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Do goldfish like to be informed? bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-17 Victor Ajuwon, Tiago Monteiro, Mark E Walton, Alex Kacelnik
Most mammalian and avian species tested so far, including humans, prefer foretold over unsignalled future events, even if the information is costly and confers no direct benefit, a phenomenon that has been called paradoxical, or suboptimal choice. It is unclear whether this is an epiphenomenon of taxonomically widespread mechanisms of reinforcement learning, or if information-seeking is a dedicated
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Bumblebee visual learning: simple solutions for complex stimuli bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-17 Marie-Genevieve Guiraud, Vince Gallo, Emily Quinsal-Keel, HaDi MaBouDi
Natural visual stimuli are typically complex. This presents animals with the challenge of learning the most informative aspects of these stimuli while not being confused by variable elements. How animals might do this remains unclear. Here, we tested bumblebees ability to learn multicomponent visual stimuli composed of a simple constant bar element and a grating element that was consistent in orientation
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Seasonal variation of behavioural thermoregulation in the Spotted Salamander (Ambystoma maculatum) bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-17 Danilo Giacometti, Glenn J. Tattersall
Mounting evidence suggests that temperature seasonality plays a pivotal role in shaping the thermal biology of ectotherms. However, we still have a limited understanding of how amphibians maintain thermal balance in the face of varying temperatures, especially in fossorial species. Due to thermal buffering underground, theory predicts relaxed selection pressure over thermoregulation in fossorial ectotherms
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Aedes albopictus colonies from different geographic origins differ in their sleep and activity levels but not in the time of peak activity bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-16 Nicole E Wynne, Emilie Applebach, Karthikeyan Chandrasegaran, Oluwaseun M Ajayi, Souvik Chakraborty, Mariangela Bonizzoni, Chloé Lahondère, Joshua B Benoit, Clement Vinauger
Mosquitoes occupy a wide range of habitats where they experience various environmental conditions. The ability of some species, such as the tiger mosquito, Aedes albopictus, to adapt to local conditions certainly contributes to their invasive success. Among traits that remain to be examined, mosquitoes' ability to time their activity with that of the local host population has been suggested to be of
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Experience reduces route selection on conspecifics by the collectively migrating white stork bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Hester Bronnvik, Elham Nourani, Wolfgang Fiedler, Andrea Flack
Migration can be an energetically costly behavior with strong fitness consequences in terms of mortality and reproduction. Migrants should select migratory routes to minimize their costs, but both costs and benefits may change with experience. This raises the question of whether experience changes how individuals select their migratory routes. Here we investigate the effect of age on route selection
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Urban birds' tolerance towards humans was largely unaffected by increased variation in human levels due to COVID-19 shutdowns bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Peter Mikula, Martin Bulla, Daniel Blumstein, Yanina Benedetti, Kristina Floigl, Jukka Jokimaki, Marja-Liisa Kaisanlahti-Jokimaki, Gabor Marko, Federico Morelli, Anders Pape Moller, Anastasiia Siretckaia, Sara Szakony, Michael Weston, Farah Abou Zeid, Piotr Tryjanowski, Tomas Albrecht
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic dramatically altered human activities, and, during shutdowns, potentially changed human pressures on urban-dwelling animals. Here, we evaluated whether urban birds from five countries (Finland, Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Australia) changed their tolerance towards humans (measured as flight initiation distance) during the COVID-19 shutdowns. We
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Throat color polymorphism is related to differences in aggression in the Aegean wall lizard bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Dhruthi S Mandavilli, Ian J Wang, Kinsey M Brock
Aggressive behavior can be used to establish and maintain access to crucial resources such as space, food, and mating opportunities. Color polymorphic animals sometimes exhibit morph-correlated aggressive behaviors that can influence relative reproductive success and, thus, the maintenance of polymorphism. The Aegean wall lizard, Podarcis erhardii, exhibits three monochromatic throat color morphs:
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Reproductive restraint to avoid the costs of reproductive conflict in a cooperatively breeding mammal bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Graham Birch, Hazel Nichols, Francis Mwanguhya, Michael Cant, Jonathan Blount
The costs of reproductive conflict can be an important factor shaping the evolution of life histories in animal societies. These costs may change as individuals age and grow, and with within-group competition. Social costs of reproductive conflict have been invoked to explain why females might gain from delaying maturity or ceasing reproduction midway through life, but not in males. Here we analyze
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Evaluating machine learning algorithms to predict lameness in dairy cattle bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Rajesh Neupane, Ashrant Aryal, Angelika Haeussermann, Eberhard Hartung, Pablo Pinedo, Sushil Paudyal
Dairy cattle lameness represents one of the common concerns in intensive and commercial dairy farms. Lameness is characterized by gait-related behavioral changes in cows and multiple approaches are being utilized to associate these changes with lameness conditions including data from accelerometers, and other precision technologies. The objective was to evaluate the use of machine learning algorithms
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Neurogenomic diversity enhances collective antipredator performance in Drosophila bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Daiki X. Sato, Yuma Takahashi
Collective behavior is a unique social behavior that plays crucial roles in detecting and avoiding predators. Despite a long history of research on the ecological significance, its neural and genetic underpinnings remain elusive. Here we focus on the mesmerizing nature that visual cues from surrounding conspecifics alleviate the fear response to threatening stimuli in Drosophila melanogaster. A large-scale
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Strategic use of male alternative reproductive tactics in cooperatively breeding banded mongoose groups bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Graham Birch, Hazel J Nichols, Francis Mwanguhya, Jonathan Blount, Michael Cant
Alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs) allow smaller or less competitive individuals to reproduce by avoiding direct fights through sneaky strategies. Within cooperatively breeding groups ARTs are rarely reported, potentially due to difficulties observing male reproductive behaviour in the wild, or reproductive suppression by fellow group members. In societies where all mating opportunities cannot
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Whole-body simulation of realistic fruit fly locomotion with deep reinforcement learning bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Roman Vaxenburg, Igor Siwanowicz, Josh Merel, Alice A Robie, Carmen Morrow, Guido Novati, Zinovia Stefanidi, Gwyneth M Card, Michael B Reiser, Matthew M Botvinick, Kristin M Branson, Yuval Tassa, Srinivas C Turaga
The body of an animal determines how the nervous system produces behavior. Therefore, detailed modeling of the neural control of sensorimotor behavior requires a detailed model of the body. Here we contribute an anatomically-detailed biomechanical whole-body model of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster in the MuJoCo physics engine. Our model is general-purpose, enabling the simulation of diverse
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Thoughtful faces: inferring internal states across species using facial features bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Alejandro Tlaie, Muad Y Abd El Hay, Berkutay Mert, Robert Taylor, Pierre Antoine Ferracci, Katharine A Shapcott, Mina Glukhova, Jonathan W Pillow, Martha N Havenith, Marieke Scholvinck
Animal behaviour is shaped to a large degree by internal cognitive states, but it is unknown whether these states are similar across species. To address this question, we developed a virtual reality setup in which mice and macaques engage in the same naturalistic visual foraging task. We exploited the richness of a wide range of facial features extracted from video recordings during the task, to train
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Prelimbic cortex perineuronal net expression and social behavior: Impact of adolescent intermittent ethanol exposure bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Trevor Towner, Harper J Coleman, Matthew A Goyden, Andrew S Vore, Kimberly M Papastrat, Elena I Varlinskaya, David F Werner
Adolescent intermittent ethanol (AIE) exposure in rats leads to social deficits. Parvalbumin (PV) expressing interneurons in the prelimbic cortex (PrL) contribute to social behavior, and perineuronal nets (PNNs) within the PrL preferentially encompass PV interneurons, acting as significant regulators of these cells. AIE exposure increases PNNs, however, it is unknown if this upregulation contributes
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Repeatability of an extended phenotype: causes and consequences of nest variation in a free-living songbird bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Chandler E. G. Carr, Zoe M. Swanson, Dustin G Reichard
Construction behaviour is an aspect of the extended phenotype that allows organisms to build structures that alter their environments in potentially beneficial ways. Although individuals vary in the expression of this extended phenotype (e.g., structure morphology), the repeatability of construction behaviour remains understudied, especially among free-living populations. Many oviparous taxa construct
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Social ageing can protect against infectious disease in a group-living primate bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Erin R. Siracusa, Melissa A. Pavez-Fox, Josué E. Negron-Del Valle, Daniel Phillips, Michael L. Platt, Noah Snyder-Mackler, James P. Higham, Lauren J.N. Brent, Matthew J. Silk
The benefits of social living are well established, but sociality also comes with costs, including infectious disease risk. This cost-benefit ratio of sociality is expected to change across individuals′ lifespans, which may drive changes in social behaviour with age. To explore this idea, we combine data from a group-living primate for which social ageing has been described with epidemiological models
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Common cuckoo female host selection is not determined by host quality but can affect cuckoo nestling growth when parasitising Common redstarts bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Teresa Abaurrea, Angela Moreras, Jere Tolvanen, Robert L. Thomson, Rose Thorogood
Common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) females lay their eggs in the nests of other avian hosts, relying on parental care provided by parasitised hosts. Therefore, it would benefit cuckoo females to target high-quality individual hosts, able to provide optimal parental care. Attempts at testing cuckoo female host selection have so far shown mixed results. However, this might be because studies have rarely
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Male reproductive phenotype and coercive mating performance in the guppy Poecilia reticulata bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Alexandra Glavaschi, Elisa Morbiato, Andrea Pilastro
In species with fixed alternative male mating tactics, differences between male phenotypes associated with each tactic are well understood. By contrast, in species with fully interchangeable male mating strategies, associations between male phenotypes and fitness when adopting different tactics have received much less attention. One such species is the Trinidad guppy Poecilia reticulata, where males
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Patterns of neuronal activation following ethanol-induced social facilitation and social inhibition in adolescent cFos-LacZ male and female rats bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Trevor Towner, Devon T Applegate, Elena I Varlinskaya, Harper J Coleman, David Werner
Motives related to the enhancement of the positive effects of alcohol on social activity within sexes are strongly associated with alcohol use disorder and are a major contributor to adolescent alcohol use and heavy drinking. This is particularly concerning given that heightened vulnerability of the developing adolescent brain. Despite this linkage, it is unknown how adolescent non-intoxicated social
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Interpersonal heart rate synchrony predicts effective information processing in a naturalistic group decision-making task bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-12 K M Sharika, Swarag Thaikkandi, Nivedita, Michael Platt
Groups often outperform individuals in problem-solving. Nevertheless, failure to critically evaluate ideas risks sub-optimal outcomes through so called groupthink. Prior studies have shown that people who hold shared goals, perspectives or understanding of the environment show similar patterns of brain activity, which itself can be enhanced by consensus building discussions. Whether shared arousal
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Providing information about wild animal psychology impacts public attitudes beyond ecological information bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-12 F Blake Morton, Dominic Charles Henri, Kristy A Adaway, Carl D Soulsbury, Charlotte Hopkins
Anthropomorphism is often used to encourage positive wildlife attitudes in people but is rarely based on actual animal psychology research. It is unclear whether, or how, disseminating animal psychology research to the general public impacts attitudes towards wildlife. Through a national-level survey (N = 1,364 participants), we tested whether providing information about the boldness and problem-solving
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Elephant rumble vocalizations: spectral substructures and superstructures bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Emmanouela Rantsiou
Elephant communication, particularly through infrasound rumbles, plays a pivotal role in their social interactions, yet the complexity and functional significance of these vocalizations remain only partially understood. This study explores the spectral characteristics of male African Savannah elephant rumbles, revealing a rich substructure within what has traditionally been viewed as homogeneous low-frequency
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Stochastic characterization of navigation strategies in an automated variant of the Barnes maze bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Ju-Young Lee, Dahee Jung, Sebastien Royer
Animals can use a repertoire of strategies to navigate in an environment, and it remains an intriguing question how these strategies are selected based on the nature and familiarity of environments. To investigate this question, we developed a fully automated variant of the Barnes maze, characterized by 24 vestibules distributed along the periphery of a circular arena, and monitored the trajectories
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DIETS: a simple and sensitive assay to measure and control the intake of complex solid foods, like high-fat diets, in Drosophila bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Manikrao R Thakare, Prerana Choudhary, Bhavna Pydah, Suhas Sunke, R Sai Prathap Yadav, Pavan Agrawal, Gaurav Das
The fruit flyDrosophila melanogaster offers a powerful model to study how diet affects the body and brain. However, existing methods for measuring their food intake often rely on dyes or tags mixed with food, which can be inaccurate due to how the flies absorb and eliminate them. Capillary-based assays like CAFE directly measure consumption, but only work with liquids and shorten fly lifespan. Additionally
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Risk-sensitive learning is a winning strategy for leading an urban invasion bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Alexis J Breen, Dominik Deffner
In the unpredictable Anthropocene, a particularly pressing open question is how certain species invade urban environments. Sex-biased dispersal and learning arguably influence movement ecology, but their joint influence remains unexplored empirically, and might vary by space and time. We assayed reinforcement learning in wild-caught, temporarily-captive core-, middle- or edge-range great-tailed grackles
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Obstacle Negotiation in Female Locust Oviposition Digging bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-11 Chen Klechevski, Lazar Kats, Amir Ayali
The female locust lays its eggs deep within soft substrate to protect them from predators and provide optimal conditions for successful hatching. During oviposition digging, the female abdomen extends into the ground, guided by a dedicated excavation mechanism at its tip, comprising two pairs of specialized digging valves. Little is known about how these active valves negotiate the various obstacles
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Acute, chronic and conditioned effects of intranasal oxytocin in the mu opioid receptor knockout mouse model of autism: social context matters bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-10 Fani Pantouli, Camille Pujol, Cecile Derieux, Mathieu Fonteneau, Lucie Pellissier, Claire Marsol, Julie Karpenko, Dominique Bonnet, Marcel Hibert, Alexis Bailey, Julie Le Merrer, Jerome A.J. BECKER
Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) are neurodevelopmental disorders whose diagnosis relies on deficient social interaction and communication together with repetitive behaviours. Multiple studies have highlighted the potential of oxytocin (OT) to ameliorate behavioural abnormalities in animal models and subjects with ASD. Clinical trials, however, yielded disappointing results. Our study aimed at challenging
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The strength of sexual signals predicts same-sex paring in termites bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-10 Nobuaki Mizumoto, Sang-Bin Lee, Thomas Chouvenc
Same-sex sexual behavior (SSB) is an enigma in behavioral ecology as it does not result in reproduction. Proximately, the evolution of sexual signals is critical for the evolution of SSB in a sex-specific manner. For signal receivers, the loss of sexual signals leads to smaller phenotypic sex differences, leading to frequent accidental SSB between receivers. Alternatively, for senders, sexual signals
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Asynchronous temporal variance in learning behaviour and neural gene expression in a butterfly bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-09 Yi Ting Ter, Erica L Westerman
Mate preference learning, including imprinting-like learning, is pervasive across animal taxa, and can affect the selection and maintenance of certain phenotypes. However, not much is known about the temporal dynamics behind imprinting-like learning, or the genetic underpinnings underlying it. To uncover the temporal dynamics of imprinting-like learning, from both a behavioural and transcriptional
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Looming stimuli reliably drive innate, but not learned, defensive responses in rats. bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-09 Mirjam Heinemans, Marta A. Moita
Survival relies on an organism's intrinsic ability to instinctively react to stimuli such as food, water, and threats, ensuring the fundamental ability to feed, drink, and avoid danger even in the absence of prior experience. These natural, unconditioned stimuli can also facilitate associative learning, where pairing them consistently with neutral cues will elicit responses to those cue. Threat conditioning
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Long distance calls: negligible information loss of seabird social vocalisations over propagation down to the hearing threshold bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-08 Anna N. Osiecka, Przemyslaw Bryndza, Elodie F. Briefer, Katarzyna Wojczulanis-Jakubas
How well does the information contained in vocal signals travel through the environment? To assess the efficiency of information transfer in little auk calls over distance, we selected two social call types with the highest potential for individuality coding among the social call types of the species. Using available recordings of known individuals, we calculated the apparent source levels, with apparent
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Motivational modulation of flight speed in foraging bumblebees bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Romain Willemet
The set of cognitive mechanisms employed by foraging bees is the subject of intense research due to the importance of pollination as an ecological process and as a study system in comparative psychology. Yet, our understanding of how reward valuation influences flight behaviour, and, more generally, the motivational control of behavioural vigour, remains limited. Here, the flight behaviour of individual
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Social interactions are impacted by food availability, food type, and group size bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Xiaohui Guo, Matthew Hasenjager, Nina Fefferman, Noa Pinter-Wollman
Social interactions are important for how societies function, conferring robustness and resilience to environmental changes. The structure of social interactions can shape the dynamics of information and goods transmission. In addition, the availability and type of resources that are transferred might impact the structure of interaction networks. For example, storable resources might reduce the required
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Behavioral sequences across multiple animal species in the wild share common structural features bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Pranav Minasandra, Emily M Grout, Katrina Brock, Margaret C Crofoot, Vlad Demartsev, Andrew S Gersick, Ben T Hirsch, Kay E Holekamp, Lily Johnson-Ulrich, Amlan Nayak, Josue Ortega, Marie A Roch, Eli D Strauss, Ariana Strandburg-Peshkin
Animal behavior can be decomposed into a continuous sequence of discrete activity bouts over time. Analyzing the statistical structure of such behavioral sequences provides insights into the drivers of behavioral decisions in animals. Laboratory studies, predominantly in invertebrates, have suggested that behavioral sequences are characterized by multiple timescales and exhibit long-range memory, but
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Persistent Behavioral and Physiological Effects of Dietary Protein Restriction bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Paul Soto, Christopher Morrison
Protein provides essential amino acids critical for survival. Recent research has identified that dietary protein restriction induces physiological and behavioral adaptations and that those adaptations are mediated by liver-produced fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) that acts in the brain. Most of the research on adaptations to dietary protein restriction and the biological factors that mediate those
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Time-separated Mutual Information Reveals Key Characteristics of Asymmetric Leader-Follower Interactions in Golden Shiners bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Katherine Daftari, Michael L. Mayo, Bertrand H. Lemasson, James M. Biedenbach, Kevin R. Pilkiewicz
Leader-follower modalities and other asymmetric interactions that drive the collective motion of organisms are often quantified using information theory metrics like transfer or causation entropy. These metrics are difficult to accurately evaluate without a much larger amount of data than is typically available from a time series of animal trajectories collected in the field or from experiments. In
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Specific Sensitivity to Rare and Extreme Events: Quasi-Complete Black Swan Avoidance vs Partial Jackpot Seeking in Rat Decision-Making bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Mickael Degoulet, Louis-Mattis Willem, Christelle Baunez, Stephane Luchini, Patrick Pintus
Most studies assessing animal decision-making under risk rely on probabilities that are typically larger than 10%. To study Decision-Making in uncertain conditions, we explore a novel experimental and modelling approach that aims at measuring the extent to which rats are sensitive - and how they respond - to outcomes that are both rare (probabilities smaller than 1%) and extreme in their consequences
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Age-related behavioral resilience in smartphone touchscreen interaction dynamics bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Enea Ceolini, K Richard Ridderinkhof, Arko Ghosh
We experience a life that is full of ups and downs. The ability to bounce back after adverse life events such as the loss of a loved one or serious illness declines with age, and such isolated events can even trigger accelerated aging. How humans respond to common day-to-day perturbations is less clear. Here, we infer the aging status from smartphone behavior by using a decision tree regression model
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Do seabirds dream of artificial lights? Understanding light preferences of Procellariiformes bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Elizabeth Atchoi, Mindaugas Mitkus, Biana Machado, Valter Medeiros, Sofia Garcia, Manuela Juliano, Joel Bried, Airam Rodriguez
Seabirds, and particularly fledglings of burrow-nesting species, are greatly impacted by light pollution. During their inaugural flights from colony to sea, fledglings become grounded after encountering artificial light. Such groundings, or fallout events, affect many fledglings each year. To mitigate this light-induced mortality, rescue programs have been implemented for decades in many locations
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Maternal behavior in Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) is modulated by mother-offspring characteristics and socioecological factors bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Revathe T, Roger Mundry, Sri Suci Utami Atmoko, Paul-Christian Buerkner, Maria A. van Noordwijk, Caroline Schuppli
Mammalian mothers flexibly invest in their offspring to maximize their lifetime fitness. Flexible maternal investment may be particularly important in large-brained species with prolonged maternal care, e.g., in great apes. We investigated the effects of socioecological factors and mother-offspring characteristics on nine maternal behaviors in wild Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii; N=22 mother-offspring
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FARMS: Framework for Animal and Robot Modeling and Simulation bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Jonathan Arreguit, Shravan Tata Ramalingasetty, Auke Jan Ijspeert
The study of animal locomotion and neuromechanical control offers valuable insights for advancing research in neuroscience, biomechanics, and robotics. We have developed FARMS (Framework for Animal and Robot Modeling and Simulation), an open-source, interdisciplinary framework, designed to facilitate access to neuromechanical simulations for modeling, simulation, and analysis of animal locomotion and
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Juvenile Atlantic sturgeon survival and movement in proximity to an active cutterhead suction dredge bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-04 Matthew Balazik, Douglas Clarke
During 2019 and 2020, 268 (30-71cm fork length) juvenile Atlantic Sturgeon were captured and released in proximity to an active cutterhead suction dredge among three sites in the James River, Virginia. Of these captures, 30 were implanted with acoustic tags and telemetry was used to track their movements. Three juveniles telemetry tagged prior to this project were also detected moving within dredge
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Exploring the Dynamics of Social Interactions During the Juvenile Stage in a Mouse Model of Fragile X Syndrome bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-04 Moon Young Bae, Bosong Wang, Abdullah Abdullah, Asim Ahmed, Raffay Ilyas, Veronica Rasheva, Kartikeya Murari, Ning Cheng
Introduction: Fragile X Syndrome (FXS), caused by mutations in the Fmr1 gene, is a neurodevelopmental condition linked to cognitive and behavioral differences, including atypical interactions and heightened anxiety-like responses in social settings. Previous studies that used FXS mouse models focused mostly on adulthood but not on behaviors displayed by juvenile mice. This is especially concerning
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Auditory Feature-based Perceptual Distance bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-03 Shukai Chen, Marvin Thielk, Timothy Q Gentner
Studies comparing acoustic signals often rely on pixel-wise differences between spectrograms, as in for example mean squared error (MSE). Pixel-wise errors are not representative of perceptual sensitivity, however, and such measures can be highly sensitive to small local signal changes that may be imperceptible. In computer vision, high-level visual features extracted with convolutional neural networks
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Model-Based Estimates for Operant Selection bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-02 Matthias Borgstede, Patrick Anselme
We present a new methodology to partition different sources of behavior change within a selectionist framework based on the Price equation - the Multilevel Model of Behavioral Selection (MLBS). The MLBS provides a theoretical background to describe behavior change in terms of operant selection. Operant selection is formally captured by the covariance based law of effect (CLOE) and accounts for all
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Visual-spatial dynamics drive adaptive social learning in immersive environments bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-03-01 Charley M. Wu, Dominik Deffner, Benjamin Kahl, Bjorn Meder, Mark H Ho, Ralf HJM Kurvers
Human cognition is distinguished by our ability to adapt to different environments and circumstances. Yet the mechanisms driving adaptive behavior have predominantly been studied in separate asocial and social contexts, with an integrated framework remaining elusive. Here, we use a collective foraging task in a virtual Minecraft environment to unify these two fields, by leveraging automated transcriptions
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MarmoPose: A Deep Learning-Based System for Real-time Multi-Marmoset 3D Pose Trackingp bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Chaoqun Cheng, Zijian Huang, Ruiming Zhang, Guozheng Huang, Han Wang, Likai Tang, Xiaoqin Wang
The common marmoset has become an important experimental animal model in scientific research. The ability to capture and quantify behaviors of marmosets in natural environment and social scenarios is highly desired by marmoset research community. Although existing pose tracking methods have enabled multi-marmoset two-dimensional (2D) tracking and single-marmoset three-dimensional (3D) pose estimation
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CRE mice exhibit hyperactive and impulsive behavior affecting their learning and retention performances bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Frederic Desor, Aseel El Hajj, Ameziane Herzine, Fathia Djelti, Vincent Bombail, Isabelle Denis, Thierry Oster, Marie-Claire Lanhers, Catherine Malaplate, Frances T Yen, Thomas Claudepierre
CRE recombinase is a protein that recognizes and mediates site-specific recombination between loxP site sequences. The Cre/loxP recombination system has become a useful tool for genetic manipulation. Spatial regulation of recombination can be achieved by using cell type-specific promoters that drive expression of CRE in the tissue of interest. The temporal regulation can be obtained with CreER recombinase
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ILLUSORY LIGHT DRIVES PUPIL RESPONSES IN PRIMATES bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Jean-Baptiste Durand, Sarah Marchand, Ilyas Nasres, Bruno Laeng, Vanessa De Castro
In humans, the eye pupils respond to both physical light sensed by the retina and mental representations of light produced by the brain. Notably, our pupils constrict when a visual stimulus is illusorily perceived brighter, even if retinal illumination is constant. Yet, it remains unclear whether such perceptual penetrability of pupil responses is an epiphenomenon unique to humans or whether it represents
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Individual corticosterone response to intermittent swim stress predicts a shift in economic demand for ethanol from pre-stress to post-stress in male rats bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Christopher L Robison, Victoria Madore, Nicole Cova, Robert C Drugan, Sergios Charntikov
This study investigated the relationship between stress exposure and subsequent ethanol use, focusing on individual differences among male rats. We combined operant self-administration with behavioral economics to assess how intermittent swim stress affects ethanol consumption. This approach allowed for a nuanced analysis of the transition from regular ethanol intake to stress-induced escalation in
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Altruistic disease signalling in ant colonies bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Erika H. Dawson, Niklas Kampleitner, Jennifer Robb, Florian Strahodinsky, Anna V. Grasse, Sylvia Cremer
Sick individuals often conceal their disease to group members, thereby preventing social exclusion or aggression. Here, we show that infected ant pupae, on the contrary, actively emit a chemical signal that triggers their own destruction by colony members. In our experiments, this altruistic disease-signalling was performed only by worker but not queen pupae, reflecting differences in their immune
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Long-Term Quarantine is Associated with High Cortisol and Low DNA Methylation in New World monkeys bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Shayna Seenayah, Nofre Sanchez Perea, Ursula Paredes
Quarantines prevent infectious disease spread during primate transport, fostering acclimatisation. Environmental stress can lead to altered physiology, health risks, and epigenetic changes in other primates. We analysed Peruvian Saguinus fuscicollis and Saimiri macrodon, immobilised for 10 months in quarantine during the COVID-19 crisis, and compared them to wild counterparts to determine effects of
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A Randomized, Controlled Clinical Trial Demonstrates Improved Cognitive Function in Senior Dogs Supplemented with a Senolytic and NAD+ Precursor Combination. bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Katherine E Simon, Katharine Russell, Alejandra Mondino, Chin-Chieh Yang, Beth C Case, Zachary Anderson, Christine Whitley, Emily Griffith, Margaret E Gruen, Natasha J Olby
Age-related decline in mobility and cognition are associated with cellular senescence and NAD+ depletion in dogs and people. A combination of a novel NAD+ precursor and senolytic, LY-D6/2 was examined in this randomized controlled trial. Seventy dogs were enrolled and allocated into placebo, low or full dose groups. Primary outcomes were change in cognitive impairment measured with the owner-reported
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Late-Life Alcohol Exposure Does Not Exacerbate Age-Dependent Reductions in Mouse Spatial Memory and Brain TFEB Activity bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Hao Chen, Kaitlyn Hinz, Chen Zhang, Yssa Rodriguez, Sha Neisha Williams, Mengwei Niu, Xiaowen Ma, Xiaojuan Chao, Alexandria L. Frazier, Kenneth E. McCarson, Xiaowan Wang, Zheyun Peng, Wanqing Liu, Hong-Min Ni, Jianhua Zhang, Russell H. Swerdlow, Wen-Xing Ding
Alcohol consumption is believed to affect Alzheimer's disease (AD) risk, but the contributing mechanisms are not well understood. A potential mediator of the proposed alcohol-AD connection is autophagy, a degradation pathway that maintains organelle and protein homeostasis. Autophagy is in turn regulated through the activity of Transcription factor EB (TFEB), which promotes lysosome and autophagy-related
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Food-associated calls in disc-winged bats bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Gloriana Chaverri, Rachel A Page
Animals that engage in social foraging can produce food-associated calls that elicit two main responses in receivers: the recruitment of other individuals to a foraging site, and an increase in feeding-related behaviors in conspecifics. Spix's disc-winged bat, Thyroptera tricolor, is a highly gregarious species that lives in stable social groups and relies on group call-and-response vocalizations to
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A circadian behavioral analysis suite for real-time classification of daily rhythms in complex behaviors bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Logan J Perry, Blanca E Perez, Larissa Rays Wahba, KL Nikhil, Ashley N Starnes, William C Lenzen, Jeff R Jones
Measuring animal behavior over long timescales has been traditionally limited to behaviors that are easily measurable with real-time sensors. More complex behaviors have been measured over time, but these approaches are considerably more challenging due to the intensive manual effort required for scoring behaviors. Recent advances in machine learning have introduced automated behavior analysis methods
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Vocalization Patterns in Laying Hens - An Analysis of Stress-Induced Audio Responses bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Suresh Neethirajan
This study leverages Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) and Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) to analyze the vocalization patterns of laying hens, focusing on their responses to both visual (umbrella opening) and auditory (dog barking) stressors at different ages. The aim is to understand how these diverse stressors, along with the hens age and the timing of stress application, affect their
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Differential effects of multiplex and uniplex affiliative relationships on biomarkers of inflammation bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Jessica Vandeleest, Lauren J. Wooddell, Amy C. Nathman, Brianne A. Beisner, Brenda McCowan
Social relationships profoundly impact health in social species. Much of what we know regarding the impact of affiliative social relationships on health in nonhuman primates (NHPs) has focused on the structure of connections or the quality of relationships. These relationships are often quantified by comparing different types of affiliative behaviors (e.g., contact sitting, grooming, alliances, proximity)
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Changes in cognition and neuroinflammation in a rodent model of chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment are variable both acutely and chronically bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-02-27 Olivia J. Haller, Ines Semendric, Lyndsey E. Collins-Praino, Alexandra L. Whittaker, Rebecca P. George
Chemotherapy-induced cognitive impairment (CICI) affects up to 75% of cancer survivors between 6-months and 20-years post-treatment. Impairments include memory loss, learning difficulties, inability to concentrate and a decrease in processing speed, all of which can negatively impact quality of life. Several mechanisms are proposed to drive these impairments, with evidence implicating neuroinflammation
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Relapse after intermittent access to cocaine: Discriminative cues more effectively trigger drug seeking than do conditioned cues bioRxiv. Anim. Behav. Cognit. Pub Date : 2024-02-27 Ndeye Aissatou Ndiaye, Sema Abu Shamleh, Domiziana Casale, Sol’Abraham Castaneda-Ouellet, Isabel Laplante, Mike J. F. Robinson, Anne-Noël Samaha
When people with drug addiction encounter cues associated with drug use, this can trigger cravings and relapse. These cues can include conditioned stimuli (CSs) signaling drug delivery and discriminative stimuli (DSs) signaling drug availability. Compared to CS effects, DS effects are less explored in preclinical studies on cue-induced relapse. We compared CS and DS effects on reward seeking following