Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Behavior and Ethology

Temporal patterns in prey size between sexes in a raptor with extreme size dimorphism: testing the intersexual competition hypothesis using web-sourced photographs

Connor T. Panter, arjun amar

Published: 2021-11-28
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Zoology

In most vertebrates, males are larger than females. For raptors, sexual size dimorphism is reversed, with females being larger. Reversed sexual dimorphism (RSD) in raptors is strongly linked to diet, with species feeding on the most agile prey, for example bird-eating raptors, showing the greatest size differences between the sexes. Hypotheses for reversed sexual dimorphism (RSD) include the [...]

Take only pictures, leave only… Cameras influence marmot vigilance but not perceptions of risk

Kenta Uchida, Albert A. Burkle, Daniel T. Blumstein

Published: 2021-11-21
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

Ecotourism promotes conservation efforts while also allowing for low impact observation of wildlife. Many ecotourists photograph wildlife and photography plays an important role in focusing the public’s attention on nature. Although photography is commonly believed to be a low impact activity, how the visual stimulus of a camera influences wildlife remains unknown. Since animals are known to fear [...]

The better, the choosier: a meta-analysis on inter-individual variation of male mate choice

Pietro Pollo, Shinichi Nakagawa, Michael M. Kasumovic

Published: 2021-11-17
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

Male mate choice occurs in several animal species, but we know little about the factors that influence the expression of this behaviour. Males vary in their capacity to acquire mates (i.e. male quality), which could be crucial to male mate choice expression but it is often overlooked. Using a meta-analytical approach, we explore inter-individual variation in the expression of male mate choice by [...]

Thermal plasticity in behavioural traits mediates mating and reproductive dynamics in an ectotherm

Jeanette Moss, Zachary Borthwick, Erik Wapstra, et al.

Published: 2021-11-09
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

Global changes in temperature potentially influence sexual selection by restricting opportunities for activity. However, explicit tests of the behavioural mechanisms linking thermal variation to mating and reproductive performance are rare. We address this gap in a temperate lizard by combining social network analysis with molecular pedigree reconstruction in a large-scale thermal manipulation [...]

Mobbing in animals: a thorough review and proposed future directions

Nora V Carlson, Michael Griesser

Published: 2021-10-27
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Animal Studies, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Communication, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences

Mobbing is an important anti-predator behavior where prey harass and attack a predator to lower the immediate and long-term risk posed by predators, warn others, and communicate about the predator’s threat. While this behavior has been of interest to humans since antiquity, and aspects of it have been well researched for the past 50 years, we still know little about its ecology and the [...]

The effect of dominance rank on female reproductive success in social mammals

Shivani, Elise Huchard, Dieter Lukas

Published: 2021-10-13
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

Life in social groups, while potentially providing social benefits, inevitably leads to conflict among group members. In many social mammals, such conflicts lead to the formation of dominance hierarchies, where high-ranking individuals consistently outcompete other group members. Given that competition is a fundamental tenet of the theory of natural selection, it is generally assumed that [...]

Supergenes on Steroids

Donna Maney, Clemens Küpper

Published: 2021-09-10
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences

At the birth of supergenes, the genomic landscape is dramatically re-organized leading to pronounced differences in phenotypes and increased intrasexual diversity. Two of the best- studied supergenes in vertebrates are arguably the inversion polymorphisms on chromosomes 2 and 11 in the white-throated sparrow (Zonotrichia albicollis) and the ruff (Calidris pugnax), respectively. In both species, [...]

Contribution of anther color to interaction between plants and flower-visiting arthropods – usefulness of bioresource stocks

Koichi Sugimoto, Tomoyuki Yokoi

Published: 2021-09-08
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

It is very difficult to provide strong evidence of how flower characteristic that may serve to attract pollinators, improve plant fitness. We propose to use the natural variation that we have observed within our wild tomato (Solanum pimpinellifolium) plant stocks to investigate the effect of anther color on attracting flower-visiting arthropods which act as pollinators. By looking at [...]

A method for low-cost, low-impact insect tracking using retroreflective tags

Michael Smith, Michael Livingstone, Richard Comont

Published: 2021-09-07
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences

Current methods for direct tracking of individual bee movement behaviour have several limitations. In particular, the weight and size of some types of electronic tag may limit their use to larger species. Radars and other electronic systems are also often large and very expensive to deploy. A tool is needed that complements these electronic-tag methods. In particular one that is simple to use, [...]

Hybridization may promote variation in cognitive phenotypes in experimental guppy hybrids

Catarina Vila Pouca, Sijmen Vedder, Alexander Kotrschal

Published: 2021-09-04
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences

Hybridization is an important mechanism of evolution. While hybrids often express inferior traits and are selected against, hybridization can promote phenotypic variation and produce trait combinations distinct from the parentals, generating novel adaptive potential. Among other traits, hybridization can impact behaviour and cognition and may reinforce species boundaries when hybrids show [...]

Breeding in the pandemic: short-term lockdown restrictions do not alter reproductive decisions and avian life-history traits in a European capital city

Michela Corsini, Zuzanna Jagiello, Michal Walesiak, et al.

Published: 2021-09-01
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Humans are transforming natural habitats into managed urban green areas and impervious surfaces with unprecedented pace. Yet the effects of human presence per se on animal life-history traits are rarely tested. This is particularly true in cities, where human presence is often indissociable from urbanisation itself. The onset of the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, along with the resulting lockdown [...]

The effect of brief or prolonged bouts of winning or losing male-male contests on plasticity in sexually selected traits

Lauren Maree Harrison, Regina Vega-Trejo, Michael Jennions

Published: 2021-08-28
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences

Fight outcomes often affect male fitness by determining their access to mates. Thus ‘winner-loser’ effects, where winners often win their next contest, while losers tend to lose, can influence how males allocate resources towards pre- and post-copulatory traits. We experimentally manipulated the winning/losing experiences of pairs of size-matched male Gambusia holbrooki for either a day, a week [...]

The evolutionary relevance of social learning and transmission of behaviors in non-social arthropods

Caroline M. Nieberding, Matteo Marcantonio, Raluca Voda, et al.

Published: 2021-08-05
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Entomology, Evolution, Life Sciences

Research on social learning has centered around vertebrates, but evidence is accumulating that small-brained, non-social arthropods also learn from others. Social learning can lead to social inheritance when socially acquired behaviors are transmitted to subsequent generations. Here, we first highlight the complementarities between social and classical genetic inheritance, using oviposition site [...]

The ecology of wealth inequality in animal societies

Eli Strauss, Daizaburo Shizuka

Published: 2021-07-15
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Integrative Biology, Life Sciences

Individuals vary in their access to resources, social connections, and phenotypic traits, and a central goal of evolutionary biology is to understand how this variation arises and influences fitness. Parallel research on humans has focused on the causes and consequences of variation in material possessions, opportunity, and health. Central to both fields of study is that unequal distribution of [...]

Integrating natural and sexual selection across the biphasic life cycle

Craig Purchase, Jonathan Evans, Julissa Roncal

Published: 2021-06-24
Subjects: Agriculture, Behavior and Ethology, Cell and Developmental Biology, Developmental Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Food Biotechnology, Food Science, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

An alternation between diploid and haploid phases is universal among sexual eukaryotes. Across this biphasic cycle, natural selection and sexual selection occur in both phases. Together, these four stages of selection act on the phenotypes of individuals and influence the evolutionary trajectories of populations, but are rarely studied holistically. Here, we provide a conceptual framework that [...]

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