Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) generated by biologically active neural tissue are critical in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological diseases. Biological EMFs are characterized by electromagnetic properties such as electrical conductivity, permittivity and magnetic susceptibility. The electrical conductivity of active tissue has been shown to serve as a biomarker for the direct detection of neural activity, and the diagnosis, staging and prognosis of disease states such as cancer. Magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography (MREIT) was developed to map the cross-sectional conductivity distribution of electrically conductive objects using externally applied electrical currents. Simulation and in vitro studies of invertebrate neural tissue complexes demonstrated the correlation of membrane conductivity variations with neural activation levels using the MREIT technique, therefore laying the foundation for functional MREIT (fMREIT) to detect neural activity, and future in vivo fMREIT studies.



The development of fMREIT for the direct detection of neural activity using conductivity contrast in in vivo settings has been the focus of the research work presented here. An in vivo animal model was developed to detect neural activity initiated changes in neuronal membrane conductivities under external electrical current stimulation. Neural activity was induced in somatosensory areas I (SAI) and II (SAII) by applying electrical currents between the second and fourth digits of the rodent forepaw. The in vivo animal model involved the use of forepaw stimulation to evoke somatosensory neural activations along with hippocampal fMREIT imaging currents contemporaneously applied under magnetic field strengths of 7 Tesla. Three distinct types of fMREIT current waveforms were applied as imaging currents under two inhalants – air and carbogen. Active regions in the somatosensory cortex showed significant apparent conductivity changes as variations in fMREIT phase (φ_d and ∇^2 φ_d) signals represented by fMREIT activation maps (F-tests, p <0.05). Consistent changes in the standard deviation of φ_d and ∇^2 φ_d in cortical voxels contralateral to forepaw stimulation were observed across imaging sessions. These preliminary findings show that fMREIT may have the potential to detect conductivity changes correlated with neural activity.

Each year, nearly three million dogs will enter one of over 13,000 animal shelters in the United States. The purpose of this dissertation is to better understand how breed identity and dog welfare in the shelter, in addition to post-adoption and fostering interventions out of the shelter, can contribute to the betterment of dog lives. In Chapter 2, I conducted the largest sampling of shelter dogs’ breed identities to-date to determine their breed heritage and compare shelter breed assignment by staff as determined by visual appearance to that of genetic testing. In Chapter 4, I examined the efficacy of a post-adoption intervention intended to reduce returns by encouraging physical activity between adopters and their dogs. In Chapter 6, I examined the effects of brief stays in a foster home on the urinary cortisol: creatinine ratios of dogs awaiting adoption compared to ratios collected before or after their stays; and in Chapter 7, I characterized the relationships between multiple physiological, health, and cognitive measures and the in-kennel behavior of shelter dogs.

Four suggestions from the findings of this dissertation that will likely better the lives of dogs living in animal shelters are: 1) Shelter dog breed heritage is complex and visually identifying multiple breeds in a mixed breed dog is difficult at best. Shelters should instead focus on communicating the morphology and behavior of the dogs in their care to best support adopters. 2) While encouraging walking did not influence owner behavior, adopters who reported higher obligation and self-efficacy in dog walking were more active with their dogs. Thus, post-adoption interventions that can effectively target owner perceptions of obligation and self-efficacy may be more successful in changing behavior. 3) Temporary fostering is an impactful intervention that reduces stress for dogs awaiting adoption; however addressing stressors present at shelters that are likely contributing to higher stress responding is also needed. 4) It is possible to predict the internal stress responding of shelter dogs by observing their overt, in-kennel behavior, and this study is a first step in assessing and improving the welfare of dogs living in animal shelters.

Zoos are a unique collection-based institution with deep roots in the social structure of modern society. From their beginnings as elite menageries to display power or wealth, they have evolved into public institutions committed to providing exemplary animal care, and recreational and educational opportunities for visitors. More recently, zoos have developed a series of significant conservation programs and partnerships around the globe, efforts that have proved vital to saving endangered species such as the Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx) and California condor (Gymnogyps californianus), among other species.

Intrinsic to the development of modern zoo designs are the interwoven concerns of naturalism and animal welfare. Animal welfare, in particular, has become the paramount responsibility for professionally run zoological institutions as they seek to become centers of conservation and education without compromising animal wellbeing. Animal welfare and naturalism (understood as a design feature in zoo exhibits) are typically harmonious objectives, but these goals have occasionally clashed in implementation. While animal welfare and naturalism are defined in various (and not always consistent) ways in the literature, in-depth interviews of leading professionals and scholars in the zoo community and multi-dimensional case studies of exemplary, accredited institutions (including the Phoenix Zoo, the San Diego Zoo, Woodland Park Zoo and Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum) provide unique insight into the shifting meaning of these terms and how welfare and naturalism have and continue to shape the

development of modern zoo enclosures. This study concludes by suggesting a possible

future trajectory for innovative and alternative zoo designs that incorporate both animal welfare and naturalism without sacrificing either goal.

Food is an essential driver of animal behavior. For social organisms, the acquisition of food guides interactions with the environment and with group-mates. Studies have focused on how social individuals find and choose food sources, and share both food and information with group-mates. However, it is often not clear how experiences throughout an individual's life influence such interactions. The core question of this thesis is how individuals’ experience contributes to within-caste behavioral variation in a social group. I investigate the effects of individual history, including physical injury and food-related experience, on individuals' social food sharing behavior, responses to food-related stimuli, and the associated neural biogenic amine signaling pathways. I use the eusocial honey bee (Apis mellifera) system, one in which individuals exhibit a high degree of plasticity in responses to environmental stimuli and there is a richness of communicatory pathways for food-related information. Foraging exposes honey bees to aversive experiences such as predation, con-specific competition, and environmental toxins. I show that foraging experience changes individuals' response thresholds to sucrose, a main component of adults’ diets, depending on whether foraging conditions are benign or aversive. Bodily injury is demonstrated to reduce individuals' appetitive responses to new, potentially food-predictive odors. Aversive conditions also impact an individual's social food sharing behavior; mouth-to-mouse trophallaxis with particular groupmates is modulated by aversive foraging conditions both for foragers who directly experienced these conditions and non-foragers who were influenced via social contact with foragers. Although the mechanisms underlying these behavioral changes have yet to be resolved, my results implicate biogenic amine signaling pathways as a potential component. Serotonin and octopamine concentrations are shown to undergo long-term change due to distinct foraging experiences. My work serves to highlight the malleability of a social individual's food-related behavior, suggesting that environmental conditions shape how individuals respond to food and share information with group-mates. This thesis contributes to a deeper understanding of inter-individual variation in animal behavior.

In wild birds, the stress response can inhibit the activity of the innate immune system, which serves as the first line of defense against pathogens. By elucidating the mechanisms which regulate the interaction between stress and innate immunity, researchers may be able to predict when birds experience increased susceptibility to infections and can target specific mediators to mitigate stress-induced suppression of innate immune activity. Such elucidation is especially important for urban birds, such as the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), because these birds experience higher pathogen prevalence and transmission when compared to birds in rural regions. I investigated the role of corticosterone (CORT) in stress-induced suppression of two measures of innate immune activity (complement- and natural antibody-mediated activity) in male House Sparrows. Corticosterone, the primary avian glucocorticoid, is elevated during the stress response and high levels of this hormone induce effects through the activation of cytosolic and membrane-bound glucocorticoid receptors (GR). My results demonstrate that CORT is necessary and sufficient for stress-induced suppression of complement-mediated activity, and that this relationship is consistent between years. Corticosterone, however, does not inhibit complement-mediated activity through cytosolic GR, and additional research is needed to confirm the involvement of membrane-bound GR. The role of CORT in stress-induced inhibition of natural antibody-mediated activity, however, remains puzzling. Stress-induced elevation of CORT can suppress natural antibody-mediated activity through the activation of cytosolic GR, but the necessity of this mechanism varies inter-annually. In other words, both CORT-dependent and CORT-independent mechanisms may inhibit natural antibody-mediated activity during stress in certain years, but the causes of this inter-annual variation are not known. Previous studies have indicated that changes in the pathogen environment or food availability can alter regulation of innate immunity, but further research is needed to test these hypotheses. Overall, my dissertation demonstrates that stress inhibits innate immunity through several mechanisms, but environmental pressures may influence this inhibitory relationship.

Previous research has indicated that certain breeds of dogs stay longer in shelters than others; however exactly how breed perception and identification influences potential adopters' decisions remains unclear. Current dog breed identification practices in animal shelters are often based upon information supplied by the relinquishing owner, or staff determination based on the dog's phenotype. However discrepancies have been found between breed identification as typically assessed by welfare agencies and the outcome of DNA analysis. In Study 1, the perceived behavioral and adoptability characteristics of a pit-bull-type dog were compared with those of a Labrador Retriever and Border Collie. How the addition of a human handler influenced those perceptions was also assessed. In Study 2, lengths of stay and perceived attractiveness of dogs that were labeled as pit bull breeds to dogs that were phenotypically similar but were labeled as another breed at an animal shelter were compared. The latter dogs were called "lookalikes." In Study 3, perceived attractiveness in video recordings of pit-bull-type dogs and lookalikes with and without breed labels were compared. Lastly, data from an animal shelter that ceased applying breed labeling on kennels was analyzed, and lengths of stay and outcomes for all dog breeds, including pit bulls, before and after the change in labeling practice were compared. In total, these findings suggest that breed labeling influences potential adopters' perceptions and decision-making. Given the inherent complexity of breed assignment based on morphology coupled with negative breed perceptions, removing breed labels is a relatively low-cost strategy that will likely improve outcomes for dogs in animal shelters.

Locomotion in natural environments requires coordinated movements from multiple body parts, and precise adaptations when changes in the environment occur. The contributions of the neurons of the motor cortex underlying these behaviors are poorly understood, and especially little is known about how such contributions may differ based on the anatomical and physiological characteristics of neurons. To elucidate the contributions of motor cortical subpopulations to movements, the activity of motor cortical neurons, muscle activity, and kinematics were studied in the cat during a variety of locomotion tasks requiring accurate foot placement, including some tasks involving both expected and unexpected perturbations of the movement environment. The roles of neurons with two types of neuronal characteristics were studied: the existence of somatosensory receptive fields located at the shoulder, elbow, or wrist of the contralateral forelimb; and the existence projections through the pyramidal tract, including fast- and slow-conducting subtypes.

Distinct neuronal adaptations between simple and complex locomotion tasks were observed for neurons with different receptive field properties and fast- and slow-conducting pyramidal tract neurons. Feedforward and feedback-driven kinematic control strategies were observed for adaptations to expected and unexpected perturbations, respectively, during complex locomotion tasks. These kinematic differences were reflected in the response characteristics of motor cortical neurons receptive to somatosensory information from different parts of the forelimb, elucidating roles for the various neuronal populations in accommodating disturbances in the environment during behaviors. The results show that anatomical and physiological characteristics of motor cortical neurons are important for determining if and how neurons are involved in precise control of locomotion during natural behaviors.

Modified and artificial water sources can be used as a management tool for game and non-game wildlife species. State, federal, and private agencies allocate significant resources to install and maintain artificial water sources (AWS) annually. Capture mark recapture methods were used to sample small mammal communities in the vicinity of five AWS and five paired control sites (treatments) in the surrounding Sonoran desert from October 2011 to May 2012. I measured plant species richness, density, and percent cover in the spring of 2012. A Multi-response Permutation Procedure was used to identify differences in small mammal community abundance, biomass, and species richness by season and treatment. I used Principle Component Analysis to reduce 11 habitat characteristics to five habitat factors. I related rodent occurrence to habitat characteristics using multiple and logistic regression. A total of 370 individual mammals representing three genera and eight species of rodents were captured across 4800 trap nights. Desert pocket mouse (Chaetodipus penicillatus) was the most common species in both seasons and treatments. Whereas rodent community abundance, biomass, and richness were similar between seasons, community variables of AWS were greater than CS. Rodent diversity was similar between treatments. Desert pocket mouse abundance and biomass were twice as high at AWS when compared to controls. Biomass of white-throated woodrat (Neotoma albigula) was five times greater at AWS. Habitat characteristics were similar between treatments. Neither presence of water nor distance to water explained substantial habitat variation. Occurrence of rodent species was associated with habitat characteristics. Desert rodent communities are adapted for arid environments (i.e. Heteromyids) and are not dependent on "free water". Higher abundances of desert pocket mouse at AWS were most likely related to increased disturbance and debris and not the presence of water. The results of this study and previous studies suggest that more investigation is needed and that short term studies may not be able to detect interactions (if any) between AWS and desert small mammal communities.

An understanding of diet habits is crucial in implementing proper management strategies for wildlife. Diet analysis, however, remains a challenge for ruminant species. Microhistological analysis, the method most often employed in herbivore diet studies, is tedious and time consuming. In addition, it requires considerable training and an extensive reference plant collection. The development of DNA barcoding (species identification using a standardized DNA sequence) and the availability of recent DNA sequencing techniques offer new possibilities in diet analysis for ungulates. Using fecal material collected from controlled feeding trials on pygmy goats, (Capra hicus), novel DNA barcoding technology using the P6-loop of the chloroplast trnL (UAA) intron was compared with the traditional microhistological technique. At its current stage of technological development, this study demonstrated that DNA barcoding did not enhance the ability to detect plant species in herbivore diets. A higher mean species composition was reported with microhistological analysis (79%) as compared to DNA barcoding (50%). Microhistological analysis consistently reported a higher species presence by forage class. For affect positive species identification, microhistology estimated an average of 89% correct detection in control diets, while DNA barcoding estimated 50% correct detection of species. It was hypothesized that a number of factors, including variation in chloroplast content in feed species and the effect of rumen bacteria on degradation of DNA, influenced the ability to detect plant species in herbivore diets and concluded that while DNA barcoding opens up new possibilities in the study of plant-herbivore interactions, further studies are needed to standardize techniques and for DNA bar-coding in this context.