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- Creator:
- Moua, Cha
- Description:
- Long-term studies of animal ranging ecology are critical to understanding how animals utilize their habitat across space and time. Although gelada monkeys (Theropithecus gelada) inhabit an unusual, high altitude habitat that presents unique ecological challenges, no long-term studies of their ranging behavior have been conducted. To close this gap, I investigated the daily path length (DPL), annual home ranges (95%), and annual core areas (50%) of a band of ~220 wild gelada monkeys at Guassa, Ethiopia, from January 2007 to December 2011 (for total of n = 785 full-day follows). I estimated annual home ranges and core area using the fixed kernel reference (FK REF) and smoothed cross-validation (FK SCV) bandwidths, and the minimum convex polygon (MCP) method. Both annual home range (MCP - 2007: 5.9 km2 ; 2008: 8.6 km2 ; 2009: 9.2 km2 ; 2010: 11.5 km2 ; 2011: 11.6 km2 ) and core area increased over the 5-year study period. The MCP and FK REF generated broadly consistent, though slightly larger estimates that contained areas in which the geladas were never observed. All three methods omitted one to 19 sleeping sites from the home range depending on the year. Thus, neither the MCP nor fixed kernel estimators were more accurate than the other. Similarly, mean annual DPL (± SE m) increased over the study period (2007: 2,848±57 m; 2008: 3,339±65 m; 2009: 3,272±72 m; 2010: 3,835±80 m; 2011: 4,100±86 m). In general, the geladas showed remarkable variation in daily, monthly, and annual DPL. I also investigated the effects of movement across uneven topography on DPL, and I discuss the ecological implications of these findings. I compare the ranging behavior of geladas at Guassa to (a) geladas at other study sites, (b) to Papio (baboon) species, (c) to both terrestrial and arboreal primates, and (d) to grazing ungulates. The extensive interannual variability in ranging patterns in this study demonstrates the importance of longterm monitoring for wild nonhuman primates and its implications for conservation policy.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Anthropology
- Creator:
- Gonzales, Kathleen A.
- Description:
- Archaeological excavations were conducted by California State University Fullerton under the direction of Dr. Steven R. James and CSUF students during the fall of 2004 and 2005 on San Nicolas Island, Channel Islands, California uncovering faunal materials from five test units at site CA-SNI-44. Samples of abalone shells collected from the five test units were submitted for radiocarbon dating. The resulting timeline for these five test units dated during the Late Holocene. To place CA-SNI-44 within context to other archaeological sites on the island, three index test units, dated to the Late Holocene were used for comparison: CA-SNI-25 (Martz 1996), CA-SNI-131 (ThomasBarnett 2000) and CA-SNI-238 (Martz 1996). Intersite comparisons were used to determine if overexploitation of sea otter and pinniped occurred, then changes in hunting strategies and diets of the prehistoric people on San Nicolas Island would be reflected in the faunal assemblages. The results suggest hunting strategies shifted from exploitation of migratory pinnipeds (seals and sea lions) to resident species (sea otters and harbor seals), which may reflect not only climatic changes during the Late Holocene, but coincide with the increase in marine resource intensification of shellfish and fish. This thesis will show over-exploitation of sea otters and pinnipeds was not occurring at CA-SNI-44 or the Index Test Units.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Anthropology
- Creator:
- Pittaway, Holly
- Description:
- Human cooperation has been studied, within the evolutionary social sciences, primarily as a function of men’s cooperative interests in terms of resources, territories, and mates. In contrast, relatively little work has focused on women’s intrasexual cooperative relationships, which I expect to have distinct challenges and benefits compared to men’s. Women face a particular conundrum when evaluating other women as social partners. Empirical data show that people generally perceive physically attractive others to be more intelligent, more trustworthy, and more socially desirable, suggesting that women should prefer more attractive female friends. However, empirical data also show that women may perceive attractive women as potential mate threats, and should therefore be less inclined to prefer them as friends. The current study was designed to directly examine how reputational information and physical attractiveness may interact to predict perceptions of women’s desirability as social partners and perceptions of attractiveness. Responses from 281 women evaluating images of women across six categories—either cooperative or uncooperative, and either unattractive, average, or attractive—confirmed previous studies that have suggested that there is crossinformation between these cues, such that target attractiveness did influence perceptions of the targets’ desirability as a friend, and information about the target’s cooperativeness did influence perceptions of the target’s physical attractiveness, but did not support any interaction of these sources of information.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Anthropology
- Creator:
- Zerbe, James G.
- Description:
- One instance of a cooperation dilemma consequential to humans is inter-coalitional competition and conflict. Here, results are reported from a series of five one-shot anonymous public goods games (PGG) designed to elicit varying coalitional and competition motivations for cooperation within the PGG. the data presented in this thesis were collected in Conambo, a bi-ethnic tribal community of Achuar and Sápara peoples in the Ecuadorian Amazon. This research has two aims: (a) discern the relative influence of group composition, random or coalitional, and the level of group competition, either none, intra-group, or inter-group on cooperation; and (b) test predictions concerning how variation in social network centrality affects cooperation in intergroup competition. Analyses of experimental PGG treatments reveal a significant increase in offers due to variation in group composition (from random to coalitional) in the context of between-group competition. Additionally, betweenness centrality in an alliance network was found to differentially affect cooperative offers in men and women across a range of coalitional and competitive contexts. These results give further confidence that group competition is a robust factor increasing cooperation and limited support for the argument that inter-individual differences rather than group level differences explain variation in PGG offers.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Anthropology
- Creator:
- Pollack, Jeremy S.
- Description:
- Several studies have shown the importance of confidence and even overconfidence in participating in warfare. Some researchers have proposed that religion is an evolutionary adaption for the capacity to participate in warfare, in part due to its ability to enhance confidence during intergroup violence. Though previous literature has presented compelling theories to support this notion of religion as an adaptation for war, no previous research has addressed this hypothesis under empirical, experimental conditions in a field setting. This study was designed to test whether supernatural salience would in fact increase confidence in performance prior to and after intergroup combat. in the context of paintball wars, experimentally manipulated state perceptions of supernatural agency, primed via a pre-battle visualization, induced greater confidence prior to battle and enhanced confidence and perceptions of performance after the battle, in subjects primed with supernatural cognition compared to subjects in a neutral condition. the results indicate that a thermostatic balance between costs and benefits to the individual and the group may have been activated—a phenomenon I refer to as the Optimal Social Confidence (OSC) hypothesis. Implications for this and other cognitive mechanisms activated by supernatural priming for the purposes of in-group confidence during competition with out-groups are discussed.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Anthropology
- Creator:
- Ashford, Bethany D.
- Description:
- Sleep paralysis is a brief episode that occurs upon falling asleep or awakening, in which a person experiences full body paralysis and a sensation of pressure on the chest or throat, but is conscious and can see and hear. These experiential features are often accompanied by vivid hallucinations that an intruder is present, who may or may not physically attack the individual. These episodes typically result in intense fear and confusion. In this thesis, I use literature review to examine sleep paralysis from several perspectives in order to advance the holistic understanding of the human experience with the sleep paralysis phenomenon. Arthur Kleinman’s concept of explanatory models, which informs on the way individuals and cultures understand, cope with, and treat health related conditions and experiences, serves as a theoretical basis for cross-cultural analysis of sleep paralysis. The application of the concept of cultural salience reveals evidence that the level to which a culture endorses supernatural explanations of sleep paralysis has a positive correlation to the individual’s level of fear and belief in supernatural causation of the experience. This thesis presents ethnographic, psychological and neurological data showing that while the phenomenological features of the sleep paralysis experience are seemingly universal, the manifest thematic content of the accompanying hallucinations are experienced through diverse cultural lenses. This is supported by consistencies in historical and linguistic literature. Future ethnography and interdisciplinary research of sleep paralysis will benefit both academic and therapeutic pursuits.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Anthropology
- Creator:
- Jackson, Juanita P.
- Description:
- The human female orgasm, has often been a topic of debate in evolutionary scholarship. Some scholars argue that it evolved to aid in sperm selection of high quality males, others argue that it evolved as part of a pair-bond maintenance system, and some propose that it’s simply a byproduct of the male orgasm. This study compares predictors of female orgasm based on mate qualities, between heterosexual and non-heterosexual women. We predict that if the female orgasm evolved to favor conception with genetically fit males, then female sexual response should be more sensitive to cues of genetic quality in male partners, predicting, to a greater extent, orgasm frequency among heterosexual women. Also, heterosexual women should be more likely to report deep orgasm and orgasms that produce an internal sucking sensation, as these are argued to enhance sperm retention. Also, if female orgasm evolved to reinforce pair-bonds, long-term investing and resource qualities in either male or female partners should predict orgasm frequency. We surveyed 93 heterosexual women and 20 non-heterosexual women, who were romantically and sexually involved with a partner. We found that partner’s physical attractiveness predicted frequency to a greater extent in non-heterosexual women; orgasm centrality and presence of internal sucking sensation was not predicted by sexual orientation. Women experienced marginally more frequency with more compatible partners, and compatibility was marginally greater for heterosexual women. Partner’s resources did not predict frequency in either group.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Anthropology
- Creator:
- Fox, Megan Kathryn
- Description:
- All species within the genus Pongo are Critically Endangered; the Bornean orangutan (Pongo pymaeus), the Sumatran orangutan (Pongo abelli), and the recently classified species from Batang Toru (Pongo tapanuliensis). the North American Orangutan Species Survival Plan (SSP) and zoological institutions that house orangutans work to educate the public regarding threats these species face and support various conservation and research projects that are working to promote their survival into the future. Unfortunately, there are a number of health challenges that face the captive orangutan population. Respiratory disease is the leading cause of death in North American captive orangutans between the ages of 8–40 years. Conditions under which respiratory disease occur is not well understood. This project aims to identify factors that influence the presence of respiratory disease in the North American captive orangutan population. a survey was disseminated to accredited North American zoological institutions housing orangutans to determine overall prevalence of disease, species and sex differences, as well as intrinsic and extrinsic environmental risk factors. Results show that respiratory disease affects 20.78% of this study population (n = 154) and male orangutans are nearly 2.4 times more likely to have respiratory disease than females. No significance is found at the species level for presence or absence of respiratory disease. Symptoms associated with diagnosis of disease are compiled with the goal of increasing early detection and treatment.
- Resource Type:
- Masters Thesis
- Campus Tesim:
- Fullerton
- Department:
- Department of Anthropology