0.00020; 0.00080; <em>b</em>= 2.50; 2.80; 2.76 and <em>r</em><sup>2</sup>= 0.93; 0.97; 0.78, respectively.


2015 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 217-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Camille Meslin ◽  
Michel Laurin ◽  
Isabelle Callebaut ◽  
Xavier Druart ◽  
Philippe Monget

The seminal fluid is a complex substance composed of a variety of secreted proteins and has been shown to play an important role in the fertilisation process in mammals and also in Drosophila. Several genes under positive selection have been documented in some rodents and primates. Our study documents this phenomenon in several other mammalian taxa. We study the evolution of genes that encode for 20 proteins that are quantitatively predominant in the seminal fluid of at least one out of seven domestic animal species. We analyse the amino acid composition of these proteins for positive selection and for the presence of pseudogenes. Genes that disappeared through pseudogenisation include KLK2 in cattle, horse and mice. Traces of positive selection are found in seven genes. The identified amino acids are located in regions exposed to the protein surface, suggesting a role in the interaction of gametes, with possible impact on the process of speciation. Moreover, we found no evidence that the predominance of proteins in seminal fluid and their mode of evolution are correlated, and the uncoupled patterns of change suggest that this result is not due solely to lack of statistical power.


2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-177 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Vespa

Ancient sources often describe non-human primates as imitative animals, i.e., living beings able to reproduce, with different degrees of perfection, gestures and movements carried out by human beings. Indeed monkeys are often characterized asmimeloi, mimetikoi, terms coming from the same semantic field of the nounmimos(< *mim-).But what about the world of sounds? Are non-human primates regarded as good imitators and performers also when it comes to music and singing? Ancient evidence clearly indicates that other animal species (like nightingales or partridges), and not monkeys, were mainly regarded as excellent singers worthy of imitation by human beings. Through a detailed analysis of ancient Greek sources, especially some passages in Galen, this paper aims at investigating why non-human primates were not considered good singers. In particular, this survey tries to shed a new light on some cultural associations, according to which the small and weak voice of monkeys (µικροφωνία) and the voice of other figures in ancient society (like actors, musicians, kids, eunuchs and so on) were described in a similar way.


Zootaxa ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 1968 (1) ◽  
pp. 65-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZHI-QIANG ZHANG

One of the fundamental quests of biology is discovering how many species inhabit the Earth. Yet the vast majority of the world’s animal species are waiting to be discovered, named and described—estimates of the total number vary from 5 to 30 million.  Most biologists would agree that taxonomy is important and fundamental to credible biology, and descriptive taxonomy is the most important task of taxonomy (Wheeler 2007). Unfortunately, the reality is that descriptive taxonomy has been marginalized since the mid-1950s and has sustained serious losses in funding and academic positions in universities and museums around the world, especially since phylogenetic and molecular studies became popular in the last twenty years.  During this period, there has also been an important historical trend in taxonomic publishing—many journal publishers/editors have been making increasing demands on authors to provide phylogenetic analysis, molecular systematics, and other modern types of information in taxonomic papers. In addition, there are long publication delays and/or increasing page charges for many journals that do publish descriptive taxonomic papers. Zootaxa was founded in 2001 to provide a much-needed outlet for descriptive taxonomic papers and monographs that are difficult to publish elsewhere, and as a result has received tremendous support from taxonomists worldwide, despite the fact that it is a grass-roots project without support from government and institutions (Zhang 2006a).  Zootaxa satisfied the publishing need of many zoological taxonomists, and sustained a period of rapid growth during 2001 to 2006 (Zhang 2006b). During the last two years, it has continued to grow in size, and especially in its impact, and has become a major force in reviving descriptive taxonomy on a global scale.  Here I summarize some encouraging data on the growth of Zootaxa and its impact.  I also comment on its contribution to the progress of  descriptive taxonomy.


2007 ◽  
Vol 70 (12) ◽  
pp. 2900-2905 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHANNA MURPHY ◽  
JENNIFER ARMOUR ◽  
BURTON W. BLAIS

A cloth-based hybridization array system (CHAS) previously developed for the detection of animal species for which prohibited materials have been specified (cattle, sheep, goat, elk, and deer) has been expanded to include the detection of animal species for which there are no prohibitions (pig and horse) in Canadian and American animal feeds. Animal species were identified by amplification of mitochondrial DNA sequences by PCR and subsequent hybridization of the amplicons with an array of species-specific oligonucleotide capture probes immobilized on a polyester cloth support, followed by an immunoenzymatic assay of the bound PCR products. The CHAS permitted sensitive and specific detection of meat meals from different animal species blended in a grain-based feed and should provide a useful adjunct to microscopic examination for the identification of prohibited materials in animal feeds.


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