Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Behavior and Ethology
The Influence of Light Colour on the Behaviour of Atlantic Cod in an Experimental Setting
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
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
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
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.
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
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
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)
Published: 2024-10-17
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
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
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
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
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 [...]
Sunlight and diel behaviors promote coexistence of frogs through temporal acoustic partitioning
Published: 2024-08-12
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Longitudinal Data Analysis and Time Series, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Zoology
Understanding how species coexist is one of the main goals in ecology. While many have documented how species coexist in nature, there is much interspecific and spatial heterogeneity in which resources are partitioned and in the contributing environmental factors. Overall, we lack a general understanding of how stable coexistence is maintained for particular groups of organisms. Thus, we studied [...]
Three Paths Through the Levels of Selection
Published: 2024-08-08
Subjects: Anthropology, Behavior and Ethology, Evolution, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Statistical Models, Zoology
Age, sex, and temperature shape within- and among-individual space use in black-capped chickadees
Published: 2024-07-27
Subjects: Animal Studies, Behavior and Ethology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Historically, spatial ecology studies have focused on average movement patterns within animal groups; however, recent studies highlight the value of considering movement decisions both within- and among-individuals. Using a marked population of black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus), we used the number of unique feeders an individual visits within our study area as a proxy for space use [...]