Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology最新文献

{"title":"Does the development environment cause the pace of life to change in a rainforest lizard?","authors":"Kali M. Buchholz, Celine T. Goulet, Madeleine de Jong, Wesley Hart, John Llewelyn, Ben L. Phillips, David G. Chapple","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03502-2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03502-2","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Life history theory emphasizes that finite resources result in allocation trade-offs among the competing interests of self-maintenance, growth, reproduction, and survival. Environmental conditions, particularly during development, can influence these life history trade-offs, leading to the coupling of physiological and behavioural traits with life history strategies. Thus, populations may vary in the pattern of trait covariation, clustering along a fast-slow continuum, termed the extended pace-of-life syndrome (POLS) theory. We aimed to test how variation in ecological conditions influence life history trade-offs and their association with behaviour and physiology by comparing captive bred and wild-collected southern rainforest sunskink (<i>Lampropholis similis</i>). The captive bred skinks were the offspring of the wild-caught skinks, and all tests were conducted in the laboratory. We found that the groups differed, on average, in growth rate, body condition, thermal preferences, sprint performance, and activity. Counter to our expectation, wild-caught skinks exhibited a faster pace of life relative to captive-bred skinks despite experiencing more challenging environmental conditions. Furthermore, life history trade-offs were not detected, nor were traits correlated to form the syndrome. Studies are needed to identify the proximate mechanisms causing life history trade-offs and how they lead to the coupling, or decoupling, of physiological and behavioural traits. Such information will provide vital insight into how ecological forces drive the evolution of traits.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"21 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141882364","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sex-specific migration strategies and underlying physiology contribute to spring arrival protandry in a songbird","authors":"Julia Bojarinova, Irina Demina, Raisa Chetverikova, Olga Babushkina, Arseny Tsvey","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03499-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03499-8","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In spring, many migrating songbirds exhibit protandry (the phenomenon whereby males precede females in arrival at breeding sites). The reed bunting (<i>Emberiza schoeniclus</i>) is a short-distance European migrant which expresses a high degree of protandry and combines both nocturnal and diurnal movements during migrations. In experimental conditions, we studied the proximate mechanisms of protandry and compared locomotor behavior between spring and autumn migrations. We assumed that captive behavior is a proxy for the behavior that birds demonstrate in the wild. Combined, the analysis of seasonal patterns and circadian dynamics of locomotor activity suggested that male reed buntings depart from wintering grounds by daytime flights approximately two weeks earlier than females. Later, they develop nocturnal activity, take off shortly before dawn and continue their flight for several hours in the morning. We argue that such behavior allows males to benefit from both the advantage of nocturnal flight and an efficient start of foraging, thereby reducing the stopover duration (by minimizing search/settling costs) and increasing the total migration speed. In contrast, females express predominantly nocturnal migratory activity in spring. We observed that in spring males had lower fat reserves compared to females. We suggest that males can forage during diurnal movements and therefore do not need to store large energetic reserves. In contrast, in autumn, both sexes display similar patterns of locomotor activity and fat reserves. Overall, our results describe unique sex-specific migratory behaviour and physiology in reed buntings in spring, which, we assume, contribute to spring arrival protandry in this species.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"36 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141868307","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Sex-dependent recognition and behavior against nest predators and brood parasites by Chestnut-capped Blackbird Chrysomus ruficapillus","authors":"Lorena Vanesa Sovrano, Rodrigo Ezequiel Lorenzón, Evelina Jesica León, Adolfo Héctor Beltzer, Alejandro Raúl Giraudo","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03498-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03498-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Brood parasitism and nest predation are among the main causes of breeding failures in passerine birds. Brood parasites threaten to the nest, while predatory birds threaten to both the nest and the parents. The objective of this study was to experimentally evaluate whether male and female Chestnut-capped Blackbirds, <i>Chrysomus ruficapillus</i>, recognize and respond to different nest threats during the breeding stages. For this purpose, we presented taxidermy models of a brood parasite, <i>Molothrus bonariensis</i>; a nest predator, <i>Caracara plancus</i>; and a non-predator species, <i>Colaptes campestris</i>, on the nest of <i>C. ruficapillus</i>. Additionally, we filmed nests without the display models to compare them with the nests exposed to taxidermy mounts. We assessed whether parents returned to the nest for each sex based on nest attention, visit frequency, and visit duration through the filming of a total of 44 nests. The parental return to the nest in the experimental trials varied between the sexes and breeding stages. During the incubation stage, males increased their nest attention and frequency of visits in the presence of the non-predator and brood parasite models. Females also increased their frequency of visits in the presence of the non-predator model in relation to the predator and brood parasite models. During the nestling stage, males extended the duration of their visits in the presence of the predator model compared to nests without the display model. Meanwhile, females showed no differences in their behavior during this stage. Overall, the Chestnut-capped Blackbirds parents demonstrated the ability to recognize the presented models and responded differently to different threats at different stages of the breeding cycle. The flexible responses they exhibited may be consistent with the `threat-sensitive predator avoidance´ hypothesis.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"76 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141868308","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spatio-temporal migratory patterns, habitat crossing and within-individual movement repeatability of Central Mediterranean European Rollers Coracias garrulus","authors":"Flavio Monti, Sebastian Cannarella, Davor Ćiković, Vesna Tutiš, Jelena Kralj, Carlo Catoni, Sanja Barišić","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03501-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03501-3","url":null,"abstract":"<h3 data-test=\"abstract-sub-heading\">Abstract</h3><p>Populations of long-distance migratory species may exhibit dissimilarities in the leeway of scheduled annual migration programs, the routes they follow and their convergence at ecological barriers. The aim of this study was to fill the current geographical gap, spanning over 1,100 km longitudinally between southern France and eastern Austria, in the pan-European assessment of the migration ecology of the European Roller <i>Coracias garrulus</i>, and contribute to completing the puzzle of spatio-temporal patterns of migration, stopover and wintering at the Western-Palearctic scale for this species. We utilized high-resolution GPS tracking data from adult Rollers breeding in Italy and Croatia, tracked on their intercontinental seasonal journeys between 2018 and 2022 and modelled the variation of migratory components both at individual and population levels. Rollers from the Central Mediterranean exhibited a clockwise spring migration loop, following a Central African migration route and wintering across a wide longitudinal belt spanning from Namibia to Mozambique. Northern savannah zones were used as long stopovers, both in autumn (Chad/Sudan) and spring (Central African Republic/Cameroon). The probability of movement was significantly higher during the night and in spring. Migration speed varied according to season (&gt; in spring) and the habitat crossed (sea &gt; desert &gt; rainforest &gt; savannah). Individuals tracked in successive years showed high consistency of key migratory parameters and partial winter home ranges overlap, in contrast with the large variability of migratory parameters at the population level. This work bridges the current geographical gap of Roller migration ecology at the European level and helps meet conservation needs at the scale of the species’ flyway, with new ecological information valuable for the implementation of International Single Species Action Plans (ISSAP) dedicated to the Roller.</p><h3 data-test=\"abstract-sub-heading\">Significance statement</h3><p>Tracking studies help to disentangle intraspecific variation in migratory strategies and wintering destinations among populations, as well as investigate individual-level decisions taken <i>en route</i> across seasonal journeys. By GPS tracking the intercontinental migration of adult Rollers we found that spatio-temporal components of migratory and flight strategy largely depend on extrinsic factors such as daytime, season and the habitat they traversed, and vary at population level. In contrast, within-individual consistency in migratory and wintering patterns emerged across years. Our findings emphasize the need for effective conservation strategies at the flyway scale.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"54 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141776459","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Male mate guarding in a polyandrous and sexually cannibalistic praying mantid","authors":"Hiroto Nishino, Kotaro Morimoto, Kazuki Kuroda, Yasuoki Takami","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03500-4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03500-4","url":null,"abstract":"<h3 data-test=\"abstract-sub-heading\">Abstract</h3><p>Sexually cannibalized males incur a significant fitness cost due to the loss of future mating opportunities and are expected to evolve behaviors to avoid or compensate for such costs. For example, partially cannibalized males may exhibit mate guarding, in which they accompany the female to prevent her from mating with another male. In some species, cannibalized males prolong the duration of copulation. However, little is known about the adaptive significance of the mating behavior of sexually cannibalized males. We hypothesized that mating itself serves a mate guarding function, and that behavioral change caused by cannibalism enhances the mate guarding function. We tested these hypotheses using the polyandrous and sexually cannibalistic praying mantid <i>Tenodera angustipennis,</i> with decapitation as a model of sexual cannibalism. We compared latencies to female mating with a rival male among three experimental treatments: unmated treatment, noncannibalistic mating treatment, and cannibalistic mating treatment. Mating itself delayed female remating, revealing its function in mate guarding. Decapitated males exhibited a higher guarding efficiency against rival males via firmer genital coupling. In addition, spermatophore attached to the female genital opening also delayed female remating, revealing an additional function in postmating mate guarding. Although copulation was prolonged due to decapitation, mating by a rival male was not delayed compared to noncannibalistic mating, probably because of weaker postcopulatory guarding. These findings suggest that greater mate guarding by decapitated males during copulation was offset by processes after copulation.</p><h3 data-test=\"abstract-sub-heading\">Significance statement</h3><p>Sexually cannibalized males die and lose the chance for future mating. This means that males that can avoid or compensate for this fitness loss may be favored. We examined this possibility by focusing on the postmating behavior of sexually cannibalized male mantises. Experimental analysis revealed that cannibalized males grasped the female more firmly during copulation to avoid disruption by other males, and prolonged copulation duration compared with noncannibalized males. These behavioral changes by cannibalized males contributed to delaying female remating with other males to the same extent as noncannibalized males. This suggests that sexually cannibalized males did not fully compensate for the loss of future mating opportunities. Stronger mate guarding via firm genital coupling and prolonged copulation duration in cannibalized males may be offset by weaker postcopulatory guarding such as shorter duration of copulatory plug attachment.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"77 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141776458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Immune challenge reduces begging effort and modifies begging call structure in spotless starling nestlings","authors":"Daniel Parejo-Pulido, Tomás Redondo, Lorenzo Pérez-Rodríguez","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03497-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03497-w","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Symptoms of illness offer insights into an organism’s condition, altering social signals that affect others’ behavior. Nestling birds employ begging signals to solicit parental care, but the extent to which begging reflects nestling health beyond hunger remains controversial. We investigated how experimentally induced changes in health affect begging signals in spotless starling (<i>Sturnus unicolor</i>) nestlings. To alter health status, we challenged nestlings by injecting lipopolysaccharide (LPS) -an antigen that elicits an immune response- or a control substance (PBS) and observed begging behavior under controlled food deprivation conditions. LPS-treated nestlings exhibited delayed gaping, reduced stretching, and less begging time compared to control nestlings. Moreover, LPS-treated nestlings produced calls with higher spectral entropy, particularly when deprived of food for longer. Our findings indicate that begging signals are sensitive to induced sickness. However, addressing mechanistic issues is crucial for effectively testing whether begging reflects nestling condition as a signal of quality in future experimental setups.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"60 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141612138","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The influence of resource patch condition and size on social interactions, reproductive behaviors, and oviposition in a fungivorous beetle","authors":"Lillian J. Fornof, Clara A. Stahlmann Roeder, Edmund D. Brodie, Vincent A. Formica","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03494-z","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03494-z","url":null,"abstract":"<h3 data-test=\"abstract-sub-heading\">Abstract</h3><p>Variation among resource patches can structure spatial patterns of social behavior. Individual preferences and requirements for heterogeneous resources can lead to differences in where behaviors take place and which kinds of individuals interact. In this study we examined whether properties of habitat patches predict presence of and interactions among wild forked fungus beetles (<i>Bolitotherus cornutus</i>). <i>B. cornutus</i> use shelf-like fruiting bodies of wood decaying fungi (brackets) as social arenas, courtship and mating sites, oviposition locations, and food sources. Brackets on a single log vary in size and condition and represent a dynamic resource as individual brackets decay over the years that they persist on a subpopulation. We found that size and condition significantly predicted how a bracket was used by <i>B. cornutus.</i> Both males and females were found more often on larger, living brackets. Larger brackets hosted proportionally more social interactions and mating behaviors relative to the overall visitation by individuals. The relationship between these resource properties and frequencies of behaviors was stronger for reproductive, between-sex social interactions. Live brackets also attracted more oviposition events by females, but bracket size had no effect on this behavior. Our results indicate that the dynamics of growth and aging of a critical resource can impact how social and reproductive behaviors are distributed in time and space, which in turn could affect the social structure of subpopulations.</p><h3 data-test=\"abstract-sub-heading\">Significance statement</h3><p>Species that depend on critical host resources are often faced with a patchy landscape of resource quality. Those patches represent the infrastructure within which social behaviors take place, and can have formative effects on where, when, and how social interactions occur. We demonstrated that the size and condition of a fungal resource predicted male and female forked fungus beetle presence and behavior. Larger, living brackets hosted more beetles overall, while larger brackets in any condition hosted more social interactions and mating behaviors. Female beetles were more likely to lay eggs on living brackets, regardless of size. This study demonstrates how ecological dynamics of aging resource patches can indirectly structure social landscapes by influencing where and how individuals interact.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"57 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141576457","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A dynamic state variable model suggests a stronger effect of age than individual energetic state on reproductive allocation in burying beetles","authors":"Nathaneal Y. Yang, Blaine D. Griffen, J. Curtis Creighton, Mark C. Belk","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03495-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03495-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Evolutionary fitness is determined by how an organism allocates energy, or other limited resources, to reproduction during its lifetime. For iteroparous organisms, two alternative patterns of lifetime reproductive allocation are terminal investment and reproductive restraint. Terminal investment maximizes an individual’s current reproductive output by allocating all available resources to current reproduction at the cost of future reproduction. In contrast, the reproductive restraint strategy allocates the individual’s resources toward future survival and reproductive events. We used dynamic state variable modeling to investigate the conditions under which the burying beetle, <i>Nicrophorus orbicollis</i>, would balance between reproductive restraint and terminal investment over their lifetime. Our model provides a formal extension, specific to burying beetle biology, of the dynamic terminal investment threshold conceptual model. For young females, we show that delayed reproduction and reproductive restraint are the optimal tactic for all individuals except for those in the highest condition. However, as age increases, terminal investment becomes the optimal tactic over an increasingly broader range of individual conditions. Surprisingly, manipulation of a variety of factors, such as survival rate, resource availability, and metabolic costs, causes only minor changes in the general pattern observed. We suggest that in burying beetles, and other similar organisms, age plays a dominant role in determining the pattern of reproductive allocation over a lifetime. Individual energetic condition is important in changing the boundaries between alternative reproductive strategies, but it does not change the overall pattern of dominance of delayed reproduction or reproductive restraint at early ages and dominance of terminal investment with increasing age.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"64 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141549764","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"How does rapid body color change affect the conspicuity of lizards to their predators and conspecifics?","authors":"Andrés Rojo, Lindsey Swierk","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03493-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03493-0","url":null,"abstract":"<h3 data-test=\"abstract-sub-heading\">Abstract</h3><p>Predator–prey interactions drive the evolution of prey visual camouflage, but prey species also must remain conspicuous to their conspecifics for social signaling purposes. Whether rapid body color change can help to balance conspecific visibility and predator concealment, in the eyes of each group’s respective visual systems, remains poorly understood. We tested this question using water anoles (<i>Anolis aquaticus</i>), a small lizard that uses rapid dark-to-light body color change to visually camouflage itself from its avian predators across diverse microhabitats. We used digital image analysis and visual modeling to assess the effectiveness of color-matching camouflage in dark- and light-phase <i>A. aquaticus</i>, as perceived by anoles and avian predators. Our findings reveal that <i>A. aquaticus</i> body coloration was perceived similarly by both groups. However, sex-specific differences in overall conspicuousness emerged, with males more consistently color matching their microhabitats compared to females. Females were less likely to color match their backgrounds in their lighter phase, suggesting a sex difference in preferred conspicuity in more exposed habitats. We highlight the context-dependence of color change, with sex-specific differences and microhabitat potentially affecting its function.</p><h3 data-test=\"abstract-sub-heading\">Significance statement</h3><p>Predator and prey visual systems influence prey species’ visual camouflage evolution, but whether rapid body color changes allow animals to dynamically balance conspecific visibility with predator concealment is not well known. We used visual modeling techniques to examine if water anoles (<i>Anolis aquaticus</i>), small lizards that employ rapid body color changes to evade their avian predators, appear differently to their predators and conspecifics depending on color phase. Our findings reveal that <i>A. aquaticus</i> body coloration is perceived similarly by both groups. However, we observed sex-specific differences: males and larger individuals displayed more consistent color matching across different microhabitats, whereas females showed reduced matching in their lighter phase. Our study underscores the context-dependence of the function of color change in relation to factors including sex and microhabitat.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141549765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Heat-altered scent marks of males of a fossorial reptile still allow recognition by females but lose information on male quality","authors":"José Martín, Álvaro Navarro-Castilla, Alejandro de la Concha, José Javier Cuervo, Isabel Barja, Pilar López","doi":"10.1007/s00265-024-03496-x","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-024-03496-x","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The efficacy of sexual signals in communication is often maximized under specific environmental conditions. Anthropic alterations of these conditions might, thus, negatively affect communication during reproductive behavior. In fossorial animals, inhabiting visually restricted environments, chemical senses are very important. We examined whether climatic episodes of heat-waves with unusual high temperatures may affect the information provided to females by the sexual chemical signals of males of a fossorial reptile, the amphisbaenian <i>Blanus cinereus</i>. The results showed that experimentally heat-altered substrate scent marks of males can still provide information to females about the presence of a male. Females spent more time on males’ scent marks, irrespective of the temperature treatment, than on control clean ones. However, heat-altered scent marks did not seem to convey information about the health state (immune response) of the producer. Females spent more time on unaltered scent marks of healthier males (probably indicating mating preferences for these males), while female preferences for some heat-altered scent marks were not related to size or immune response of the same individual males. Chemical analyses indicated that the overall chemical profile of precloacal secretions (used for scent marking) did not change with increased temperatures. However, the relationship between proportions of some compounds in secretions and males’ immune response found in unaltered secretions was lost in heat-altered ones. We conclude that unusual increased environmental temperatures may decrease the efficacy of underground sexual chemical signals in this amphisbaenian (i.e., a loss of information on male quality), and consequently, may negatively affect sexual selection and reproduction.</p>","PeriodicalId":8881,"journal":{"name":"Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology","volume":"12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.3,"publicationDate":"2024-07-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141511032","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}