Papers by Lauri Torgerson-White
Personality in Turtles Stephanie Allard, Grace Fuller, Lauri Torgerson-White, and Anna Murray Cen... more Personality in Turtles Stephanie Allard, Grace Fuller, Lauri Torgerson-White, and Anna Murray Center for Zoo Animal Welfare, Detroit Zoological Society, Royal Oak, Michigan The study of personality in nonhuman animals is a rapidly growing field with species studied ranging from insects to mammals. Personality traits have implications for ecologically relevant factors and have been linked to survival success in some species. Animal personality research may therefore be an important component to conservation issues, including selecting individuals for reintroduction programs. One of the goals of the Center for Zoo Animal Welfare is to conduct applied animal welfare research, and this includes taking a compassionate approach to conservation projects. A study was designed to look for personality traits in Blanding’s turtles, a species of special concern in the state of Michigan that the Detroit Zoo has been helping to reintroduce into the wild. Evidence of personality traits in the turt...
Animals
This article aims to use contemporary (terrestrial) animal welfare science as a lens to evaluate ... more This article aims to use contemporary (terrestrial) animal welfare science as a lens to evaluate the state of knowledge concerning welfare in fish species, focusing on farmed fishes. We take advantage of the vast expertise—including previous pitfalls and accomplishments—in the investigation of welfare in terrestrial vertebrates, borrowing questions and methodologies from terrestrial animal welfare science in order to (1) better understand the challenges and opportunities in the study of welfare in fish species, and (2) propose strategies for filling knowledge gaps.
Journal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine, 2016
The objective of this study was to evaluate infrared thermography as a noninvasive screening tool... more The objective of this study was to evaluate infrared thermography as a noninvasive screening tool for detection of pododermatitis during the developing and active stages of disease in three species of penguins: king penguin (Aptenodytes patagonicus) , macaroni penguin (Eudyptes chrysolophus), and rockhopper penguin (Eudyptes chrysocome). In total, 67 penguins were examined every 3 mo over a 15-mo period. At each exam, bumblefoot lesions were characterized and measured, and a timed series of thermal images were collected over a 4-min period. Three different methods were compared for analysis of thermograms. Feet with active lesions that compromise the surface of the foot were compared to feet with inactive lesions and no lesions. The hypothesis was that feet with active lesions would have warmer surface temperatures than the other conditions. Analysis of the data showed that although feet with active bumblefoot lesions are warmer than feet with inactive or no lesions, the variability seen in each individual penguin from one exam day to the next and the overlap seen between temperatures from each condition made thermal imaging an unreliable tool for detection of bumblefoot in the species studied.
Journal of applied animal welfare science : JAAWS, 2015
The okapi (Okapia johnstoni), native to the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a large, solitary, a... more The okapi (Okapia johnstoni), native to the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a large, solitary, and diurnal forest-dwelling ungulate highly sensitive to captive conditions. The captive population demonstrates persistent health problems, reproductive abnormalities, and several potentially abnormal repetitive behaviors. This study reports on locomotion and pacing in adult male and female okapis. Commonly, data on repetitive behavior have been derived from surveys. Although insightful, the results are often highly generalized and provide little information about the true preponderance and nature of such behavior in a population. In this study, direct observations determining how often and when a behavior of interest occurs are paired with information on factors (intrinsic and extrinsic) that can impact a nonhuman animal's propensity to perform repetitive behavior. More than half of the North American okapi population comprised the study population. Each animal was studied for 2 sum...
Animal Behavior and Cognition, 2014
Animal personality refers to individual differences in behavior that are consistent across time a... more Animal personality refers to individual differences in behavior that are consistent across time and across contexts. As it plays an ecological and evolutionary role for many animals by affecting fitness, it is likely to play a role in how both species and individuals fare in captivity. Assessment of animal personality by caretaker ratings has been validated using behavioral coding methods in a number of species and has thus become the most common method for assessing personality of captive animals. Whereas the reliability of rating methodology is arguable, the reality of working in a captive setting makes assessment of animal personality by caretaker ratings an easy and practical way to investigate questions related to personality. We used a case study in African lions to investigate the use of rating methodology to uncover personality traits. We then related dimensionality of those traits to fecal glucocorticoid metabolite values taken before, during, and after habitat renovation. The end goal was to devise a method by which individual welfare can be considered and improved by considering personality traits. Interobserver reliability scores revealed that only 11 out of 18 traits and four out of six lions were reliably rated. From those traits, we uncovered a sociability-neuroticism axis, whereby lions that were more social and less neurotic had lower glucocorticoid metabolite levels (GCM). In addition, we found that more vocal animals had higher GCM levels and more active animals had lower GCM levels, findings that suggest that vocalizing and activity level may be part of the way these individuals cope with stressors. These results suggest that a better understanding of a lion's sociability and neuroticism may inform management decisions during stressful times. Further investigation into the two lions who did not pass reliability testing, revealed that they had the lowest number of extreme trait ratings which suggests that they may have been the most behaviorally plastic, a characteristic that was not expressly measured by the surveys. The inability of rating methodology to measure plasticity and the role of the human-animal relationship in contributing to low reliability scores are discussed. We suggest that the most widely used personality surveys may work well for animals who exhibit low levels of plasticity and whose behavior falls closer to the extremes of a continuum, but may be less helpful for more plastic animals whose personality traits fall in the mid-range.
AJP: Heart and Circulatory Physiology, 2006
Anthracyclines are antitumor agents the main clinical limitation of which is cardiac toxicity. Th... more Anthracyclines are antitumor agents the main clinical limitation of which is cardiac toxicity. The mechanism of this cardiotoxicity is thought to be related to generation of oxidative stress, causing lethal injury to cardiac myocytes. Although protein and lipid oxidation have been documented in anthracycline-treated cardiac myocytes, DNA damage has not been directly demonstrated. This study was undertaken to determine whether anthracyclines induce cardiac myocyte DNA damage and whether this damage is linked to a signaling pathway culminating in cell death. H9c2 cardiac myocytes were treated with the anthracycline doxorubicin at clinically relevant concentrations, and DNA damage was assessed using the alkaline comet assay. Doxorubicin induced DNA damage, as shown by a significant increase in the mean tail moment above control, an effect ameliorated by inclusion of a free radical scavenger. Repair of DNA damage was incomplete after doxorubicin treatment in contrast to the complete rep...
Journal of applied animal welfare science : JAAWS, 2015
The okapi (Okapia johnstoni), native to the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a large, solitary, a... more The okapi (Okapia johnstoni), native to the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a large, solitary, and diurnal forest-dwelling ungulate highly sensitive to captive conditions. The captive population demonstrates persistent health problems, reproductive abnormalities, and several potentially abnormal repetitive behaviors. This study reports on locomotion and pacing in adult male and female okapis. Commonly, data on repetitive behavior have been derived from surveys. Although insightful, the results are often highly generalized and provide little information about the true preponderance and nature of such behavior in a population. In this study, direct observations determining how often and when a behavior of interest occurs are paired with information on factors (intrinsic and extrinsic) that can impact a nonhuman animal's propensity to perform repetitive behavior. More than half of the North American okapi population comprised the study population. Each animal was studied for 2 sum...
Animal Cognition, 2013
We investigated the quantity judgment abilities of two adult male western lowland gorillas (Goril... more We investigated the quantity judgment abilities of two adult male western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) by presenting discrimination tasks on a touchscreen computer. Both gorillas chose the larger quantity of two arrays of dot stimuli. On some trials, the relative number of dots was congruent with the relative total area of the two arrays. On other trials, number of dots was incongruent with area. The gorillas were first tested with static dots, then with dots that moved within the arrays, and finally on a task where they were required to discriminate numerically larger subsets within arrays of moving dots. Both gorillas achieved above-chance performance on both congruent and incongruent trials with all tasks, indicating that they were able to use number as a cue even though ratio of number and area significantly controlled responding, suggesting that number was not the only relevant dimension that the gorillas used. The pattern of performance was similar to that found previously with monkeys and chimpanzees but had not previously been demonstrated in gorillas within a computerized test format, and with these kinds of visual stimuli.
Animal Cognition, 2013
We investigated the quantity judgment abilities of two adult male western lowland gorillas (Goril... more We investigated the quantity judgment abilities of two adult male western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) by presenting discrimination tasks on a touchscreen computer. Both gorillas chose the larger quantity of two arrays of dot stimuli. On some trials, the relative number of dots was congruent with the relative total area of the two arrays. On other trials, number of dots was incongruent with area. The gorillas were first tested with static dots, then with dots that moved within the arrays, and finally on a task where they were required to discriminate numerically larger subsets within arrays of moving dots. Both gorillas achieved above-chance performance on both congruent and incongruent trials with all tasks, indicating that they were able to use number as a cue even though ratio of number and area significantly controlled responding, suggesting that number was not the only relevant dimension that the gorillas used. The pattern of performance was similar to that found previously with monkeys and chimpanzees but had not previously been demonstrated in gorillas within a computerized test format, and with these kinds of visual stimuli.
The okapi (Okapia johnstoni), native to the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a large, solitary, a... more The okapi (Okapia johnstoni), native to the Democratic Republic of Congo, is a large, solitary, and diurnal forest-dwelling ungulate highly sensitive to captive conditions. The captive population demonstrates persistent health problems, reproductive abnormalities, and several potentially abnormal repetitive behaviors. This study reports on locomotion and pacing in adult male and female okapis. Commonly, data on repetitive behavior have been derived from surveys. Although insightful, the results are often highly generalized and provide little information about the true preponderance and nature of such behavior in a population. In this study, direct observations determining how often and when a behavior of interest occurs are paired with information on factors (intrinsic and extrinsic) that can impact a nonhuman animal's propensity to perform repetitive behavior. More than half of the North American okapi population comprised the study population. Each animal was studied for 2 summer and winter seasons. Factors predictive of pacing in both males and females included 3 housing and habitat factors and 4 management factors. Patterns of locomotion and the rate and pattern of pacing in males when compared with females suggested different mechanisms may be driving these behaviors in the different sexes and that a sex-specific management strategy would benefit this species.
Animal Behavior & Cognition
Animal personality refers to individual differences in behavior that are consistent across time a... more Animal personality refers to individual differences in behavior that are consistent across time and across contexts. As it plays an ecological and evolutionary role for many animals by affecting fitness, it is likely to play a role in how both species and individuals fare in captivity. Assessment of animal personality by caretaker ratings has been validated using behavioral coding methods in a number of species and has thus become the most common method for assessing personality of captive animals. Whereas the reliability of rating methodology is arguable, the reality of working in a captive setting makes assessment of animal personality by caretaker ratings an easy and practical way to investigate questions related to personality. We used a case study in African lions to investigate the use of rating methodology to uncover personality traits. We then related dimensionality of those traits to fecal glucocorticoid metabolite values taken before, during, and after habitat renovation. The end goal was to devise a method by which individual welfare can be considered and improved by considering personality traits. Inter-observer reliability scores revealed that only 11 out of 18 traits and four out of six lions were reliably rated. From those traits, we uncovered a sociality-neuroticism axis, whereby lions that were more pro-social and less neurotic had lower glucocorticoid metabolite levels (GCM). In addition, we found that more vocal animals had higher GCM levels and more active animals had lower GCM levels, findings that suggest that vocalizing and activity level may be part of the way these individuals cope with stressors. These results suggest that a better understanding of a lion’s sociality and neuroticism may inform management decisions during stressful times. Further investigation into the two lions who did not pass reliability testing, revealed that they had the lowest number of extreme trait ratings which suggests that they may have been the most behaviorally plastic, a characteristic that was not expressly measured by the surveys. The inability of rating methodology to measure plasticity and the role of the human-animal relationship in contributing to low reliability scores are discussed. We suggest that the most widely used personality surveys may work well for animals who exhibit low levels of plasticity and whose behavior falls closer to the extremes of a continuum, but may be less helpful for more plastic animals whose personality traits fall in the mid-range.
We investigated the quantity judgment abilities of two adult male western lowland gorillas (Goril... more We investigated the quantity judgment abilities of two adult male western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) by presenting discrimination tasks on a touchscreen computer. Both gorillas chose the larger quantity of two arrays of dot stimuli. On some trials, the relative number of dots was congruent with the relative total area of the two arrays. On other trials, number of dots was incongruent with area. The gorillas were first tested with static dots, then with dots that moved within the arrays, and finally on a task where they were required to discriminate numerically larger subsets within arrays of moving dots. Both gorillas achieved above-chance performance on both congruent and incongruent trials with all tasks, indicating that they were able to use number as a cue even though ratio of number and area significantly controlled responding, suggesting that number was not the only relevant dimension that the gorillas used. The pattern of performance was similar to that found previously with monkeys and chimpanzees but had not previously been demonstrated in gorillas within a computerized test format, and with these kinds of visual stimuli.
An emerging area of research investigates the ecological implications of repeatable individual di... more An emerging area of research investigates the ecological implications of repeatable individual differences in behavior. A personality is any behavior that is repeatable over time and across contexts. I examined inter-and intraspecific variation in personality in Peromyscus leucopus noveboracencis, the white-footed mouse, and P. maniculatus gracilis, the woodland deer mouse, as a mediator of coexistence and dispersal. I used open-field trials and principal component analysis to extract axes that describe activity, sociality, aggression, and location. I then used linear, generalized linear, and mixed effect models to reveal that P. maniculatus was more active and social than P. leucopus. In dyadic trials, sociality and aggression of the focal mouse were independent of the species of the opponent mouse. Analyses with raw variables indicated that both species approached heterospecifics more than conspecifics, and retreated from P. maniculatus more than from P. leucopus. Because extreme overwinter mortality left my study area almost vacant, I used behavioral axes to examine arrival date in dispersers. Early dispersers were more active, social, and submissive than late-season dispersers. Activity and sociality were also plastic over time, with the trend among all mice being to reduce activity and sociality as the season progressed. These studies illustrate that personality may be an axis of niche differentiation and is important in describing dispersal phenotypes in Peromyscus, thus illustrating the value of including personality in ecological studies. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My research advisors, Dr. Andrew McAdam and Dr. Barb Lundrigan, have been valuable mentors to me throughout this process. Without their help in teaching me how to form (and challenge) my own ideas, I would not have gotten to this point or enjoyed the process as much as I have. Without their help on earlier versions of these papers, I would not have learned the value of real scientific rigor and persistence in making my work the best it can be. They have guided, motivated, and inspired me to be the best scientist I can be. I would also like to thank my committee member Dr. Kay Holekamp for offering help whenever it has been needed. I would like to thank Phil Myers and Susan Hoffman for advising on trapping site selection and the Michigan DNR for allowing us to work in the Pigeon River State Forest; Faye d'Eon-Eggerston and Stephanie Zimmer for invaluable assistance in the field; the Michigan State University Museum, Brian Maurer, and Phil Myers for traps; Susan Hoffman and Rosa Moscarella for field supplies; Tom L'Ecuyer for lending laboratory equipment; and the McAdam Lab members for comments on a previous draft of these manuscripts.
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Papers by Lauri Torgerson-White