Both natural animal populations and those in captivity are subject to evolutionary forces. Evolutionary changes to captive populations may be an important, but poorly understood, factor that can affect the sustainability of these populations. The importance of maintaining the evolutionary integrity of zoo populations, especially those that are used for conservation efforts including reintroduct...

Birds often use colorful traits to mediate resource competitions, and typically individuals with bright or large patches of color are more competitive than or dominant to those with drab or small color patches. Male House Finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) are an exception, however, as drab males tend to be more aggressive than bright males during the breeding season and in winter. One hypothesis f...

In seasonal environments animals organize their behaviour around annual cycles of resource availability. Wild black-capped chickadees are most likely to hoard food in autumn. At this time of year chickadees are also reported to have a larger hippocampus, a brain area important for spatial memory. This study examined how photoperiodic condition affects these seasonal changes. Captive chickadees ...

Site-based and cross-regional habitat and species conservation e!orts in Madagascar, such as proposed in the previous chapters of this Lemur Conservation Strategy, should always be the main focus of lemur conservation. However, with many wild lemur populations rapidly declining and their habitat being lost at constantly high rates, captive assurance colonies are becoming increasingly important,...