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Eumetopias jubatus; Japan; coasts; continental shelf; mammals; seasonal variation; spring; statistical analysis; Sea of Japan
Abstract:
... Aerial surveys were conducted to estimate the abundance of wintering populations of Steller sea lions (SSLs; Eumetopias jubatus) in the Sea of Japan originated from Russian waters using the line transect sampling method during spring from 2005 to 2019. The survey areas covered the continental shelf off the western coast of Hokkaido. A total of 28 196 km survey effort was made through the study per ...
... Pipistrelles of the genus Hypsugo are among the rarest bats in Japan, known from a handful of records. In June 2018, a sequence of echolocation calls apparently by a bat of this genus was recorded by an automatic ultrasound recorder on the island of Okinawa. The calls closely resemble H. pulveratus, a Chinese species never before recorded in Japan, and H. alaschanicus, a very rare species in Japan ...
... We researched seasonal reproductive activity in the lesser Japanese mole, Mogera imaizumii, by morphometrical and histological methods for male internal genitalia using samples from Kanagawa Pref., central Honshu, Japan. On the basis of the weights of testis and the epididymis, we determined that their weights become higher during February–April. On the other hand, the histological profiles of sem ...
Tursiops aduncus; coasts; data collection; dolphins; females; males; philopatry; Japan
Abstract:
... Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus) off Amakusa-Shimoshima, approximately 200 individuals, form relatively large groups frequently exceeding 100 individuals and show high site fidelity to the area around Tsuji Island, northern coast of Amakusa-Shimoshima. This suggests that individual dolphins may have long interaction times with many other individuals. Consequently, competition be ...
Apodemus argenteus; B chromosomes; X chromosome; aneuploidy; females; fluorescence; karyotyping; mice; mountains; quinacrine; staining; Japan
Abstract:
... We studied an occurrence of chromosomal aneuploidy for ten individuals in the small Japanese field mouse, Apodemus argenteus, from the western mountainous area of Kanagawa Prefecture, Honshu, Japan. Eight of the individuals examined showed the standard 2n = 46 and FNa = 48 constitutions as the most frequent karyotype. However, of those eight individuals, seven carried an inter-cellular mosaicism w ...
... Occurrence of bark-feeding damage by sika deer (Cervus nippon) was examined at 26 mixed plantations comprised of both sugi (Cryptomeria japonica) and hinoki cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa) in Mie Prefecture, central Japan. There was no significant difference in damage ratios with the tree species in plantations with only slight damage. In plantations with a damage ratio over 5% in either tree speci ...
... Deer have been artificially introduced into many countries that are not within their native range. In some cases, they have disturbed the natural ecosystem in the invaded area. On Okinoshima Island in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, exotic deer were introduced from Taiwan in 1955 and have since bred in the wild, raising concerns about their invasion into the habitats of, and hybridization with, the na ...
... Several statistical models have recently been developed to estimate animal density using camera trappings without individual animal recognition. However, most models assume that detection by camera traps of animals passing a specific area of the camera view is perfect. A recently developed REST model (Nakashima et al. 2018; Journal of Applied Ecology 55: 735–744) also depends on the trapping rates ...
Capricornis; Dasytricha ruminantium; Entodinium; Epidinium; Protozoa; fauna; rumen; ruminants; Japan
Abstract:
... Ciliate fauna collected from the rumens of eight wild Japanese serows (Capricornis crispus) captured in the northern part of Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan, were compared with the ciliate faunas found in other Japanese wild ruminants. We identified six species belonging to two genera of ciliates (Entodinium nanellum, Ent. minimum, Ent. simplex, Ent. dubardi, Ent. longinucleatum, and Elytroplastron bub ...
Capricornis; Cervus nippon; DNA; defecation; discriminant analysis; feces; pellets; species identification; surveys; ungulates; Japan
Abstract:
... The fecal pellets and fecal pellet group characters of two ungulates, the Japanese serow and sika deer, were compared in Tokushima, Japan, where the species occur sympatrically. Species identification based on 82 fecal DNA samples revealed that 28 and 54 fecal pellet groups were from Japanese serow and sika deer, respectively. The mean values of three fecal pellet groups characters, the maximum di ...
... Age-specific changes in deer demographic parameters under food limitation are an important factor in predicting the post-population-crash dynamics of irruptive deer populations. To evaluate the differences in age-class-at-death between the initial irruption and post-population-crash phases of a sika deer (Cervus nippon) population, we analyzed a dataset of naturally dead carcasses from an introduc ...
... Mammal-plant interactions differ significantly between urban and natural environments; however, knowledge of mammal-pollinated plants in urban areas remains limited compared to plants in their natural habitats. Here, we compared the flower visitors of Mucuna macrocarpa between urban and forested areas in Okinawa-jima Island, Japan and in Taiwan. Mucuna macrocarpa requires a highly specialized poll ...
... Using fecal analyses, we examined the food habits of three large herbivorous mammals, the sika deer (Cervus nippon), the Japanese serow (Capricornis crispus), and the wild boar (Sus scrofa) on Mt. Asama, central Japan. Ten fecal samples were collected in all four seasons during 2012–2013, although boar feces were not available in summer because of high-level dung beetle activity. The proportions o ...
... Deer can strongly affect other species as a keystone species. The intensity of their herbivory impact on forest vegetation is suggested to be affected by not only deer density but also by other environmental factors such as landscape components. Especially, artificial grasslands such as pastures and meadows possibility affect deer impact on forest vegetation by altering deer foraging behavior. The ...
Castanopsis cuspidata; Japan; Sus scrofa; acorns; bamboos; body condition; crop damage; food composition; mammals; masting; stomach; wild boars
Abstract:
... We analyzed the stomach contents of wild boars (Sus scrofa) inhabiting evergreen forests in western Japan and found that they were dependent on the masting of acorns of Castanopsis cuspidata. The increased availability of C. cuspidata acorns positively affected their consumption by wild boars. In the good mast years, wild boars consumed C. cuspidata acorns from November to June of the following ye ...
... Dental microwear texture analysis (DMTA) can be used to quantitatively evaluate tooth surface roughness and has been used to distinguish herbivorous ungulates according to interspecific dietary differences among grazers, browsers, and mixed feeders. Moreover, DMTA has been applied among local populations with intraspecific dietary variation. In general, the tooth surfaces of grazing species/popula ...
... In a heavy snowfall area in northeastern Japan, we clarified the diel activity patterns of and seasonal differences in three sympatric carnivores (red foxes, raccoon dogs, and Japanese martens) during winter and spring, and the interspecific differences among the activity patterns in each season. The activity time of the target species was obtained by camera-trap surveys at seven sites around the ...
Japan; Loliginidae; Ommastrephidae; Stenella coeruleoalba; chi-square distribution; diet; females; males; muscles; prey species; stomach; East China Sea
Abstract:
... Striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba) mass-stranded on 26 April 2013 at Minamisatsuma, Kagoshima Prefecture, in southern Japan (East China Sea). The diet of the mass-stranded striped dolphins was investigated to reveal their foraging pattern through analyses of the stomach contents and stable isotopes in muscle. Of 26 stomachs sampled, 25 contained hard parts of prey animals; no fleshy remains ...
... Spatial separation and dietary differences may allow the coexistence of similar sized ungulate species. Over the past two decades, populations of the sika deer (Cervus nippon) have increased markedly and overlapped with the habitats of the Japanese serow (Capricornis crispus). Recently, the Japanese serow population has declined and shifted its habitat from higher to lower altitudes in Shikoku, Ja ...
DNA; Martes; females; forests; genetic markers; home range; males; monitoring; urine; wintering grounds; Japan
Abstract:
... In order to assess importance of isolated forests as the wintering habitat of the sable (Martes zibellina) in eastern Hokkaido, Japan, we performed DNA analyses on 59 samples noninvasively collected in field (54 fecal, 3 urine and 2 hair samples). Consequently, 46 (41 fecal, 3 urine and 2 hair samples) of the 59 samples were recognized to have dropped from the sable. In addition, we successfully i ...