As we start a new school year I would like to take this opportunity to welcome back the many students, staff, research associates and faculty associated with the Center for the Integrative Study of Animal Behavior (CISAB). To those of you who are new to CISAB and the Indiana University community, I would like to extend a special welcome to you and I would also like to express my excitement abou...

Using long-term data on two kangaroo rats in the Chihuahuan Desert of North America, we fitted logistic models including the exogenous effects of seasonal rainfall patterns. Our aim was to test the effects of intraspecific interactions and seasonal rainfall in explaining and predicting the numerical fluctuations of these two kangaroo rats. We found that logistic models fit both data sets quite ...

Poor cow fertility has been identified as a growing problem in Irish dairy herds. In this seasonal calving and the grass based production system, poor fertility results in a significant loss in farm income (Veerkamp et al., 2001) due to forced culling or a shift in calving pattern. In order to arrest this trend, subsequent calving interval (CIV) and survival to the next lactation (SUV) has been...

Sex differences in the morphology of neural and peripheral structures related to reproduction often parallel the frequency of particular behaviours displayed by males and females. In a variety of model organisms, these sex differences are organized in development by gonadal steroids, which also act in adulthood to modulate behavioural expression and in some cases to generate parallel anatomical...

AIMS Despite the biodiversity values of the freshwater floodplains of northern Australia being widely recognized, there has not been a concomitant investment in developing the extent of knowledge of the basic functions and ecological processes that underpin the ecological character of these habitats. This review addresses the extent of our knowledge on the plant ecology of these wetlands and co...

Despite the widespread availability and use of influenza vaccines, influenza still poses a considerable threat to public health. Vaccines against seasonal influenza do not offer protection against pandemic viruses, and vaccine efficacy against seasonal viruses is reduced in seasons when the vaccine composition is not a good match for the predominant circulating viruses. Vaccine efficacy is also...

Primary productivity in the East China Sea and its adjacent area was measured by the 13C tracer method during winter, summer and fall in 1993 and 1994. The depth-integrated primary productivity in the Kuroshio Current ranged from 220 to 350 mgC m–2d–1, and showed little seasonal variability. High primary productivity (above 570 mgC m–2d–1) was measured at the center of the continental shelf thr...

This paper analyzes the impact of prenatal exposure to seasonal food scarcity on childhood health in Ethiopia. I construct a novel measure of seasonal exposure based on reported months of relative food scarcity in the local community. I find that exposure has a significant negative impact on height by age five that strengthens by age eight. Effects decrease with household wealth and maternal ed...

Summary: Seasonal influenza viruses evolve rapidly, allowing them to evade immunity in their human hosts and reinfect previously infected individuals. Similarly, vaccines against seasonal influenza need to be updated frequently to protect against an evolving virus population. We have thus developed a processing pipeline and browser-based visualization that allows convenient exploration and anal...

Environmental drivers of coral condition (maximum quantum yield, symbiont density, chlorophyll a content and coral skeletal growth rates) were assessed in the equatorial inshore coastal waters of Singapore, where the amplitude of seasonal variation is low, but anthropogenic influence is relatively high. Water quality variables (sediments, nutrients, trace metals, temperature, light) explained b...