Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Behavior and Ethology

Reduced levels of relatedness indicate that great-tailed grackles disperse further at the edge of their range

Dieter Lukas, Aaron D Blackwell, Maryam Edrisi, et al.

Published: 2024-12-19
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology

It is generally thought that behavioral flexibility, the ability to change behavior when circumstances change, plays an important role in the ability of a species to rapidly expand their geographic range. However, it is an alternative non-exclusive possibility that an increase in the amount of available habitat can also facilitate a range expansion. Great-tailed grackles (*Quiscalus mexicanus*) [...]

Synthesis of nature’s extravaganza: an augmented meta-meta-analysis on (putative) sexual signals

Pietro Pollo, Malgorzata Lagisz, Renato Chaves Macedo-Rego, et al.

Published: 2024-12-06
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution

Why have conspicuous characteristics evolved? Our augmented meta-meta-analysis of 41 meta-analyses, encompassing 375 animal species and 7,428 individual effect sizes, shows that the conspicuousness of (putative) sexual signals is positively related to attractiveness and benefits to mates, as well as to the fitness, condition, and other traits (e.g. body size) of their bearers. These patterns are [...]

Individual foraging specialization and success change with experience in a virtual predator-prey system

Maxime Fraser Franco, Francesca Francesca Santostefano, Julien G. A. Martin, et al.

Published: 2024-11-27
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

The capacity of predators to match their tactic to their prey and to optimize their skills at implementing a given tactic are expected to drive the outcome of predator-prey interactions. Hence, successive interactions of predators with their prey may result in increased flexibility in tactic use or in individual foraging specialization. Yet, there are limited empirical assessments showing links [...]

The Influence of Light Colour on the Behaviour of Atlantic Cod in an Experimental Setting

Robert Joseph Blackmore, William A Montevecchi, Ryan F. B. Hawkins, et al.

Published: 2024-11-15
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Marine Biology

Fishing technologies often exploit the visual sensitivity of target species to alter their behaviours. Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua Linnaeus, 1758) are an economically important species, commonly targeted by fisheries in the North Atlantic, yet the behaviour of adult Atlantic cod in reaction to the simultaneous presentation of various light stimuli has not been assessed in an isolated setting to [...]

Advancing the spatiotemporal dimension of wildlife–pollution interactions

Jack A. Brand, Jake Mitchell Martin, Marcus Michelangeli, et al.

Published: 2024-11-14
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Health Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Other Animal Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Other Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Toxicology, Zoology

Chemical pollution is a pervasive problem and is now considered the fastest-growing agent of global environmental change. Numerous pollutants are known to disrupt animal behaviour, alter ecological interactions, and shift evolutionary trajectories. Crucially, both chemical pollutants and individual organisms are non-randomly distributed throughout the environment. Despite this, the current [...]

Choosing friends in an uncertain world: information reduces relationship stability in a Bayesian learning model of cooperative partnership

Rebecca Padget, Tim Fawcett, Delphine De Moor, et al.

Published: 2024-11-14
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

Social animals often form differentiated social relationships with conspecifics. Developing closer partnerships with some than others can facilitate cooperative interactions in which individuals share resources or risk. When choosing a partner, individuals face a decision: a known partner might be sub-optimal if better options are available, but switching partners can be risky if others' [...]

Social bonds between non-kin are common, but less stable, in a mixed-related society

Zhuli Cheng, André S. Pereira, Cayo Biobank Research Unit NA, et al.

Published: 2024-11-13
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology

Members of social groups often form social relationships, which are known to carry important fitness benefits. Kin selection predicts that these relationships should be prevalent between kin, yet there is increasing evidence that, in societies that feature a mixture of related and unrelated individuals, social bonds are also formed with non-kin. Nevertheless, quantitative research on non-kin [...]

Pollinator ethanology: A comment on Bowland et al.

Krzysztof Miler

Published: 2024-11-13
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences, Nutrition, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Toxicology, Zoology

Behavioral flexibility is related to exploration and persistence, but not boldness or motor diversity

Kelsey McCune, Dieter Lukas, Maggie MacPherson, et al.

Published: 2024-11-09
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Life Sciences

Behavioral flexibility, the ability to change behavior when circumstances change based on learning from previous experience, is thought to play an important role in a species' ability to successfully adapt to new environments and expand its geographic range. However, behavioral flexibility is rarely directly tested at the individual level. This limits our ability to determine how it relates to [...]

Reliability of meta-analyses in ecology and evolution: (mostly) good news from a case study on sexual signals

Pietro Pollo, Malgorzata Lagisz, Renato Chaves Macedo-Rego, et al.

Published: 2024-11-09
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution

Meta-analyses are powerful synthesis tools that are popular in ecology and evolution due to the rapidly growing literature of this field. Although the usefulness of meta-analyses depends on their reliability, such as the precision of individual and mean effect sizes, attempts to reproduce meta-analyses’ results remain rare in ecology and evolution. Here, we assess the reliability of 41 [...]

Acclimatisation affects synchrony in space use and the frequentation of multiple colonies in translocated Griffon Vultures (Gyps fulvus)

Jacopo Cerri, Davide De Rosa, Mauro Aresu, et al.

Published: 2024-10-16
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Zoology

Translocations are fundamental for the conservation of large raptors, including Old-World vultures. Different release methods are usually assessed by comparing the movement patterns and survival of released individuals. However, these approaches fail to capture important aspects related to the gregarious behaviour of many vulture species. We compared the effect of long (15 months, n = 7) and [...]

Temporal stability in songs across the breeding range of the Mourning Warbler may be due to learning fidelity and transmission biases

Jay Pitocchelli, Adam Albina, R. Alexander Bentley, et al.

Published: 2024-09-30
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology

We found a stable pattern of geographic variation in songs across the breeding range of the Mourning Warbler over a 36 yr period. The Western, Eastern, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland regiolects found in 2005-2009 also existed from 1983-1988 and 2017-2019. Each regiolect contained a pool of syllables that were unique and different from the other regiolects. The primary syllable types that defined [...]

An introduction to generative network models and how they may be used to study animal sociality

Josefine Bohr Brask, Matthew Silk, Michael N. Weiss

Published: 2024-09-18
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Social networks constitute an important approach in the study of animal social behaviour. So far, focus has been on statistical analysis of animal social network structures. However, social networks can also be studied by generative network models - procedures that create simulated network structures. These models play a key role in wider network science, but despite occasional use, have not yet [...]

A top predator provokes similar defense behavior as a mesopredator in an intraguild prey

Kai-Philipp Gladow, Marla Jablonski, Nayden Chakarov, et al.

Published: 2024-08-26
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Ornithology

The loss of top predators has been shown to lead to drastic changes in community structure. An important part of this is the shift in behavior of other species. The understanding of such changes is scarce because recordings of behavioral reactions towards lost species are rarely done. This is important for predators experiencing predation pressure themselves, known as intraguild predation. [...]

No support for honest signalling of male quality in zebra finch song

Martin Bulla, Wolfgang Forstmeier

Published: 2024-08-12
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Ornithology

Alam et al.1 claim to have discovered a song feature, called “path length”, that honestly signals male fitness and is therefore preferred by all females. We see no statistical support for this claim in the original data. (1) The main finding about path length being an honest signal of quality (Fig. 4c) results from a statistical artefact, the regression of y minus x over x, which creates an [...]

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