Today is one of the goals with zoos to conserve endangered species and some animals may also become reintroduced. But behaviours can change in generations of captive animals because of environments that differ from the wild. Animals must then be prepared before being reintroduced and predator training enhances the animal?s chance to survive in the wild. When training animals to avoid predators it is often necessary to use frightening stimuli.

The effects of prey size on prey choice in different cohorts of juvenile turbot (Psetta maxima)were studied in three nursery areas at Gotland. Prey length measurements showed that gobies(Gobiidae) increased in average length during the season, while mysids (Mysidae) did not.Experiments on predation capacity of different size classes of turbot on different size classesof prey showed that juvenile turbot easily can eat gobies that are up to two thirds of their ownbody length, while the body size of turbot does not have any effect on the predation capacityon mysids. Stomach content of 217 turbots, less or equal 35 mm, was analysed to see if therewas any change in diet during the season, but there was no significant change in diet. Theoverall conclusion was that early settlers most likely have an advantage due to greater accessof alternative prey..

Benthic invertebrates play important roles as feeding resources for many organisms in different food webs. Shifts in predation of these organisms can generate cascading effects and potentially lead to the disappearance of one or more species from a site. Cascading effects can bring impacts to organisms who aren?t even directly involved, why studies in this field are important for understanding sudden changes in ecosystems. I examined the predation from fish and waterfowl on benthic invertebrates in the shallow and eutrophic Lake Tåkern in the plains of Östergötland County, southern Sweden.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to create an understanding for if and how nonverbal communication and the learned gender structure influence interactions during employment interviews for executive posts. The study is conducted from a social constructivist perspective where it is argued that the individual is created through social interactions. In order to obtain understanding for social gender structure and nonverbal communication in social interactions observation has been utilized as a method. In addition an observation matrix based on nonverbal behavior and masculine and feminine hexis has been established. The results include both the specific individual?s and the general interactions that took place during the employment interviews.

In my degree project I have chosen to write about the social interactions in children?s play. Iwanted to study their free play and the time when their teachers tell them what to play to seewhat their social interactions look like. The purpose with my research is to study whathappens in the social interactions in their different playing situations.I performed three observations of the free play and three observations of the guided play at apreschool to study what social interactions that takes place in the different playing situations.What happens and what patterns can I find in their play.In my research I had some questions that this project rests upon:What happens in the social interactions in the different playing situations?How do the children?s different social interactions look?The children that I have observed showed me that when they are interacting they especiallyuse their cognitive abilities, because an interaction needs a certain mental development.

Fiskbestånden i Östersjön har sedan början av 1980-talet genomgått en omfattande förändring. Stora predatorer, som torsk (Gadus morhua) och abborre (Perca fluviatilis) har minskat i antal medan det finns tecken på att storspigg (Gasterosteus aculeatus) har ökat. Denna sannolika ökning av storspigg skulle kunna ha att göra med minskningen av både torsk och abborre som predatorer i de kustnära tångbältena. För att undersöka detta utfördes ett mesokosmexperiment där torskens och abborrens förmåga att predera på storspigg undersöktes, både i ljus och mörker. Hypoteserna som arbetet utgick ifrån var att torsk var en bättre predator i mörker än i ljus och att torsk var en bättre predator än abborre i mörker.Resultaten visar på att torsk är den bättre predatorn i både ljus och mörker, samt att den är lika framgångsrik i mörker som i ljus.

Female growth, number of eggs and egg growth of Daphnia pulex were studied at four temperatures, 12, 16, 18 and 20°C. I hypothesized that female growth and number of eggs would be lower and the size of the eggs larger in the presence of a predator (kairomones) than in its absence. This effect was expected to be more evident at lower temperatures. I could not find any effect of kairomones on female growth, number of eggs or egg size, although there was a weak tendency for an effect on number of eggs. There was, however, an effect of temperature, regardless of predator treatment (i.

In this project we have explored digital tools for service management on the bicycle paths of Malmö. This was done through the participation of citizens in order to attempt to discern how such interactions can be eased using a mobile app, as well as how this app can be designed in order to appear trustworthy with user friendly interactions. We have explored this field by using goal-oriented design through interviews, prototyping and user tests. We have created a digital prototype as a possible solution for how the interactions can be done. Throughout the process interviews were held and user tests with selected members of the user group. To explore the concepts we have used paper prototypes in order to establish the design and then defining the interactions with the help of a digital prototype. Finally we have concluded that a general app for bikers in the city would be functional and that a longer study in the effects of such an app would be interesting as a continuation of this work..

The climate affects animal populations through several processes. These processes includereproduction, phenology and the success of hunting. By influencing the phenology of species theclimate also affects the way species interact. If a climate-induced phenology change promotes abasal species to bud earlier in the spring for example, this will affect the links to other species inthe food web due to a time lag in the tropic levels above. This dependence, that a predator has tobeing synchronous to its prey, is called the match/mismatch hypothesis (MMH).

In this essay a model of a potential illegal hunter?s decision-making is created and presented in order to provide an overview of important parts of the complexities associated with the current Swedish predator policy. A comparison is made between a livestock owner?s economic incentives, and the expected costs faced by the potentially caught lawbreaker. In accordance with economic theory the benefits and costs of illegal hunting are compared and thus the optimal choice is determined where marginal costs and benefits are equal.

The purpose of this work was that with the help of a literature review have a single document with information on how the various species: brown bear (Ursus arctos), lynx (Lynx lynx) and the wolf (Canis lupus) living in the wild. The aim was also to show which stereotypic behaviours these different species have in zoos and the enrichments that is already being used and to make suggestions and recommendations on enrichment based on animal behaviour ecology. In zoos, some species thrive well while others have propositions to propagating problems, poor health and stereotypic behaviors. The brown bear, lynx and wolf, live both in the wild and in zoos in Sweden. As these animals have different ways of living in the wild, it is important to accommodate to each species, the way they are kept in zoos in accordance with their behavioural ecology.Brown bears are omnivorous and solitary living species with large energy needs so that they spend most of their day to actively feeding but also rest.

During the 1960´s and 1970´s the number of grey seals in the Baltic Sea was decreasing rapidly, mostly due to hunting and toxic substances like DDT and PCB. When hunting became less intense and toxic substances decreased in the environment the grey seal population started to increase. Today grey seals are found common in the Baltic Sea and have started to become a big treat and a problem to the fishing industry. The grey seal destroys and enters fishing traps and consumes large quantities of the fish that have been caught.The knowledge of the grey seal, like abundance and food preferences, is today limited. It is also important to define the position of the grey seal in the ecosystem in the Baltic Sea and to be able to predict changes that could occur if the population would rapidly decrease or increase.

During the 1960´s and 1970´s the number of grey seals in the Baltic Sea was decreasing rapidly, mostly due to hunting and toxic substances like DDT and PCB. When hunting became less intense and toxic substances decreased in the environment the grey seal population started to increase. Today grey seals are found common in the Baltic Sea and have started to become a big treat and a problem to the fishing industry. The grey seal destroys and enters fishing traps and consumes large quantities of the fish that have been caught.The knowledge of the grey seal, like abundance and food preferences, is today limited. It is also important to define the position of the grey seal in the ecosystem in the Baltic Sea and to be able to predict changes that could occur if the population would rapidly decrease or increase.

Research concerning movement patterns of wild animals has been advancing since GPS technology arrived. But studying the snow leopard (Panthera uncia) is still difficult because of the harsh territory it inhabits in Central Asia. This study took place in south Gobi, Mongolia, and aimed to estimate the time spent at kills and the maximum distance away from kills between visits. Snow leopards were monitored with GPS collars that took a location every five or seven hours. Potential kill sites were established by identifying clusters of GPS-locations in ArcGIS and visited in the field for confirmation.

n this dissertation a comparison of two evolutionary methods for evolving ANNs for robot control is made. The methods compared are SANE with enforced sub-population and delta-coding, and marker-based encoding. In an attempt to speed up evolution, marker-based encoding is extended with delta-coding. The task selected for comparison is the hunter-prey task. This task requires the robot controller to posess some form of memory as the prey can move out of sensor range.