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Sexually selected shields: male–male combat can promote the evolution of damage-reducing structures Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-10 Isaac McEvoy, Zachary Emberts
Empirical and theoretical evidence suggests that getting injured during combat decreases an individual's chances of winning. Thus, it has been hypothesized that species that engage in injurious fights may evolve armour. However, much remains unknown about the role that male–male combat has in promoting the evolution of such damage-reducing structures. Here, we tested the hypothesis that male–male combat
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Evidence that multiple anthropogenic stressors cumulatively affect foraging and vigilance in an urban-living bird Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-09 Grace Blackburn, Benjamin J. Ashton, Amanda R. Ridley
Climate change and anthropogenic noise are two of the most widespread human-induced stressors affecting wildlife populations globally. However, the effects of these stressors are rarely investigated together, despite the fact that they often co-occur, particularly in urbanized areas and can have a multitude of adverse effects on species. Here, we compared the effects of heat stress and anthropogenic
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An educated guess: how coral reef fish make decisions under uncertainty Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Cait Newport, Adelaide Sibeaux, Guy Wallis, Lucas Wilkins, Theresa Burt de Perera
For many animals, making informed decisions is crucial to survival. A critical problem is how to make optimal decisions in the face of incomplete, unreliable or conflicting information. In many aquatic environments, fish use visual information to guide key behaviours, but the environment itself can alter or mask the very signals they rely on. Here, we asked how a highly visual species, , responds to
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Song adjustments only partially restore effective communication among Baird's sparrows, Centronyx bairdii, exposed to oil well drilling noise Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Jessica Waldinger, Miyako H. Warrington, Kevin Ellison, Nicola Koper
Noise from oil and gas development is pervasive across many landscapes and creates a novel soundscape that wildlife must adapt to or avoid. In response to anthropogenic noise, many wildlife species alter their vocalizations. Some adjusted vocalizations may promote effective communication in the presence of noise by improving detection and preserving information about the sender's status. However, if
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Social network connections are positively related to temperature in winter flocks of black-capped chickadees Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-03-02 Samantha E. Rothberg, Sarah E. Wolf, Ethan D. Clotfelter
Social species often share with conspecifics the responsibilities of finding food, defending against predators or caring for young. Within a social group, individuals' roles can be influenced by age, sex and personality. Black-capped chickadees, , are nonmigratory passerine birds that spend their winters living in social flocks. Due to the intense metabolic stress placed on chickadees by low winter
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Left or right: handedness in free-ranging Hanuman langurs, Semnopithecus entellus, residing in an urban ecosystem Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-29 Akash Dutta, Dishari Dasgupta, Arnab Banerjee, Sk Anzar Hasnain, Debadrita Sen, Milan Sahadevan Kuleri, Pritha Bhattacharjee, Manabi Paul
Examining manual lateralization (handedness) in nonhuman primates might be an interesting approach to gaining insight into the evolution of asymmetry in humans. Moreover, handedness could also reflect the effect of environmental alterations on the free-ranging animals that are forced to live with anthropogenic interferences. Despite addressing the handedness among monkeys and apes, only a few studies
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Bumble bees’ food preferences are jointly shaped by rapid evaluation of nectar sugar concentration and viscosity Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-29 Yonghe Zhou, Shuyi Ding, Caiying Liao, Jianing Wu, Lars Chittka, Cwyn Solvi, Fei Peng
Animals are often assumed to follow a strategy of energy maximization, and therefore should evaluate feeding options based on energy intake rates. However, at the proximal level, a direct estimate of energy intake rates, if that is possible at all, might require postabsorptive senses with relatively longer processing times, whereas an indirect estimate of energy intake through proxies like pre-absorptive
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Too hot or too disturbed? Temperatures more than hikers affect circadian activity of females in northern chamois Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-29 Lucie Thel, Mathieu Garel, Pascal Marchand, Gilles Bourgoin, Anne Loison
Recreational activities often result in a spatial and/or temporal activity shift in wildlife. With the concurrent development of outdoor activities and increase in temperatures due to climate change, mountain species face increasing pressures in terms of managing their activity pattern to limit both risk exposure and thermal discomfort. Using more than 15 years of long-term GPS and activity sensor
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Sex and dominance status affect allogrooming in free-ranging feral cattle Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-28 George M.W. Hodgson, Kate J. Flay, Tania A. Perroux, Wai Yan Chan, Alan G. McElligott
Social interactions are fundamental properties of gregarious species, helping to establish dominance hierarchies and maintain social bonds within groups. Cattle, , are social ungulates which engage in affiliative and agonistic relationships with other individuals. Although there are approximately 1.5 billion cattle on the planet, the opportunity to research cattle behaviour in free-ranging groups is
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Circadian-related behavioural types in free-living marine fish revealed by high-throughput telemetry Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Martina Martorell-Barceló, Eneko Aspillaga, Margarida Barcelo-Serra, Robert Arlinghaus, Josep Alós
Like terrestrial animals, wild fish exhibit individual differences in daily activity patterns, known as chronotypes. However, monitoring free-living fish has posed challenges in studying chronotypes and their plasticity in response to the environment. To address this issue, we utilized high-throughput telemetry to measure daily activity in a large group of free-living pearly razorfish, , while also
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Strong individual distinctiveness across the vocal repertoire of a colonial seabird, the little auk, Alle alle Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Anna N. Osiecka, Elodie F. Briefer, Dorota Kidawa, Katarzyna Wojczulanis-Jakubas
For species maintaining long-term social bonds, particularly in complex networks such as dense colonies, vocal cues to identity can be crucial. Here, we investigated the vocal individuality within and across five call types of the little auk: a monogamous, colonial bird with a strong nest fidelity. Calls produced inside the nest over the incubation period were recorded in 2019 and 2020 and assigned
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On aims and methods of collective animal behaviour Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-27 James A.R. Marshall, Andreagiovanni Reina
Collective animal behaviour is a subfield of behavioural ecology, making extensive use of its tools of observation, experimental manipulation and model building. However, a fundamental behavioural ecology approach, the application of optimality theory, has been comparatively neglected in collective animal behaviour. This article seeks to address this imbalance, by outlining an evolutionary theory framework
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Imaginal moulting behaviour in Ennya chrysura (Hemiptera: Membracidae), finding new questions and insights into the extreme morphology of treehoppers Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-26 Ximena Miranda, Camila Orlich-Ramírez
Adult treehoppers have a greatly expanded pronotum (the first thoracic sclerite), forming diverse and elaborate three-dimensional shapes whose development is not fully understood. We filmed imaginal ecdysis and postecdysis of the treehopper to describe events during pronotal expansion, looking for insights into their extreme morphologies. Behavioural and hydraulic mechanisms are involved, as suggested
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Density-dependent mate-guarding behaviour and reproductive attributes in the Parthenium beetle, Zygogramma bicolorata Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-25 Lankesh Yashwant Bhaisare, Ruchita Shivprakash Tiwari, Desh Deepak Chaudhary
Mate-guarding behaviour is thought to beneficially increase paternal share by lowering sperm competition. It is likely to be a plastic response that changes with the density of rivals in the surroundings. A recent study showed that the Parthenium beetle, (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae), exhibits mate-guarding behaviour through prolonged mating duration. The goal of the present study was to evaluate the
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Universal patterns and differences in graded aggressive calls of greater horseshoe bats from distant populations Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-25 Kangkang Zhang, Yanping Yu, Tong Liu, Jianan Ding, Hao Gu, Jiang Feng, Ying Liu
Comparative studies of animal communication systems are particularly important for understanding the origins and evolution of core features of human language like syntax and dialects. Recent studies have begun to develop bats as models for investigating shared traits with human language, given the complex social vocalizations of the former. Our previous research revealed that bat social calls contained
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Influence of moonlight on visits to water sources by mammalian predator and prey: a test of competing hypotheses Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-24 B.T. Boiseau, J.M. Trinidad, R.N. Knight, R.T. Larsen, B.R. McMillan, L.K. Hall
Predator–prey interactions are influenced by the ability of the parties to visually perceive each other. Changes in moonlight across the lunar cycle may influence visibility of predator and prey and how they interact with each other and access shared resources (e.g. water sources in the desert). We tested three competing hypotheses explaining the nocturnal activity of mammalian predator and prey at
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Identifying cues for self-organized nest wall-building behaviour in the rock ant, Temnothorax rugatulus, using hidden Markov models Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-24 E. Invernizzi, T. Michelot, V. Popov, N. Ng, E. Macqueen, A. Rouviere, M. Webster, T. Sasaki
European and its American counterpart build circular walls to limit their nest area within a rock crevice. To determine wall position, workers are thought to rely on a distance template (from the cluster of brood and nurses at the nest centre) and on indirect social (i.e. stigmergic) information found in the aggregations of already-deposited building material. Analytical and simulation models of this
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The value in the details: copulatory courtship behaviour in soldier flies and bean beetles Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-23 Flavia Barbosa
William Eberhard's legacy attests to the value of detailed behavioural observations. The significance of this descriptive approach can be illustrated by the phenomenon of copulatory courtship, or courtship that occurs during and following copulation. Through meticulous descriptions of copulatory behaviour in numerous arthropods, Eberhard has demonstrated that copulatory courtship is common and widespread
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Capuchin monkeys’ ability to choose beneficial options is inhibited by added complexity Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-23 Matthew H. Babb, Laurent Prétôt, Redouan Bshary, Sarah F. Brosnan
How does ecological complexity influence decision making? To facilitate interpretation, laboratory studies often focus on decision tasks with limited options, but animals presumably face more variety in the wild. For example, sometimes species must choose between ephemeral and permanent options, as with choosing between mobile prey and stationary food. The optimal choice is to prioritize the ephemeral
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How background complexity impairs target detection Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-21 Zeke W. Rowe, Nicholas E. Scott-Samuel, Innes C. Cuthill
Camouflage is frequently used by animals for concealment and thereby improves survival. Typically, it is the animal's own colour and patterning that are expected to affect its detectability; however, the complexity of the background can also have an influence. Although there is a growing literature examining this, the underlying exact mechanism is unknown. In this study we addressed this issue by using
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Foraging at night under artificial light: impacts on senescence and lifetime reproductive success for a diurnal insect Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-21 Elisa Gomes, Jean-François Lemaître, Valentina Rodriguez-Rada, François Débias, Emmanuel Desouhant, Isabelle Amat
The increasing use of artificial light at night (ALAN) is an anthropogenic disturbance with eco-evolutionary consequences for both nocturnal and diurnal organisms. It has been hypothesized that light pollution could create a ‘night-light’ niche providing new opportunities for diurnal organisms to forage and reproduce at night, with fitness consequences still scarcely explored. We exposed diurnal parasitoid
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Foreign–local microdialect discrimination in a songbird, the black redstart Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-21 Tifany Volle, Sébastien Derégnaucourt, Rémi Chambon, Tudor-Ion Draganoiu
Dialects have been described as geographical variations of vocal signals in several taxa such as humans, cetaceans, bats and birds. Many playback studies have focused on dialect perception by territorial birds, mainly reporting a stronger aggressiveness towards local dialects in comparison to foreign ones. However, exploration of the influence of several methodological factors is lacking, and very
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Social reinforcement guides operant behaviour and auditory learning in a songbird Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-21 Matheus Macedo-Lima, Marcela Fernández-Vargas, Luke Remage-Healey
Motivation to seek social interactions is inherent to all social species. For instance, even with risk of disease transmission in a recent pandemic, humans sought out frequent in-person social interactions. In other social animals, socialization can be prioritized even over water or food consumption. Zebra finches, , are highly gregarious songbirds widely used in behavioural and physiological research
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Female chronotype and aggression covary on different hierarchical levels in a songbird Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-19 Marjolein Meijdam, Marcel Eens, Bert Thys, Wendt Müller
Individual variation in the timing of activities is increasingly being reported for a wide variety of species, often measured as the timing of activity onset in the morning. However, so far, the adaptive significance of consistent variation in temporal phenotypes (i.e. the chronotype) remains largely elusive. Potentially, differences in timing of activities may arise as a result of competition among
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Detecting cultural evolution in a songbird species using community science data and computational modelling Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-16 Yakov Pichkar, Abigail M. Searfoss, Nicole Creanza
Song in oscine birds is learned across generations, and aspects of the song-learning process parallel genetic transmission: variation can be introduced into both cultural and genetic traits via copy error, and both types of traits are subject to drift and selective pressure. Similarly to allele frequencies in population genetics, observing frequencies of birdsong features can improve our understanding
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HughDrummondBlue-footed Boobies: sibling conflict and sexual infidelity in a tropical island2023Oxford University PressPp. 304. £54 hardback Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Pat Monaghan
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Asymmetric information in mixed-species mobbing flocks: why are leader species special? Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Chun-Chieh Liao, Chao-Chieh Chen, Robert D. Magrath
Asymmetric information transfer can shape the social structure of animal groups. Birds in mixed-species flocks can gain antipredation benefits by relying on both personal and social information, ultimately increasing their survival. However, not all species in a flock contribute danger-related information equally, leading to complex patterns of information flow between species. Understanding these
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Livin' on the edge: reducing infanticide risk by maintaining proximity to potentially less infanticidal males Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Vincenzo Penteriani, Ilpo Kojola, Samuli Heikkinen, Slavomír Find'o, Michaela Skuban, Ancuta Fedorca, Pino García-Sánchez, Mihai Fedorca, Alejandra Zarzo-Arias, Javier Balbontín, María del Mar Delgado
Infanticide is a significant evolutionary force influencing carnivore behaviours, as it is one of the primary contributors to offspring mortality. Female multimale mating, which creates paternal uncertainty, is known to reduce infanticide. We propose that two crucial steps are needed for this strategy to work in solitary species like brown bears, . First, after mating, females should choose dens within
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Helping syndrome is partially confirmed in the eusocial naked mole-rat Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Masanori Yamakawa, Kyoko Miura, Nobuyuki Kutsukake
In highly organized animal societies, behavioural heterogeneity of the members can be crucial for group success. In contrast to eusocial insects, in which task specialization is common, a clear division of labour is often absent in cooperatively breeding species. In these species, contributions to different tasks are sometimes positively correlated across individuals; this phenomenon is called helping
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Behavioural variation facilitates coexistence and explains the functions of mixed-species groups of sympatric delphinids Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Jonathan Syme, Jeremy J. Kiszka, Guido J. Parra
The coexistence of sympatric species with similar ecological requirements involves niche partitioning via interspecific differences in resource use and behaviour. Behavioural patterns of coexisting species can also be indicative of the functions of interspecific interactions, including those between species that form mixed-species groups. Here, we used Markov chain analysis applied to behavioural focal
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Feral horses and pronghorn: a test of the forage maturation hypothesis in an arid shrubland Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-12 Jacob D. Hennig, Jeffrey L. Beck, J. Derek Scasta
Ecologists strive for laws that explain interactions between organisms. Myriad hypotheses have been fundamental in increasing our understanding of plant–herbivore interactions, including the forage maturation hypothesis (FMH). The FMH has recently been extended to include contingencies of body size and digestive system: selection for greater energy potential should be negatively correlated with body
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Can an acoustic communication network be used for spatial orientation? Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-11 Katarzyna Kwiatkowska, Paweł Ręk
In conditions of poor visibility, animals can determine their location using sounds. If there are sound sources with a relatively fixed location in their environment, these might be used as landmarks with respect to which the individual could locate new sound sources. However, unlike visual orientation, surprisingly little is known about the use of acoustic landmarks. We studied the use of calling
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Acoustic allometry in roars of male black howler monkeys, Alouatta pigra, but no trade-off with testicular volume Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-10 Saúl De los Santos Mendoza, Sarie Van Belle
The source-filter theory suggests that animal traits, such as body size, are reliably encoded in vocalizations. These vocal signals, with a likely precopulatory function, are thought to be costly; given energetic constraints, they are expected to be in a trade-off with postcopulatory traits, such as testicular volume. Although this trade-off has been generally tested through comparative studies across
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How does evolution against brood parasites reshape or modify an instinctive behaviour in birds? Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-10 Canchao Yang, Huisheng Wang, Kang Luo, Jianping Liu, Jiangping Yu, Haitao Wang, Dongmei Wan, Wei Liang
Egg retrieval is regarded as an ancestral behaviour that evolved in birds as an adaptation to eggs accidentally rolling out of nests and a fixed pattern of instinctive behaviour. By contrast, egg recognition is a later and specific adaptation that arises under selection pressure from brood parasitism, through which eggs likely belonging to brood parasites are rejected from the nest. Furthermore, egg
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Increased maternal care improves neonate survival in a solitary carnivore Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-09 Kristin N. Engebretsen, Clark Rushing, Darren DeBloois, Julie K. Young
Extended maternal care, defined by protection, nursing and training of young, is a hallmark of mammalian reproduction. Prior maternal experience and maternal caregiving decisions during rearing may influence the success of offspring. Because most maternal caregiving behaviour, such as nursing and defence, requires contact or close proximity to the young, time spent with offspring may be a good proxy
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Males with high levels of oxidative damage form weak pair bonds in a gregarious bird species Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-07 A.A. Romero-Haro, A.A. Maldonado-Chaparro, L. Pérez-Rodríguez, J. Bleu, F. Criscuolo, S. Zahn, D.R. Farine, N.J. Boogert
The number and quality of social bonds can have major consequences for fitness. For example, in socially monogamous species with biparental care, pair bond quality has been linked to the latency to breed as well as the number and survival of offspring. Given these benefits, what mechanisms prevent some individuals from forming strong pair bonds? Markers of physiological stress and ageing, such as oxidative
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A meta-analysis of the relationship between flock size and flight initiation distance in birds Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-06 Ling-Ying Shuai, Federico Morelli, Peter Mikula, Yanina Benedetti, Michael A. Weston, Emmanuel Ncube, Tawanda Tarakini, Mario Díaz, Gábor Markó, Jukka Jokimäki, Marja-Liisa Kaisanlahti-Jokimäki, Yuan-Yuan Cao
When encountering an approaching predator, prey often must decide on an optimal distance for escape, measured as flight initiation distance (FID). As a fundamental behavioural indicator, FID has been widely measured in many species, and many biological or environmental factors have been found to be associated with FID. However, the effect of flock size on FID remains unclear. In this study, we conducted
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Contrasting acoustic-space competition avoidance strategies in Afrotropical forest birds Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-06 Agata Staniewicz, Emilia Sokołowska, Michał Budka
Acoustic signals are of critical importance to songbirds which rely on them for mate attraction and territorial defence. Interference caused by sounds that overlap in frequency and time can disturb or mask signal detection. While species differ in their song spectral properties, duration and composition, the limited acoustic space may lead to evolution of behavioural strategies aimed at minimizing
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Effects of cold temperature and pseudo-infection on sickness behaviour and transmission potential in house finches Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-04 Sara R. Teemer, Dana M. Hawley
Sickness behaviours are hallmarks of many infections and can influence transmission by altering behaviours of infected animals. Because sickness behaviour expression can depend on a host's environmental context, such as ambient temperature, it is critical to examine whether temperature alters sickness behaviour expression and the resulting potential for pathogen transmission. House finches, , are known
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The effect of building ability and object availability on the construction of bower courts in great bowerbirds Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-03 Menno van Berkel, Alex Thornton, Laura A. Kelley
Animal-built structures that function in mate attraction can be constrained in signal expression by the availability of building materials in the environment and the male's ability to find them as well as the ability to construct the structure itself. As part of their courtship display, male great bowerbirds, , use hundreds of grey-white objects to create a bower court. Males arrange these objects
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If it ain't broke, don't fix it: variable foraging behaviour is associated with low kittiwake reproductive success Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-03 Jenna Schlener, Shannon Whelan, Scott Hatch, Mélanie F. Guigueno, Kyle H. Elliott
Repeated use of a winning foraging strategy can be profitable when individuals use memory to return to successful food patches. However, in environments where patches are unpredictable, variable foraging behaviour may be more profitable. To test this idea, we explored how individual variation in foraging trip characteristics impacts breeding success in black-legged kittiwakes, , on Middleton Island
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Honest signalling of age in a territorial breeder Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-02-03 Brian A. Hoover, Walter H. Piper
Age often indicates phenotypic quality, ecological experience or social status in animals. Consequently, behavioural signals in territorial animals that accurately convey age to potential mates or rivals might provide useful information for both signaller and receiver about the likelihood of aggression. We tested whether male territorial yodels convey information about age in the common loon, . Using
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Successful conditional altruistic strategies and successful conditional spiteful strategies are different Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-29 Shun Kurokawa
Altruism and spite are costly, so from an evolutionary perspective their existence is mysterious. Both altruism and spite have been studied, but the latter has been investigated less than the former. One set of mechanisms that facilitates the evolution of altruism is repeated interactions. Upon repeated interactions, conditional altruistic strategies can be favoured by natural selection, and successful
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Goats discriminate emotional valence in the human voice Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-30 Marianne A. Mason, Stuart Semple, Harry H. Marshall, Alan G. McElligott
Reading another animal's emotional state can enable receivers to anticipate their behavioural motivations, which is important in guiding interactions with that individual. For species living closely alongside humans, the emotional cues that we express can be almost as informative as those of conspecifics. Goats, Capra hircus, can discriminate differences in emotional valence present in another goat's
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Female chorus frogs delay mate choice under suboptimal environmental conditions Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-24 Mysia Dye, Alan R. Lemmon, Emily Moriarty Lemmon
Many traits important for reproductive isolation are environmentally responsive. However, most studies examining reproductive isolation do not explicitly take into consideration environmental variation. Temperature can have a particularly large effect on reproductive behaviours, especially in ectotherms. Here, we tested whether temperature affects the degree of reproductive isolation between the upland
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Experimental manipulation of population density in a wild bird alters social structure but not patch discovery rate Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-20 Kristina B. Beck, Charlotte E. Regan, Keith McMahon, Sam Crofts, Ella F. Cole, Josh A. Firth, Ben C. Sheldon
Population density is a fundamental ecological feature influencing the opportunity for social encounters between individuals. Hence, density can impact various population processes such as social transmission. While the density dependence of disease spread has been studied extensively, we know little about how variation in density influences information transmission. If high densities lead to more
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Unusual use of shallow habitats may be evidence of a cultural tradition in Baird's beaked whales Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-22 O.A. Filatova, I.D. Fedutin, I.G. Meschersky, E.G. Mamaev, E. Hoyt
Socially transmitted behavioural patterns (i.e. cultural traditions) have been observed in many whale species from large baleen whales to small dolphins. However, no cultural traditions have been described so far in beaked whales, an elusive and poorly studied group of toothed whales. In this study we report a local population of Baird's beaked whales, Berardius bairdii, in the Commander Islands regularly
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Both humans and conspecifics provide social support to dog and wolf puppies Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-24 Giulia Cimarelli, Friederike Range, Katrin Hann, Kurt Kotrschal, Márta Gácsi, Zsófia Virányi
Social support can play a crucial role in enabling individuals to cope better with environmental stressors when accompanied by a social partner, but this effect varies strongly across species and often with partner identity. While generally conspecifics can provide social support most effectively, domesticated species might benefit also from the presence of a human partner; even more than their intensively
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Interannual linkages between oceanographic condition, seabird behaviour and chick growth from a decadal biologging study Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-18 Shiho Koyama, Yuichi Mizutani, Sakiko Matsumoto, Ken Yoda
Understanding the causes and consequences of foraging behaviour has been a longstanding research interest in the study of animal behaviour. Long-lived seabirds adapt their foraging behaviour in response to seasonal changes in marine environments, particularly to food availability, and the trade-off between current and future reproduction. This postulates the links and direction of causality between
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Effect of social context on behaviour in anemonefish hierarchies Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Lucia Yllan, Siobhan Heatwole, Marian Wong, Theresa Rueger
Animal social groups can be organized in hierarchies where individual status determines privileges within the group, and stability is maintained through conflict (aggression–submission) and cooperation. Aggression, submission and cooperation are not homogeneous among group members and are influenced by social context and associated trade-offs. However, studies of rank-specific behaviours are rare which
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Information cascades spread adaptive and maladaptive behaviours in group-living animals Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-18 Joseph S. McCormick, Thomas E. White, Eliza J.T. Middleton, Tanya Latty
Information cascades have been used to explain a variety of collective behaviours in nonhuman animals, including mate selection, antipredator responses and social foraging. A taxonomically widespread phenomenon, information cascades occur in many group-living animals from ant colonies to schools of fish and social mammals. Here we review the animal behaviour literature for examples of information cascades
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Behavioural sleep in salmonid fish with flexible diel activity Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-14 Chiharu Furusawa, Itsuro Koizumi
Sleep is a universal phenomenon reported in a wide variety of species, from jellyfish to humans, with varying patterns and functions across taxa. However, the adaptive significance of sleep remains largely unknown, especially in wild populations, due to the lack of adequate models. Salmonid fishes are good candidates since they are one of the most studied wild animals and show remarkable diel activity
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Familiarity and homogeneity affect the discrimination of a song dialect Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-13 Heather Williams, Sarah L. Dobney, Clint W. Robins, D. Ryan Norris, Stéphanie M. Doucet, Daniel J. Mennill
Male songbirds of many species sing local song dialects that are restricted to defined geographical areas. In most tests of responses to local versus foreign dialects, males respond more aggressively to songs from their own dialect, presumably because local males represent more of a threat to their success. We asked how hearing foreign songs during development and territory establishment affects discrimination
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Correlation of behavioural laterality with learning performance of scatter-hoarding rodents Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-13 Xudong Cui, Wubin Niu, Xianfeng Yi
Behavioural lateralization, derived from cerebral lateralization, has generally been suggested to be closely associated with cognitive performance among all classes of vertebrates. Although extensive evidence has demonstrated the possible relationship between hand laterality and cognitive abilities, it remains unclear whether learning performance is well reflected by behavioural lateralization in scatter-hoarding
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Hyperparasitoids exploit plant volatiles to locate their parasitoid host despite nonhost herbivore interference Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-13 Mitchel E. Bourne, Davide Bottacini, Maximilien A.C. Cuny, Kristian van Zadelhoff, Antonino Cusumano, Erik H. Poelman
Hyperparasitoids are ubiquitous components of terrestrial food webs. They must find their inconspicuous parasitoid host in a complex environment to generate offspring, but their foraging behaviour is poorly understood. Herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) induced by parasitized caterpillars have been found to be exploited by hyperparasitoids in the cabbage system. However, the naturally occurring
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Size sometimes matters: recognition of known predators with artificially altered body size by untrained birds Anim. Behav. (IF 2.5) Pub Date : 2024-01-12 Ondřej Fišer, Petr Veselý, Michaela Syrová, Michal Němec, Kateřina Kopecká, Eliška Perlová, Roman Fuchs
An integral characteristic of all predators is their size, which affects, among other things, their food preferences, and the ability of their prey to fight them off. Several studies have already found, unsurprisingly, that birds discriminate between and respond differently to predators of different sizes. The red-backed shrike, Lanius collurio, aggressively attacks the Eurasian jay, Garrulus glandarius