Restoration of demised keystone-species populations is an overriding concern in conservation biology. However, since no population is independent of its environment, progress is needed in predicting the efficacy of restoration in unstable ecological contexts. Here, by means of Population Dynamics P-system Models (PDP), we studied long-term changes in the population size of Egyptian vultures (Ne...

1. Feather pecking is one of the major problems facing the egg industry in non-cage systems and is set to become even more of an issue with the European Union ban on the keeping of laying hens in barren battery cages which comes into force in 2012 and the prospect of a ban on beak-trimming. Reducing feather pecking without resorting to beak treatment is an important goal for the poultry industr...

Extreme weather events such as hurricanes and tornadoes have been found to change the spatial temporal abundance of raptors by decreasing survival forcing emigration individuals, or increasing habitat heterogeneity facilitating recolonization disturbed areas. Nonetheless, little is known about how extreme could affect raptors’ movements their space use in areas large-scale events. We studied af...

A feather-degrading culture was enriched with isolates from a poultry waste digestor and adapted to grow with feathers as its primary source of carbon, sulfur, and energy. Subsequently, a feather-hydrolytic, endospore-forming, motile, rod-shaped bacterium was isolated from the feather-degrading culture. The organism was Gram stain variable and catalase positive and demonstrated facultative grow...

Medium and large scavengers often move long distances to locate sufficient foraging areas, including buffer zones of protected putting them at considerable risk from geographically dispersed threats. Vultures are declining worldwide with poisoning being the greatest threat in Africa. Using a novel capture-recapture model applied carcasses found by 51 GPS tracked vultures, we estimated exposure,...

Three Bacillus species (B. subtilis LFB-FIOCRUZ 1270, B. subtilis LFB-FIOCRUZ 1273, and B. licheniformis LFB-FIOCRUZ 1274), isolated from the poultry industry, were evaluated for keratinase production using feathers or feather meal as the sole carbon and nitrogen sources in a submerged fermentation. The three Bacillus spp. produced extracellular keratinases and peptidases after 7 days. Feather ...

1. The formation of the feather pattern has been studied in skin explants obtained from the lumbar region of the spinal pteryla of 6\to 7^-day chick embryos. Explants were cultured in vivo on the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) or in vitro, either on semi-solid natural media (containing whole chick embryo extract (J£) or chick brain extract (EC)), or in a liquid synthetic medium (199). 2. Feathe...

A tremendous diversity of avian color displays has stimulated numerous studies of natural and sexual selection. Yet, the developmental mechanisms that produce such diversification, and thus the proximate targets of selection pressures, are rarely addressed and poorly understood. In particular, because feathers are colored during growth, the dynamics of feather growth play a deterministic role i...