Animal production (e.g., milk, meat, and eggs) provides valuable protein production for human beings and animals. However, animal production is facing several challenges worldwide such as environmental impacts and animal welfare/health concerns. In animal farming operations, accurate and efficient monitoring of animal information and behavior can help analyze the health and welfare status of animals and identify sick or abnormal individuals at an early stage to reduce economic losses and protect animal welfare. In recent years, there has been growing interest in animal welfare. At present, sensors, big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence are used to improve management efficiency, reduce production costs, and enhance animal welfare. Although these technologies still have challenges and limitations, the application and exploration of these technologies in animal farms will greatly promote the intelligent management of farms. Therefore, this Special Issue will collect original papers with novel contributions based on technologies such as sensors, big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to study animal behavior monitoring and recognition, environmental monitoring, health evaluation, etc., to promote intelligent and accurate animal farm management.

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This volume includes twelve novel empirical papers focusing on the behaviour and cognition of both captive and wild bonobos (''Pan paniscus''). Overall it demonstrates how anyone interested in understanding humans or chimpanzees must also know bonobos.
This book is made open access as part of the Knowledge Unlatched KU Select 2018: STEM Backlist Books

Listed by Unglue.it.

This volume includes twelve novel empirical papers focusing on the behaviour and cognition of both captive and wild bonobos (''Pan paniscus''). Overall it demonstrates how anyone interested in understanding humans or chimpanzees must also know bonobos.
This book is made open access as part of the Knowledge Unlatched KU Select 2018: STEM Backlist Books

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This book provides an overview of the current knowledge of herbivory. This book contains chapters from a wide variety of topics that fall into the following broad sections: (I) "Plant Defense Mechanisms and Herbivore Adaptations," (II) "Herbivory and Food Processing of Grazing Animals," and (III) "Herbivory Effects on Plant Communities." More specifically, the contributions of this book, written by experts in their respective fields, focus on topics including the chemical plant defense against herbivores as well as herbivore adaptions to plant cyanide defenses, the utilization of biomarkers to study grazing behavior of ruminants, modeling for describing ruminant herbivory, as well as improving grain processing to improve dairy cow performance. Contributions on positive indirect interactions in marine herbivores and algae are included, as is one focusing on herbivory by lizards. These chapters represent recent contributions showing the diversity of ongoing research in this field of study. This book targets a wide audience of general biologists as well as botanists, ecologists, and zoologists including both teachers and students in gaining a better appreciation of this rapidly growing field.

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Studies of herbivory provide important insights into fundamental questions in many areas of the biological sciences. The focus on natural systems is more effective for the prediction of potential changes in ecosystems, given that agricultural systems are designed to create an equilibrium that optimizes the productive process. Given the ramifications of the processes related to herbivory, studies based on complementary approaches are necessary for a better understanding of the different aspects of the ecological process. This book attempts to expand on these different aspects of herbivory by presenting a multidisciplinary approach to a number of different themes, focusing on topics that range from basic research in natural habitats to the intrinsic relationships between animals and plants in agricultural systems.

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Can animals experience emotions? Do they have a life story? The INRA addressed these questions by performing a collective scientific assessment of animal consciousness. This multidisciplinary evaluation, in which a vast body of behavioral, cognitive and neurobiological studies is analyzed, tends to show the existence of conscious thought processes in animals.

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This open-access book invites its readers to dive into the depths of marine mammal bioacoustics. The ocean is a noisy place—naturally as well as anthropogenically. Our book explores the fundamentals of ocean acoustics, revealing the intricate sources of underwater noise that challenge marine life. Readers delve into the unique vocalizations of mysticetes, odontocetes, pinnipeds, otters, and sirenians, uncovering their diverse communication in stormy waters. The book presents research on marine mammal hearing and the impact of noise on their physiology and behavior, from the subtle behavioral responses to the broader biological significance of these effects. With insights into the management of anthropogenic noise, this book equips students, researchers, environmental managers, policy makers, conservationists, and enthusiasts alike with vital knowledge for protecting our ocean’s acoustic environments.

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It is human nature to measure things, and this holds true for science as well as everyday life. The five papers in this book demonstrate the usefulness of a morphometric approach to a variety of subjects in natural history, including systematics, phenotypic plasticity in response to environmental variation, and ontogenetic adaptation. As our understanding of genetic control mechanisms and epigenetics has matured over the last several decades, it has become clear that morphometric assessment continues to be important to our overall understanding of natural variability in growth and form. The tremendous growth of our knowledge base during the last century has necessitated that we find new ways to measure and track greater detail as well as greater numbers of parameters among populations and individuals.

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High-quality primary data publications and review articles have been selected for publication in this Special Issue. They, collectively, draw a comprehensive picture of some of the most relevant questions linking (healthy) nutrition to brain development and brain disorders.

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Owls are one of the most fascinating bird families. They have inspired much folklore and superstition worldwide. This book discusses this nocturnal species and their unique physiology and anatomy. It includes owl studies from countries including Bulgaria, Ecuador, Iraq, Slovakia, Syria, and Africa.

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This open access book summarizes the multi-disciplinary results of one of China’s main primatological research projects on the endemic Tibetan macaque (Macaca thibetana), which had continued for over 30 years, but which had never been reported on systematically. Dedicated to this exceptional Old World monkey, this book makes the work of Chinese primatologists on the social behavior, cooperation, culture, cognition, group dynamics, and emerging technologies in primate research accessible to the international scientific community. One of the most impressive Asian monkeys, and the largest member of its genus, the Tibetan macaque deserves to be better known. This volume goes a long way towards bringing this species into the spotlight with many excellent behavioral analyses from the field. - Frans de Waal, Professor of Psychology, Emory University, USA. Macaques matter. To understand primate patterns and trends, and to gain important insight into humanity, we need to augment and expand our engagement with the most successful and widespread primate genus aside from Homo. This volume focuses on the Tibetan macaque, a fascinating species with much to tell us about social behavior, physiology, complexity and the macaque knack for interfacing with humans. This book is doubly important for primatology in that beyond containing core information on this macaque species, it also reflects an effective integrated collaboration between Chinese scholars and a range of international colleagues—exactly the type of collaborative engagement primatology needs. This volume is a critical contribution to a global primatology. - Agustín Fuentes, Professor of Anthropology, University of Notre Dame, USA. I have many fond memories of my association with Mt. Huangshan research beginning in 1983, when together with Professor Qishan Wang we established this site. It is such a beautiful place and I miss it. It is gratifying to see how far research has progressed since we began work there, becoming more internationalized and very much a collaborative endeavor under the long-term direction of Professor Jin-Hua Li and colleagues. This book highlights the increased interest in this species, representing a variety of disciplines ranging from macro aspects of behavior, cognition and sociality, to micro aspects of microbes, parasites and disease, authored by a group of renowned Chinese and international primatologists. I applaud their efforts and expect more interesting work to come from this site in the years ahead. - Kazuo Wada, Professor Emeritus, Kyoto University, Japan.

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This open access book sets out to explain the reasons for the gap between “knowing” and “doing” in view of self-reliance, which is more and more often expected of citizens. In today’s society, people are expected to take responsibility for their own lives and be self-reliant. This is no easy feat. They must be on constant high alert in areas of life such as health, work and personal finances and, if things threaten to go awry, take appropriate action without further ado. What does this mean for public policy? Policymakers tend to assume that the government only needs to provide people with clear information and that, once properly informed, they will automatically do the right thing. However, it is becoming increasingly obvious that things do not work like that. Even though people know perfectly well what they ought to do, they often behave differently. Why is this? This book sets out to explain the reasons for the gap between ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’. It focuses on the role of non-cognitive capacities, such as setting goals, taking action, persevering and coping with setbacks, and shows how these capacities are undermined by adverse circumstances. By taking the latest psychological insights fully into account, this book presents a more realist perspective on self-reliance, and shows government officials how to design rules and institutions that allow for the natural limitations in people’s ‘capacity to act’.

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