Ethology最新文献

{"title":"Conflicting cognitive decisions: Does egg retrieval modify egg rejection in a host of an obligate brood parasite?","authors":"Brian D. Peer,&nbsp;Nicholas Vozza","doi":"10.1111/eth.13492","DOIUrl":"10.1111/eth.13492","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Egg retrieval is an ancient behaviour displayed by birds in which a displaced egg is transferred back into the nest. Egg rejection, in contrast, is a recently evolved adaptation by hosts of brood parasites in which an egg is removed from a nest. These conflicting behaviours are both adaptive because they prevent reproductive losses, but egg retrieval may benefit brood parasites if hosts retrieve parasitic eggs into their nests. We examined these conflicting cognitive processes in the prothonotary warbler (<i>Protonotaria citrea</i>), a cavity-nesting host of the brown-headed cowbird (<i>Molothrus ater</i>). Eggs and nestlings are occasionally found on the rims of warbler nest cavities. We determined how this happened using video cameras and tested whether warblers retrieved their own eggs more often than cowbird eggs. We also determined if shape affects retrieval and rejection by placing cylinders inside nest cups or onto nest rims. We found that eggs were displaced by rapidly departing warblers whose nests are constantly prospected by nest competitors and brood parasites. Warblers retrieved their eggs (29%) and cowbird eggs (19%) at similar rates, and never rejected cowbird eggs after retrieval. Warblers removed most cylinders from nest rims and cups (89% and 78%, respectively), and never retrieved them. Warblers have retained egg retrieval at a low level and its expression is costly because they only retrieve a low level of their own eggs and also retrieve cowbird eggs, which benefits the brood parasite.</p>","PeriodicalId":50494,"journal":{"name":"Ethology","volume":"130 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eth.13492","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141526249","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Fitness consequences of variation in social group size are not population-specific but are associated with access to food in the communally breeding rodent, Octodon degus","authors":"Loren D. Hayes,&nbsp;Madeline K. Strom,&nbsp;Cecilia León,&nbsp;Juan Ramírez-Estrada,&nbsp;Sara Grillo,&nbsp;Cuilan L. Gao,&nbsp;Rodrigo A. Vásquez,&nbsp;Luis A. Ebensperger","doi":"10.1111/eth.13491","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/eth.13491","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Studies that concurrently investigate the functional benefits of group living in multiple populations of the same species are rare. Over a 3-year period (2014–2016), we examined two ecologically contrasting populations to test multiple hypotheses for the adaptive significance of group living in the communally breeding rodent <i>Octodon degus</i>. We quantified the size of social units (number of adults, number of adult females), edible vegetation at burrow systems, and per capita offspring weaned (PCOW) in each population. Contrary to expectations, we did not observe population-specific associations between group size and edible vegetation or PCOW nor universal benefits of group living. In one population, PCOW increased in mid-sized groups with more edible vegetation. However, this trend was not consistent across years. Notably, we observed a complete reproductive failure in one population during the first year of study, one that was characterized by low rainfall and no detectable edible vegetation. This result is important because reproductive failure occurred regardless of group size, suggesting that communal living may not buffer degus against the harshest of environmental conditions. Examining how social organization shapes individual reproductive success under extreme variation in food availability is an important step towards understanding how populations will respond to a changing climate.</p>","PeriodicalId":50494,"journal":{"name":"Ethology","volume":"130 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141967330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Burying in lake sediments: A potential tactic used by female northern map turtles to avoid male harassment","authors":"Grégory Bulté,&nbsp;Jessica A. Robichaud,&nbsp;Steven J. Cooke,&nbsp;Heath A. MacMillan,&nbsp;Gabriel Blouin-Demers","doi":"10.1111/eth.13488","DOIUrl":"10.1111/eth.13488","url":null,"abstract":"<p>How often males and females need to mate to maximize their fitness is a source of sexual conflict in animals. Sexual conflict over mating frequency can lead to antagonistic coevolution in which males employ tactics to coerce females into mating, while females resist or evade mating attempts by males. Here, we report on a novel burying behavior observed in female northern map turtles (<i>Graptemys geographica</i>) in Opinicon Lake, Ontario, Canada that appears to function as a tactic to avoid male detection during the mating season. Underwater videos indicated that females are heavily solicited during the mating season with over half the females being actively pursued by males. Biologgers indicated that females are less active and remain deeper than males during the mating season. Our data strongly suggest that female northern map turtles avoid intense solicitation and potential harassment by males by burying themselves in lake sediments. This behavior appears to be a low-cost solution for females to reduce the costs of resistance and mating while they are constrained to habitats with high male densities for overwintering.</p>","PeriodicalId":50494,"journal":{"name":"Ethology","volume":"130 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eth.13488","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141345240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Behavioral response to chemical cues from injured conspecifics in the livebearing fish, Brachyrhaphis rhabdophora","authors":"Alexandra G. Duffy,&nbsp;Jerald B. Johnson","doi":"10.1111/eth.13490","DOIUrl":"10.1111/eth.13490","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Predator–prey dynamics have led to a strong selection of prey's ability to detect and respond to information about the risk environment. Further, intrinsic factors, such as sex, may cause prey to perceive and respond to information differently. Chemical alarm cues from injured conspecifics are a classic example of how prey have evolved to use publicly available information to shape their behavior and enhance fitness, yet sex-specific alarm reactions are rarely considered. The purpose of our study was to compare how males and females respond to conspecific chemical alarm cues in the livebearing fish species, <i>Brachyrhaphis rhabdophora</i>. Furthermore, we tested males and females from populations with a high- or low-predation environment. <i>Brachyrhaphis rhabdophora</i> showed strong alarm reactions, but contrary to our predictions, showed limited variation due to sex or predation environment. We found that males and females from both populations displayed lower activity levels and increased their swimming depth when exposed to an alarm cue, despite variable and consistent baseline behaviors among individuals. These data further contribute to our understanding of what factors shape the evolution of behavioral responses to chemical alarm cues in fishes.</p>","PeriodicalId":50494,"journal":{"name":"Ethology","volume":"130 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141342836","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Familiarity and social relationships in degus (Octodon degus)","authors":"Amber Thatcher,&nbsp;Nathan Insel","doi":"10.1111/eth.13487","DOIUrl":"10.1111/eth.13487","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Degus (<i>Octodon degus</i>) are a highly gregarious species of caviomorph rodent native to South America. Kinship does not appear to play a role in degu social structure, and alloparenting is often observed between unrelated females. We hypothesize that female degus readily establish new, cooperative peer relationships. Here, we examined changes in dyadic behavior as individuals became more familiar, testing the prediction that interactions between female strangers would quickly resemble those of cagemates. Adult degus underwent a several week series of 20 min “reunion” social exposures, interleaving reunions with initial strangers and, as a control, familiar cagemates. Males showed initially higher levels of interaction with strangers that converged with cagemate levels over experience. Females could be split into two groups: those that consistently interacted more with strangers (SC-HIGH) and those that did not (SC-LOW); however, unlike males, the higher interaction levels observed between strangers did not change with familiarity. Following 10 reunion sessions female strangers were housed together to create “new cagemates.” Even after co-housing, SC-HIGH (but not SC-LOW) females continued to interact more with the relatively unfamiliar peer than their prior cagemate, particularly in face-to-face and rear-sniffing interactions. A final set of reunions with new strangers found that individual differences in female responses to social novelty were preserved. These results reveal sex differences in the rules relating familiarization to social relationships in degus, and that female predispositions toward cooperation may be due to inherent responses to new individuals more than to how they negotiate relationships over time.</p>","PeriodicalId":50494,"journal":{"name":"Ethology","volume":"130 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eth.13487","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141267853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Adult poison dart frogs avoid potential heterospecific competitors using their sense of smell","authors":"Elisa Schulze,&nbsp;Konrad Lipkowski,&nbsp;Diana Abondano Almeida,&nbsp;Lisa M. Schulte","doi":"10.1111/eth.13486","DOIUrl":"10.1111/eth.13486","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Olfaction is the oldest sense in the animal kingdom. It is used during a multitude of behaviours, such as the encounter of food, the detection of predators, the recognition of habitat-related cues or the communication with conspecifics. While the use of olfaction and chemical communication has been studied widely in some animals, it is barely known in others. Anurans (frogs and toads), for example, are well known to use acoustic and visual senses, but their chemical sense is still largely understudied. Studies concerning the chemical sense in anurans have been mostly based on the use of semiochemicals in juvenile stages, while the information on adult anurans remains limited. In this study, we analysed the behavioural response of the Neotropical poison frog <i>Ranitomeya sirensis</i> (Sira poison frog, Dendrobatidae) when presented with the odours of prey, novel/prey-luring fruit, habitat, conspecific faeces and heterospecifics. For this, we offered each of the odours by placing them into one of two testing tubes fixed in an arena, with the other tube left empty as a control. We then measured the time the frogs spent in the vicinity of the odour versus the control tube and calculated a response index. While the frogs did not show a significant avoidance or attraction towards most of the tested odours, they showed a strong response towards the heterospecific odour, which was significantly avoided. This is the first evidence of a poison dart frog responding towards the odours of adult heterospecific frogs. We consider potential reasons for this strong negative reaction, such as the interspecific competition avoidance hypothesis, and discuss our results in the context of other animal species being deterred or attracted by heterospecific chemical cues.</p>","PeriodicalId":50494,"journal":{"name":"Ethology","volume":"130 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eth.13486","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141194771","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Herbicide changes the role of body condition in mating interactions of a wolf spider but courtship is primarily affected by female immunity","authors":"Jake A. Godfrey,&nbsp;Katrina Culbertson,&nbsp;Megan Archdeacon,&nbsp;Ann L. Rypstra","doi":"10.1111/eth.13473","DOIUrl":"10.1111/eth.13473","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Animals that live in human-impacted landscapes experience an onslaught of novel stimuli that may interfere with natural communication pathways. During mating, this interference may alter the criteria deployed to assess potential mates as males and females find they must shift their focus and emphasize alternative sensory modalities. The wolf spider, <i>Tigrosa helluo</i> (Araneae, Lycosidae) is common in agricultural fields where commercial formulations of herbicides with glyphosate as the active ingredient are regularly applied. With the development of genetically resistant crops, glyphosate-based herbicides have become among the most widely used and heavily applied agricultural chemicals in the world. In a laboratory experiment, we explored the effects of this herbicide on male—female interactions during courtship, mating, and sexual cannibalism. We expected that it might impact assessment such that there was a shift in the features that were important to the outcome of mating interactions. When herbicide was present, female body condition, an indication of recent feeding success, became important to mating success. This result was, in part, due to higher rates of sexual cannibalism in parings of males and females with low body condition values. The leg raises and pedipalp waves that males perform in courtship were not affected by herbicide nor were they related to mating success but, across all treatments, they were negatively correlated with lytic activity of females as measured just prior to pairing. This result indicates that males detected this aspect of the female's physiology and that a strong immune response made the female less attractive, possibly because it indicated a current or recent infection. Taken together, these results verify that a common herbicide shifts mating criteria used by an agribiont spider and, separate from the herbicide, the immune status of females affects the reactions of courting males.</p>","PeriodicalId":50494,"journal":{"name":"Ethology","volume":"130 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eth.13473","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141147091","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sex and age differences in the preference for materials for the communal nests of sociable weavers Philetairus socius","authors":"Nicolas J. Silva,&nbsp;Fantine Benoit,&nbsp;Andrew Elliott,&nbsp;Charlotte Rault,&nbsp;Pierre Colençon,&nbsp;Rita Covas,&nbsp;Claire Doutrelant","doi":"10.1111/eth.13472","DOIUrl":"10.1111/eth.13472","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Many animals build structures that are used for shelter, reproduction or to capture prey. The type of material used to build these structures is likely to influence their solidity, thermoregulation capacity and, in some species, may influence the attractiveness of the builders. In the case of animal nests, evidence for preference of nesting material has been documented in several species but, to date, few field experiments have been conducted, and it was seldom investigated whether individuals' attributes affected those preferences. We investigated these preferences in relation to individual attributes on sociable weavers (<i>Philetairus socius</i>) that build communally one of the largest known nest structures, using dry grass. We conducted an experiment where we presented two piles of straws, long and short, to wild individuals. We recorded 900 h of video and used a deep learning method to automatically detect images where birds were present (266 colour-ringed individuals). Our results showed that males picked more straws than females and showed a preference for longer straws, while no preference was found for females. In addition, older males showed a preference for long straws compared to younger males. Finally, males displayed higher repeatability than females in their preference for longer straws. In conclusion, we show that choice of nesting material is not random, and that preferences are associated with individual attributes. Future studies should assess how building is associated with social status, mating and reproductive success of the individuals building, to investigate which of these factors could have shaped the evolution of these preferences.</p>","PeriodicalId":50494,"journal":{"name":"Ethology","volume":"130 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eth.13472","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141062985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Absence of female preference and the origin of a unisexual species, the Amazon molly (Poecilia formosa)","authors":"Caden Smith,&nbsp;Waldir Miron Berbel-Filho,&nbsp;Montrai Spikes,&nbsp;Frederic Fyon,&nbsp;Francisco Úbeda,&nbsp;Ingo Schlupp","doi":"10.1111/eth.13469","DOIUrl":"10.1111/eth.13469","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The role of hybridization as a formative process in evolution has received much attention in the past few decades. A particularly fascinating outcome of hybrid speciation is the formation of asexual hybrid species. The Amazon molly (<i>Poecilia formosa</i>) is such a hybrid and originated from a <i>P. mexicana</i> mother and a <i>P. latipinna</i> father. Consequently, a heterospecific mating must have occurred leading to the Amazon molly, indicating a breakdown of any potential prezygotic isolation between parental species. Here we studied the female mate preferences of extant <i>P. mexicana</i> and <i>P. latipinna</i> from several populations using standard binary choice tests with males of both sexual species that were matched for size. <i>Poecilia mexicana</i> and <i>P. latipinna</i> can be crossed in the lab, however, the offspring are not asexual, but sexual F₁s. In our study, we generated F₁s and tested their mating preferences with sexual males of both <i>P. mexicana</i> and <i>P. latipinna</i> against F₁ males. Overall, our results show that in extant <i>P. mexicana</i> and <i>P. latipinna</i> no female preference for conspecific males was detectable. Consequently, heterospecific matings are possible and not hindered by any apparent behavioral prezygotic isolation. If female preferences in these species were comparable around the time the Amazon molly originated as a hybrid species ca. 100,000 years ago, matings leading to hybrids would be very likely. F₁ females also have no discernable mating preferences for either sexual males or F₁ males. Such lack of prezygotic behavioral isolation could potentially lead to F₂ individuals, backcrosses, and introgression.</p>","PeriodicalId":50494,"journal":{"name":"Ethology","volume":"130 8","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.3,"publicationDate":"2024-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140935129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Steps into a Small World: First glimpses on everyday moment-to-moment decision making in an ecologically meaningful multi-choice system for assessing animal preferences","authors":"Fiona Puls,&nbsp;Louisa-Mae Kosin,&nbsp;Fiona Garbisch,&nbsp;Chadi Touma,&nbsp;Christa Thöne-Reineke,&nbsp;Lorenz Gygax","doi":"10.1111/eth.13468","DOIUrl":"10.1111/eth.13468","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The behaviour shown by an animal at any one time is the consolidated output of its behavioural control mechanism. Moreover, what animals “want” is viewed as (the most) important component for individual welfare. Accordingly, studying the motivation of animals helps understanding basic mechanisms and welfare related needs. However, studying wants of animals is notoriously difficult and many previous studies on the preferences of animals have been restricted in the sense that only two choice options were presented in an artificial test environment. Here, an extended approach, the “Small World” is presented, in which the choices of animals between eight ecologically relevant resources can be observed in a long-term test to reach conclusions with respect to everyday moment-to-moment decisions. In this sense, the system offers a quasi-natural environment. The approach was tested in three experiments with observations of individual female rats, small groups of female rats (Long Evans, <i>Rattus norvegicus</i>) and small groups of female chickens (Lohmann Brown, <i>Gallus gallus domesticus</i>). The animals oriented themselves quickly in the system and it was possible to collect multifaceted data on the use of the resources. These data included the faecal and urinary markings in the Small World cages, the daily frequency and duration of visits to these cages, the sequential analyses of the choices for and decisions among the resources, and the synchrony of the animals in the groups. Given the richness of these data and the lack of a stress response in the tested animals, the use of the Small World approach seems to be highly promising as an extension to previously used procedures. To further improve the approach and more directly reflect the subjective value of the different resources from the animals' point of view, the distances between the resources in a quasi-natural landscape shall be manipulated in future studies.</p>","PeriodicalId":50494,"journal":{"name":"Ethology","volume":"130 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2024-05-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eth.13468","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140934862","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}