Lymphoma risk among animal breeders

The optimal degree of parental care asymmetry among communal breeders

Intraspecific brood parasitism and cooperative breeding can be considered extremes on a continuum of parental care investment by a secondary female that visits the nest of a primary female. However, we lack a theoretical framework that predicts exactly where a secondary female will fall along this continuum. In this paper I present a model that predicts the fraction of a nesting period during w...

Predation risk drives social complexity in cooperative breeders.

Predation risk is a major ecological factor selecting for group living. It is largely ignored, however, as an evolutionary driver of social complexity and cooperative breeding, which is attributed mainly to a combination of habitat saturation and enhanced relatedness levels. Social cichlids neither suffer from habitat saturation, nor are their groups composed primarily of relatives. This demand...

Hypoxemia: an early indication of pigeon breeders' disease. Clinical and laboratory findings among pigeon breeders in the Salonica area.

The purpose of this study is to identify pathological findings among pigeon breeders in the Salonica area. Fifty-four volunteer breeders with varying intensity of contact with pigeons participated in the study. All the breeders, after filling in a questionnaire that included questions about the existence of conjunctivitis, rhinitis, chronic cough and sputum, were subjected to clinical examinati...

Immune changes in animal breeders: a pilot study conducted in northern Italy.

OBJECTIVE Farming is associated with exposure to a wide variety of risk factors including organic dusts, endotoxins, allergens and other chemicals. The ability of some of these agents to interact with the immune system is demonstrated in the presented study which was undertaken to evaluate the relationship between pig and cow breeding, and the immune system early changes. Particular attention i...

Cooperative breeders do cooperate.