Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Behavior and Ethology
Behavioral Modification of Eastern Hoolock Gibbon in Non-Protected Fragmented Rainforest Patches of North Eastern Himalayas
Published: 2019-12-07
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Other Life Sciences, Zoology
Presence of Eastern Hoolock Gibbon (Hoolock leuconydes) was confirmed recently in and around Mehao Wildlife Sanctuary, Arunachal Pradesh, where the last remnant rainforest region of Eastern Himalaya still exists. A total of 13 groups of Eastern Hoolock Gibbon were located in this Lower Dibang valley in the outskirts and periferi of Mehao WLS where they coexist with humans at the non-protected [...]
Sex- and context-specific associations between personality and a measure of fitness but no link with life history traits
Published: 2019-11-22
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The pace of life syndrome hypothesis posits that personality traits (i.e., consistent individual differences in behaviour) are linked to life history and fitness. Specifically, fast-paced individuals are predicted to be proactive (i.e., active and aggressive) with an earlier age at first reproduction, a shorter lifespan, and a higher fecundity than slow-paced individuals. Environmental conditions [...]
Environmental effects on the covariation among pace-of-life traits
Published: 2019-11-21
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Pace-of-life syndromes (POLSs) are suites of life-history, physiological and behavioral traits that arise due to trade-offs between allocation to current and future reproduction. Traits generally show covariation that can arise from genetic and environmental influences on phenotypes and constrain the independent evolution of traits, resulting in fitness consequences and impacts on population [...]
Non-avian reptile learning 40 years on: advances and promising new directions
Published: 2019-09-07
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Zoology
Recently, there has been a surge in cognition research using non-avian reptile systems. As a diverse group of animals, non-avian reptiles (turtles, the tuatara, crocodilians, and squamates - lizards, snakes and amphisbaenids) are good model systems for answering questions related to cognitive ecology; from the role of the environment in impacting brain, behaviour and learning, to how social and [...]
Social network node-based metrics can function as proxies for animal personality traits
Published: 2019-08-14
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Behavioural traits are considered animal personality traits when individuals differ consistently in trait expression across time and context. Previous research has primarily focused on the shy-bold continuum, with research on sociability as potential proxy for animal personality traits only recently being considered. Here, we test the hypothesis that three node-based metrics derived from social [...]
Individual differences in behaviour explain variation in survival: a meta-analysis
Published: 2019-08-01
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Research focusing on among-individual differences in behaviour (“animal personality”) has been blooming for over a decade. One of the central theories explaining the maintenance of behavioural variation posits a trade-off between behaviour and survival with individuals expressing greater “risky” behaviours suffering higher mortality. Here, for the first time, we synthesize the existing empirical [...]
Does internal egg carrying impair foraging ability as much as external egg carrying in a neotropical spider?
Published: 2019-06-05
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Females not only produce costly gametes, but also store the eggs until oviposition, a period called pregnancy. The volume that eggs occupy in the female abdomen may decrease female foraging ability by making females slow. Although females of all species are subjected to these potential costs, it remains an unexplored matter in invertebrates. Females of the spider Paratrechalea ornata carry their [...]
Heritability and maternal effects on social attention during an attention bias task in a non-human primate, Macaca mulatta
Published: 2019-05-02
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Other Medicine and Health Sciences, Psychology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Social attention is fundamental to a wide range of behaviours in non-human primates. However, we know very little about the heritability of social attention in non-human primates, and the heritability of attention to social threat has not been assessed. Here, we provide data to begin to fill this gap in knowledge. We tested 67 female rhesus macaques, Macaca mulatta, on an attention bias [...]
A protocol for using drones to assist monitoring of large breeding bird colonies
Published: 2019-04-29
Subjects: Animal Sciences, Behavior and Ethology, Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Ornithology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Zoology
Drones are rapidly becoming part of environmental monitoring and management applications. They provide an opportunity to improve a number of activities related to monitoring population dynamics of aggregations of wildlife. Bird surveys using drones have attracted particular attention, with a range of potential metrics able to be derived from high resolution drone imagery. Whilst a number of [...]
Does aggression towards rivals contribute to mate guarding in Drosophila melanogaster?
Published: 2019-02-14
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Mate guarding (MG) mediated by aggression towards rivals can be a significant contributor to male reproductive fitness in many animal species. However, establishing the MG effect of aggression in species without explicit MG can be difficult. While aggression in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster is well documented, only recently has it been connected to MG. Interestingly, males of this species [...]
Predation risk and social factors influence vigilance in a social bird species
Published: 2019-02-04
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Predation is a critical selective force, facilitating the evolution of anti-predatory behaviours, such as vigilance. However, this behaviour can also be used to monitor conspecifics. Here we evaluate the antipredator and social functions of vigilance in Siberian jays. In this bird species, groups can include retained offspring that remain with their parents well beyond independence, as well as [...]
Size-selective harvesting and individual personality in a social fish
Published: 2019-02-04
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
In fisheries worldwide, larger fish are subjected to substantially greater fishing mortality than smaller fish. Body length and behavioral traits are often correlated, such that fisheries-induced changes in either behaviour or morphology can also alter other traits as result of direct or indirect selection. Consistent behavioral differences among individuals, known as personality traits, provide [...]
Be prudent if it fits you well: male mate choice depends on male size in a golden orb-weaver spider
Published: 2019-01-31
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Male preference for high-quality females is expected to evolve when male reproductive potential is restricted. However, when there is competition among males, some models predict the evolution of assortative male mate choice, in which good competitors choose high quality females while poor competitors choose lower quality females to avoid competition. In Trichonephila clavipes spiders, males have [...]
Replication alert: behavioural lateralisation in a detour test is not repeatable in fishes
Published: 2019-01-29
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Behavioural lateralisation, defined as the asymmetric expression of cognitive functions, is reported to enhance key fitness-relevant traits such as predator escape performance, multitasking abilities, and group coordination. Therefore, studies reporting negative effects on lateralisation in fish due to environmental stressors such as ocean acidification, hypoxia, and pollutants are worrisome. [...]
A comparative study of differential selection pressure over the nesting cycle in birds
Published: 2019-01-29
Subjects: Behavior and Ethology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
Reproductive allocation varies greatly across species and is determined by their life-history and ecology. This variation is usually assessed as the number of eggs or propagules (hereafter: fecundity). However, in species with parental care, individuals face trade-offs that affect the allocation of resources among the stages of reproduction as well as to reproduction as a whole. Thus, it is [...]