[No abstract]

This introduction provides context to the Core Curriculum in GIScience, including its design philosophy, organization of core concepts, editorial procedure, a development timetable, list of original developers and editorial notes. Note that hyperlinks are active only from the downloaded PDF document.

Group living may confer an advantage on prey animals if individuals help maximise protection from predation. Some evidence suggests that age and sex differences may signify role divisions infight/flight responses. We examined whether captive common marmosets ( Callithrix jacchus ), a group-living primate species, might also show sex and age differences in response to predators and presented predator-based visual and auditory stimuli, individually and simultaneously. No significantsex or age differences emerged in any of the behaviour recorded. However, we found strong evidence that there were individual differences in flight/fight responses depending on the stimulus presented. Inpresenting a taxidermic model of a carnivore visually, five (of the 12) marmosets showed behaviour suggesting cautiousness, whereas five other marmosets displayed risk-taking behaviour (scored asclose proximity to stimulus, mobbing vocalisations and short latency to approach and vocalise). Importantly, cautious and risk-taking individuals did not behave consistently in these roles but changed when presented with the auditory stimulus or the visual and auditory stimuli combined.These results suggest that there may be individual differences in assessing sensory cues and levels offear fulness and risk-taking may vary accordingly. Whether or not such differences confer anadvantage on group living species, it is an entirely new finding that the type of sensory stimulation affects and alters behaviour to a significant extent within an individual and within the same group of primates.

As part of the Reproductive Control Methods Project, the USDA National Wildlife Research Center (NWRC) has developed multiple non-lethal contraceptive tools to control population of over-abundant wildlife species. Working in conjunction with Dr. G. P. Talwar of the Talwar Research Institute in India, scientists at NWRC have shown that a recombinant form of GnRH peptide has successfully contracepted swine. Feral swine not only pose a significant agricultural issue due to over-population; they act as a reservoir for Brucella suis, a threat to domestic livestock and humans. The Brucella abortus RB51 (Rough Brucella) vaccine, developed for bovine brucellosis and licensed by the USDA Animal Plant Health Inspection Service, has shown protection for some swine and is also effective against Brucella suis infection and other antigens. There is currently no approved vaccine for swine brucellosis (feral or domestic) in the United States. Past studies performed at The Ohio State University show that Brucella suis vaccination appears to protect against abortion and colonization in pigs after a virulent challenge. The Talwar recombinant peptide consists of 5 LHRH peptides interspersed with 4 universally immunogenic “promiscuous” T-cell epitopes of diverse genetic background. By transforming the Brucella suis strain with the Talwar recombinant LHRH plasmid, the bacteria will produce both its own host proteins, and the LHRH protein. A systemic immune response should then be generated to the Brucella suis proteins being produced, allowing for vaccination to Brucella suis. In addition, an immune response would be generated to the LHRH proteins resulting in antibody production and immunocontraception. A broad range of applications can be proposed utilizing the recombinant LHRH, such as other dual vaccines and scale-up production of a low-cost single-injection LHRH vaccine.