Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Behavior and Ethology
Estimating (non)linear selection on reaction norms: A general framework for labile traits
Published: 2021-03-19
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Individual reaction norms describe how labile phenotypes vary as a function of organisms’ expected trait values (intercepts) and plasticity across environments (slopes), as well as their degree of stochastic phenotypic variability or predictability (residuals). These reaction norms can be estimated empirically using multilevel, mixed-effects models and play a key role in ecological research on a [...]
Human social organization during the Late Pleistocene: Beyond the nomadic-egalitarian model
Published: 2021-03-13
Subjects: Anthropology, Archaeological Anthropology, Behavior and Ethology, Biological and Physical Anthropology, Biological Psychology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Social and Cultural Anthropology
Many researchers assume that until 10-12,000 years ago, humans lived in small, mobile, relatively egalitarian bands composed mostly of kin. This “nomadic-egalitarian model” informs evolutionary explanations of behavior and our understanding of how contemporary societies differ from those of our evolutionary past. Here, we synthesize research challenging this model and propose an alternative, the [...]
Repeatability of endocrine traits and dominance rank in female guinea pigs
Published: 2021-03-11
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Comparative and Evolutionary Physiology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Physiology
Background Glucocorticoids (e.g. cortisol) are associated with variation in social behavior, and previous studies have linked baseline as well as challenge-induced glucocorticoid concentrations to dominance status. It is known that cortisol response to an acute challenge is repeatable and correlates to social behavior in males of many mammal species. However, it is unclear whether these patterns [...]
Once an Optimist, Always an Optimist? Studying Cognitive Judgment Bias in Mice
Published: 2021-03-11
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Individuals differ in the way they judge ambiguous information: some individuals interpret ambiguous information in a more optimistic, and others in a more pessimistic way. Over the past two decades, such “optimistic” and “pessimistic” cognitive judgment biases (CJBs) have been utilized in animal welfare science as indicators of animals’ emotional states. However, empirical studies on their [...]
CEUTA snowy plover open access data - COMMENTARY
Published: 2021-02-11
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biodiversity, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Population Biology
Eberhart-Phillips et al. (2020, Scientific Data 7: 149) recently published a data-paper CeutaOPEN. However, the publication has significant shortcomings: the article does not explain the history nor the context of the project, it did not give credit to the developers of field methodology and data structure, and fails to acknowledge key contributions to the project. We request correcting these [...]
The Ecology of Sleep in Reptiles
Published: 2021-02-03
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Sleep is ubiquitous in the animal kingdom and yet displays considerable variation in its extent and form in the wild. Ecological factors, such as predation, competition, and microclimate, therefore, are likely to play a strong role in shaping characteristics of sleep. Despite the potential for ecological factors to influence various aspects of sleep, the ecological context of sleep in reptiles [...]
Condition-transfer maternal effects modulate sexual conflict
Published: 2021-01-08
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Strong sexual selection frequently favours males that increase their reproductive success by harming females, with potentially negative consequences for population growth. Understanding what factors modulate conflict between the sexes is hence critical to understand both the evolution of male and female phenotypes and the viability of populations in the wild. Here, we model the evolution of male [...]
Mate-guarding duration is mainly influenced by the risk of sperm competition and not by female quality in a golden orb-weaver spider
Published: 2021-01-05
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Males are expected to mate with as many females as possible, but can maximize their reproductive success through strategic mating decisions. For instance, males can increase their own fitness by mating with high quality females that produce more offspring. Additionally, males can adjust mating effort based on the relative distribution of females and male competitors. To test factors that [...]
Collecting eco-evolutionary data in the dark: Impediments to subterranean research and how to overcome them
Published: 2020-12-23
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
(1) Caves and other subterranean habitats fulfill the requirements of experimental model systems to address general questions in ecology and evolution. Yet, the harsh working conditions of these environments and the uniqueness of the subterranean organisms have challenged most attempts to pursuit standardized research (2) Two main obstacles have synergistically hampered previous attempts. First, [...]
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: 2020-12-18
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: 2020-12-15
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 [...]