Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Behavior and Ethology

Match or mismatch: Tokay geckos adjust their behaviour to familiar and unfamiliar handlers but according to the context

Isabel Damas-Moreira, Lauriane Bégué, Eva Ringler, et al.

Published: 2024-07-25
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

Animals need to distinguish among different con- and heterospecific individuals to be able to adjust behaviour appropriately. Behavioural responses towards familiar individuals might vary based on context in which they are encountered. However, such context dependent responses, while beneficial in the wild, can impact experimental results, increase error, decrease reproducibility and threaten [...]

Repeatability and intra-class correlations from time-to-event data: towards a standardized approach

Kelsey McCune, Coralie Williams, Ned A Dochtermann, et al.

Published: 2024-07-20
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences

Many biological features are expressed as “time-to-event” traits, such as time to first reproduction or response to some stimulus. The analysis of these traits frequently produces right-censored data in cases where no event has occurred within a certain timeframe. The Cox proportional hazards (CPH) model, a type of survival analysis, accounts for censored data by estimating the hazard of an event [...]

Scanning the skies for migrants: Conservation-focused opportunities for a pan-European automated telemetry network

Lucy Mitchell, Vera Brust, Thiemo Karwinkel, et al.

Published: 2024-07-17
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Other Animal Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology

Accelerated biodiversity loss during the Anthropocene has destabilised functional links within and between ecosystems. Migratory species that cross different ecosystems on their repeated journeys between breeding and non-breeding sites are particularly sensitive to global change because they are exposed to various, often ecosystem-specific threats. As these bring both lethal and non-lethal [...]

Social ageing varies within a population of bottlenose whales

Sam Froman Walmsley, Laura J Feyrer, Claire Girard, et al.

Published: 2024-07-08
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Evolution, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

How social behaviour changes as individuals age has important consequences for the health and function of both human and non-human societies. However, the extent of inter-individual variation in social ageing has been underappreciated, especially in natural populations of animals. Here, we leverage a photo-identification dataset spanning 35 years to examine social ageing in an Endangered [...]

Behavioral flexibility is similar in two closely related species where only one is rapidly expanding its geographic range

Corina J Logan, Kelsey McCune, Carol Rowney, et al.

Published: 2024-06-06
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Comparative Psychology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Population Biology

Human modified environments are rapidly increasing, which puts other species in the precarious position of either adapting to a new area or, if they are not able to adapt, shifting their range to a more suitable environment. 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 [...]

Familiarity with social partners influences affiliative interactions but not spatial associations

Claire L. O'Connell, Annemarie van der Marel, Elizabeth A Hobson

Published: 2024-05-31
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology

To successfully navigate complex social environments, animals must manage their relationships with familiar group members and strangers introduced via fission-fusion or demographic processes by deciding who, how often, and when to interact. However, it is not clear how animals balance the risks and benefits of interacting with familiar and stranger conspecifics. We studied whether familiarity [...]

Uncovering multiple influences on space use by deer mice using NEON data

Sean O'Fallon, Noa Pinter-Wollman, Karen Mabry

Published: 2024-05-10
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Life Sciences

Space use by animals is affected by multiple factors; previous researchers have examined the effects of influences such as sex, body condition, and population density on home range area. However, evaluating the simultaneous influences of multiple factors on animal space use has been relatively intractable due to sample size limitations. We capitalize on National Ecological Observatory Network [...]

Global review of shorebird tracking publications: Gaps and priorities for research and conservation

Grégoire Michel, Josh Nightingale, Martin Beal, et al.

Published: 2024-05-07
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Research Methods in Life Sciences

Electronic tracking has enabled rapid advances in knowledge of the movement behaviour and habitat use of shorebirds (Charadriiformes), and is thus making a growing contribution to their conservation. However, developing a useful coherent global strategy for tracking these taxa requires an overview of the current availability of data and how it varies along regional and ecological lines. To this [...]

Predator-Prey movement interactions: jaguars and peccaries in the spotlight

Vanesa Bejarano Alegre, Júlia Emi de Faria Oshima, Claudia Zukeran Kanda, et al.

Published: 2024-05-05
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

Understanding how the landscape influences the distribution and behavior of predators and prey gives us insights into the spatial dynamics of their interactions and the factors that shape their populations across space and time. This study analyzed interactions between jaguars (Panthera onca) and white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari) at different forest and grassland distances and under varying [...]

Searching for and Monitoring the Nests of Imperiled Grassland Birds: Recommendations from the Grand River Grasslands of Iowa

Jaime Jo Coon, Hannah K Grushon, Jennifer L Shamel, et al.

Published: 2024-04-05
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Population Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

Grassland birds are the most imperiled avian group in North America, with greater than 50% abundance declines since 1970. Studies examining factors that impact habitat preferences, habitat selection, and reproductive success are critical to developing effective conservation and management plans for these species. These studies often involve searching for and monitoring nests in grasslands, which [...]

Temperature drives the divergent evolution of male harm to females

Claudia Londoño-Nieto, Michael Butler, Roberto García-Roa, et al.

Published: 2024-03-12
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution

Strong sexual selection promotes population viability and evolvability, but sexual conflict can offset such benefits. Male harm adaptations leading to pre-copulatory (i.e. harassment) and/or copulatory (i.e. traumatic insemination) harm to females are taxonomically widespread, depress population growth, and can affect the dynamics of adaptation and evolutionary rescue, but we largely ignore what [...]

Nest-site selection and nest predation in a tropical passerine in relation to food, friends and foes

Arne Van Eerden, Jan Komdeur, David S Richardson, et al.

Published: 2024-03-04
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ornithology, Zoology

Nest-site selection is an important determinant of avian reproductive success, mainly through its effect on predation risk. However, how environmental and social factors affect nest-site selection and predation risk remains less well understood. Optimal nest positioning may depend on the balance of many distinct factors such as nest predation, food availability, extra-pair mating opportunities, [...]

Sex-specific discrimination of familiar and unfamiliar mates in the Tokay gecko

Marie-Ornelia Verger, Maëlle Devillebichot, Eva Ringler, et al.

Published: 2024-02-23
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

Social animals need to keep track of other individuals in their group to be able to adjust their behaviour accordingly and facilitate group cohesion. This recognition ability varies across species and is influenced by cognitive capacities such as learning and memory. In reptiles, particularly Squamates (lizards, snakes, and worm lizards), pheromonal communication is pivotal for territoriality, [...]

The relative contribution of acoustic signals versus movement cues in group coordination and collective decision-making

Chun-Chieh Liao, Robert D. Magrath, Marta B Manser, et al.

Published: 2024-01-30
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

To benefit from group living, individuals need to maintain cohesion and coordinate their activities. Effective communication thus becomes critical, facilitating rapid coordination of behaviours and reducing consensus costs when group members have differing needs and information. In many bird and mammal species, collective decisions rely on acoustic signals in some contexts but on movement cues in [...]

Puma space use and dispersal in tropical biodiversity hotspots: bridging a gap to connect individuals to populations

Bernardo Brandão Niebuhr, Sandra Maria Cintra Cavalcanti, Ermeson A. Vilalba, et al.

Published: 2024-01-25
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Zoology

Assessing residency and dispersal behavior of apex predators and its consequences for landscape connectivity is of paramount importance for understanding population- and ecosystem- effects of anthropogenic land use change. However, basic information on animal space use is still lacking, particularly in the Tropics. Here we synthesize ranging and dispersal ecological information on pumas (Puma [...]

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