Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Behavior and Ethology
Population divergence in aggregation and sheltering behaviour in surface and cave-adapted Asellus aquaticus (Crustacea: Isopoda)
Published: 2020-12-19
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Aggregation (gathering together) and sheltering (hiding in cover) are basic behaviours that might reduce the risk of predation. However, both behaviours have costs, like increased competition over resources and high prevalence of contact-spread parasites (aggregation) or lost opportunities for foraging and mating (sheltering). Therefore, adaptive variation in these behaviours is expected between [...]
Lets talk about sex: what influences researchers’ perceptions of sex differences in animal behaviour?
Published: 2020-12-17
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The traditional theory of sexual selection posits the idea of sex roles: females should be choosy and caring, while males should be competitive and promiscuous. Despite criticism of these stereotypes from some evolutionary biologists, sex roles still appear as a norm in the literature. This may be because scientists anthropomorphize animal behaviours, which raises the question of whether human [...]
Visual and olfactory cues of predation affect body and brain growth in the guppy
Published: 2020-12-14
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
1. Phenotypic plasticity requires animals to acquire reliable environmental information. When multiple sources of information agree, cues should be perceived as reliable and induce a relatively strong response. Conversely, where stimuli conflict, animals must weigh the accuracy of the sources of information and responses should be reduced. 2. Availability of reliable information is often [...]
Maturation in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar, Salmonidae): a synthesis of ecological, genetic, and molecular processes
Published: 2020-11-10
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Genetics, Genetics and Genomics, Genomics, Life Sciences, Physiology, Population Biology
Over the past decades, Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar, Salmonidae) has emerged as a model system for sexual maturation research, owing to the high diversity of life history strategies, knowledge of trait genetic architecture, and their high economic value. The aim of this synthesis is to summarize the current state of knowledge concerning maturation in Atlantic salmon, outline knowledge gaps, and [...]
Workflow for constructing social networks from automated telemetry systems
Published: 2020-11-02
Subjects: Animal Experimentation and Research, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Research Methods in Life Sciences
1. Advances in datalogging technologies have provided a way to monitor the movement of individual animals at unprecedented spatial and temporal scales, both large and small. When used in conjunction with social network analyses, these data can provide insight into fine scale associative behaviors. The variety of technologies demand continuous progress in workflows to translate data streams from [...]
Combining social information use and comfort-seeking for nest site selection in a cavity-nesting raptor
Published: 2020-09-30
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Ornithology
When selecting a breeding site, individuals can use social information to reduce the uncertainty regarding habitat quality. In particular, individuals from several bird species tend to reuse nests previously occupied by competitors. Re-occupying nests previously used by conspecifics or heterospecifics could result from exploiting social information by copying competitors’ choice (the ‘social [...]
Meta-analysis reveals an extreme “decline effect” in the impacts of ocean acidification on fish behaviour
Published: 2020-09-14
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Ocean acidification – decreasing oceanic pH resulting from the uptake of excess atmospheric CO2 – has the potential to affect marine life in the future. Among the possible consequences, a series of studies on coral reef fishes suggested that the direct effects of acidification on fish behaviour may be extreme and have broad ecological ramifications. Recent studies documenting a lack of effect of [...]
Unifying individual differences in personality, predictability, and plasticity: a practical guide
Published: 2020-08-22
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
1. Many animal species show individual differences in behaviour that are partially consistent across repeated measurements. Commonly referred to as personality traits, differences in average behaviours are often correlated across individuals, forming ‘behavioural syndromes’ (e.g. individuals who are more aggressive are also bolder). 2. Generally, differences in the average behaviour of [...]
Investigating sex differences in genetic relatedness in great-tailed grackles in Tempe, Arizona to infer potential sex biases in dispersal (version 5 of this preprint has been peer-reviewed and recommended by Peer Community In Ecology [https://doi.org/10.24072/pci.ecology.100074])
Published: 2020-08-22
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
In most bird species, females disperse prior to their first breeding attempt, while males remain closer to the place they hatched for their entire lives. Explanations for such female bias in natal dispersal have focused on the resource-defense based monogamous mating system that is prevalent in most birds. In this system, males are argued to benefit from philopatry because knowing the local [...]
Diet modulates components of animal personality in house sparrows: insights into a possible hormone-mediated mechanism
Published: 2020-08-17
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Animals do not eat whatever food item they find. They usually balance the intake of key nutrients, for example, essential amino acids that cannot be synthesized by animals and must be provided in the diet. However, ability to gain optimal ratios, proportions, and amounts of nutrients may be hampered by a changing environment, competitive conspecifics or species, and predators. Here, we used an [...]
Predation as a driver of behavioural variation and trait integration: effects on personality, plasticity, and predictability
Published: 2020-08-17
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Predation is increasingly viewed as an important driver in maintaining ecological and phenotypic diversity. In contrast to classic evolutionary theory which predicts that predation will shift trait means and erode variance within prey species, several studies indicate higher behavioural trait variance and integration in high predation populations. These results come predominately from [...]
Teaching Animal Behavior in the Midst of a Pandemic: A Primer
Published: 2020-07-31
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Face-to-face classes in animal behavior often stress experiential learning through laboratories that involve observation of live animals, as well as a lecture component that emphasizes formative assessment, discussion and critical thinking. As a result, behavior courses face unique challenges when moving to an online environment, as has been made necessary at many institutions due to the COVID-19 [...]
Function of a multimodal signal: a multiple-hypotheses test using an electromechanical robot
Published: 2020-07-14
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
1. Many animal species communicate using multimodal signals, which are composed of two or more components emitted and interpreted through different sensory modalities. The main types of selective pressures leading to the evolution of multimodal signals are: (1) content-based, when combined components convey information about the signaller, (2) efficacy-based, when combined components increase the [...]
Do the ages of parents or helpers affect offspring fitness in a cooperatively breeding bird?
Published: 2020-06-16
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Age-related changes in either the phenotypes or genotypes of care-givers can impact juvenile performance. However, rarely in wild populations have germline and non-germline transgenerational effects of ageing been separately quantified. In cooperatively breeding animals, in addition to parental ages, the age of ‘helpers’ attending the nest may also impact juvenile performance. Using a wild [...]
Climate change as a catalyst of social evolution
Published: 2020-05-08
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Anthropogenic climatic change will be a major factor shaping natural populations over the foreseeable future. The scope of this issue has spawned the integrative field of global change biology, which is chiefly concerned with identifying vulnerabilities of natural systems to climate change and integrating these into models of biodiversity loss. Meanwhile, there remains considerable latitude for [...]