Defence Heritage as a Cultural Heritage Tourism Resource: Case of Cyprus

Cyprus has one of the richest histories of Europe and the Middle East. As the result of being an island and having a strategic location, Cyprus had been occupied by different civilizations throughout history. Since the island faced many attacks throughout history, different buildings and structures were built to defend the island from its enemies. Defence heritage should be identified, documented and conserved since they are important part of the collective memory of the island. The only way to sustain these monuments is to reuse with an appropriate function since they have already lost their original function. The purpose of the study is to highlight the significance of defence heritage of the island and propose reuse strategies as a cultural tourism resource. The method of the study to includes literature surveys and observations through site survey. These data are used for developing reuse strategies by considering defence heritage as a cultural heritage tourism resource. Defence heritage structures can be used as tool for contributing cultural tourism of the island. Defence heritage is an important part of cultural heritage; therefore, they should be transferred for further generations through conservation and reuse.

Howling by the river: howler monkey (Alouatta palliata) communication in an anthropogenically-altered riparian forest in Costa Rica

The ways that forest edges may affect animal vocalization behaviour are poorly understood. We investigated the effects of various types of edge habitat on the loud calls (howls) of a folivorous-frugivorous primate species, Alouatta palliata, with reference to the ecological resource defence hypothesis, which predicts that males howl to defend vegetation resources. We tested this hypothesis across four forest zones — interior, riparian, anthropogenic, and combined forest edges — in a riparian forest fragment in Costa Rica. We predicted vegetation and howling would differ between forest zones, with riparian and interior zones showing the highest values and anthropogenic edge the lowest. Our results indicated that vegetation was richer and howling longer in riparian and interior zones compared to combined and anthropogenic edges, supporting the resource defence hypothesis and providing some of the first evidence in animal communication scholarship for differences in behavioural edge effects between natural riparian and anthropogenic edges.

Resource use and defence by ruby-throated hummingbirds during stopover

Many migrants must forage en route when fuel reserves are depleted and access to resources can be influenced by a variety of factors, including the sex, age, and current fuel stores of individuals, as well as resource availability. The objective of this study is to determine the factors that influence the use and defence of resources by migrating ruby-throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris). Our results illustrate that resource use: (1) is dependent on sex and resource defence, (2) decreases with fuel load and (3) increases with stopover duration as well as the number of unique feeders visited. Resource defence is closely tied to (1) competition, with the greatest conspecific density resulting in focal individuals being chased from feeders and (2) the interplay between resource quality and fuel load. Our research enhances our understanding of strategies migratory birds use to acquire and defend resources during stopover.

Communication amongst the musteloids: signs, signals, and cues

Most intentional communication is intra-specific and benefits both sender and receiver. Typically, the more complex a species’ social system, the more complex is its communication. Because only ca. 10% of musteloid species are truly social, their communication is generally quite basic, while their solitary, nocturnal lifestyle is reflected in a predominance of olfactory signals. This chapter first discusses the properties of different signal modalities (visual, acoustic, olfactory and tactile), and then provides a review of musteloid communication in the context of signal functionality, starting with a section on defensive signals (warning-, alarm-, and distress signals), proceeding to other modes of inter-specific communication, such as eavesdropping on predator cues by smaller prey species (odours increasingly applied in conservation management), before moving on to more specialised intra-specific communication. It discusses resource defence and territorial marking, before concluding with a section on individual advertisement, including recognition of individuals and group-membership, and fitness advertisement.

From resource to female defence: the impact of roosting ecology on a bat's mating strategy

With their extraordinary species richness and diversity in ecological traits and social systems, bats are a promising taxon for testing socio-ecological hypotheses in order to get new insights into the evolution of animal social systems. Regarding its roosting habits, proboscis bats form an extreme by occupying sites which are usually completely exposed to daylight (e.g. tree trunks, vines or rocks). This is accompanied by morphological and behavioural adaptations to remain cryptic in exposed day roosts. With long-term behavioural observations and genetic parentage analyses of individually marked proboscis bats, we assessed its social dispersion and male mating strategy during day and night. Our results reveal nocturnal male territoriality—a strategy which most closely resembles a resource-defence polygyny that is frequent also in other tropical bats. Its contrasting clumped social dispersion during the day is likely to be the result of strong selection for crypsis in exposed roosts and is accompanied by direct female defence in addition to male territoriality. To the best of our knowledge, such contrasting male mating strategies within a single day–night cycle have not been described in a vertebrate species so far and illustrate a possible evolutionary trajectory from resource-defence to female-defence strategy by small ecologically driven evolutionary steps.