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Gallup GG, Povinelli DJ, Suarez SD, Anderson JR, Lethmate J, & Menzel EW. (1995). Further reflections on self-recognition in primates. Anim. Behav., 50, 1525.
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Gammell, M. P., de Vries, H., Jennings, D. J., Carlin, C. M., & Hayden, T. J. (2003). David's score: a more appropriate dominance ranking method than Clutton-Brock et al.'s index. Anim. Behav., 66(3), 601–605.
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Gifford, A. K., Cloutier, S., & Newberry, R. C. (2007). Objects as enrichment: Effects of object exposure time and delay interval on object recognition memory of the domestic pig. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 107(3-4), 206–217.
Abstract: A modified spontaneous object recognition test was used to examine object recognition memory in the domestic pig. This test uses preference for a novel object over a previously encountered sample object as indicating recognition of the sample object, and no preference as indicating no recognition. Two factors hypothesized to affect object recognition are duration of exposure to the sample stimulus and delay interval before re-exposure. Both of these factors could be manipulated in a rotational object enrichment program for pigs. Reducing exposure time and increasing the delay interval before re-exposure should decrease object recognition and prolong novelty-induced object exploration. We exposed 5-week-old pigs to different sample objects in their home pens for 10 min and 2 days, respectively. We tested for object recognition memory at various delay intervals after initial exposure by placing littermate pairs in a test pen for 10 min and recording snout contact with a sample object and a completely novel object. At a 1-h delay, half the pairs were tested with the 2-day sample object; the other half received the 10-min sample object. At a 3-h delay, pairs were tested with the opposite sample object. Pairs were also tested with the 2-day sample at a 5-day delay and the 10-min sample at a 6-day delay. We predicted that pigs would show a preference for the novel versus the 2-day sample object at all three delays, but would only prefer the novel object over the 10-min sample object at the 1-h and 3-h delays. Pigs did not show novelty preference in the presence of the 10-min sample object at any delay. Novelty preference in the presence of the 2-day sample object occurred at the 3-h (P < 0.05) and 5-day delays (P < 0.001), but not the 1-h delay. The lack of novelty preference when pigs were tested with the 10-min sample object may have been due to failure to habituate to the sample object. Testing in a different location from the initial sample object exposure and retroactive interference from exposure to the 10-min sample object may have contributed to a temporary lack of novelty preference when pigs were tested with the 2-day sample object at the 1-h delay. The finding that pigs retained a memory for the 2-day sample object for at least 5 days suggests that restricting object exposure to less than 2 days may help to preserve the exploratory value of objects rotated among pens.
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Giraldeau, L. - A., & Lefebvre, L. (1987). Scrounging prevents cultural transmission of food-finding behaviour in pigeons. Anim. Behav., 35(2), 387–394.
Abstract: Living in groups should promote the cultural transmission of a novel behaviour because opportunities for observing knowledgeable individuals are likely to be more numerous in this condition. However, in this study pigeons who shared the food discoveries of others (scroungers) did not learn the food-finding technique used by the discoverers (producers). Individually-caged pigeons prevented from scrounging easily learned the technique from a conspecific tutor. When caged pigeons obtained food from the tutor's performance, most naïve observers failed to learn. In a flock, scroungers selectively followed producers. In individual cages, scrounging during the tutor's demonstration was equivalent to getting no demonstration at all. This effect of scrounging did not interfere with subsequent acquisition of the food-finding behaviour when scrounging was no longer possible.
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Giraldeau, L. - A., & Lefebvre, L. (1986). Exchangeable producer and scrounger roles in a captive flock of feral pigeons: a case for the skill pool effect. Anim. Behav., 34(3), 797–803.
Abstract: We investigated the foraging producer-scrounger system of a captive flock of feral pigeons (Columba livia) by monitoring the number of food patches each individual produced. In one experiment, three different patch types were tested on the whole flock while, in a second, flock composition was varied for one patch type. In all cases we found non-uniform distributions of the number of patches produced per individual, which suggests the existence of producer and scrounger roles. This result could not be explained by either dominance or variability in individual learning ability. Individuals switched roles in response to changes both in food patch type and flock composition. These results are discussed in light of the skill pool hypothesis, which suggests that, in a group, different foraging specialists will profit by parasitizing each other's food discoveries.
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Goddard, P. J., Summers, R. W., Macdonald, A. J., Murray, C., & Fawcett, A. R. (2001). Behavioural responses of red deer to fences of five different designs. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 73(4), 289–298.
Abstract: Capercaillie, a large species of grouse, are sometimes killed when they fly into high-tensile deer fences. A fence design which is lower or has a less rigid top section than conventional designs would reduce bird deaths, but such fences would still have to be deer-proof. The short-term behavioural responses of farmed red deer (Cervus elaphus) to fences of five designs, including four that were designed to be less damaging to capercaillie, were measured. Five deer were located on one side of a fence with a larger group (20 animals), from which they had been recently separated, on the other. The efficacy of fences in preventing deer from the small group from rejoining the larger group was also recorded. In addition to a conventional deer fence (C) the four new designs were, an inverted “L” shape (L), a fence with offset electric wire (E), a double fence (D) and a fence with four webbing tapes above (W). Four replicate groups of deer were each tested for 3 days with each fence design. Deer paced the test fence line relatively frequently (a proportion of 0.09 scan observations overall) but significantly less when deer were separated by fences E or C compared to L, W or D (overall difference between fence types, P<0.001). Deer separated by fence E spent significantly more time pacing perimeter fences than deer separated by fences of other types (overall difference between fence types, P<0.01) but deer separated by fence C maintained a low level of fence pacing overall. Analysis of behaviour patterns across the first day and the 3 days of exposure suggested that the novelty of the test fences, rather than the designs per se, influenced the behaviour of the deer. Over the course of the study, no deer crossed either C or L. Three deer crossed E and two deer crossed both W and D. On this basis, field testing, particularly of fence L, would be a useful next step.
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Godin, J. - G. J., & Dugatkin, L. A. (1995). Variability and repeatability of female mating preference in the guppy. Anim. Behav., 49(6), 1427–1433.
Abstract: Models of inter-sexual selection generally assume heritable variation in mating preferences among females within populations. However, little is known about the nature of such variation. The aim of this study was to characterize quantitatively the phenotypic variation in female preference for a sexually selected male trait, body colour pattern, within a population of the Trinidadian guppy, Poecilia reticulata. Significantly more female guppies preferred the more brightly coloured of two similar-sized males presented simultaneously as potential mates. Mating preference scores for individual females were significantly and positively correlated between two repeated trials on successive days. Females were thus individually consistent in their particular choice of mates, and the calculated repeatability of their mating preference was relatively high. Notwithstanding the aforementioned, significant variation existed among females in the degree of their preference for brightly coloured males. Individual mating preference scores were not normally distributed, but were rather skewed to the right (i.e. towards greater values). These results suggest that additive genetic variation for mating preferences based on male colour pattern is maintained, and the opportunity for the further evolution of both bright male colour patterns and female preference for this trait appears to exist in the study population from the Quare River, Trinidad.
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Godin, J. - G. J., Herdman, E. J. E., & Dugatkin, L. A. (2005). Social influences on female mate choice in the guppy, Poecilia reticulata: generalized and repeatable trait-copying behaviour. Anim. Behav., 69(4), 999–1005.
Abstract: In vertebrates, the mating preferences of individual females can be flexible and the probability of a female mating with a particular male can be significantly increased by her having previously observed another conspecific female affiliate and mate with that same male. In theory, such mate-choice-copying behaviour has potentially important consequences for both the genetic and social (`cultural') transmission of female mating preferences. For copying to result in the `cultural inheritance' of mating preferences, individual females must not only copy the mate choice decisions of other females but they also should tend to repeat this type of behaviour (i.e. make similar mating decisions) subsequently and to generalize their socially induced preference for a particular male to other males that share his distinctive characteristics. Here, we show experimentally that individual female guppies, Poecilia reticulata, not only copy the observed mating preferences of other females for particular males, but that the preference now assumed via copying is subsequently repeated and generalized to other males of a similar colour phenotype. These results provide empirical evidence for social enhancement of female preference for particular phenotypic traits of chosen males rather than for the particular males possessing those traits, and thus have important implications for our understanding of the role of social learning in the evolution of female mating preferences and of male epigamic traits.
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Goldschmidt, T., Bakker, T. C. M., & Feuth-de Bruijn, E. (1993). Selective copying in mate choice of female sticklebacks. Anim. Behav., 45(3), 541–547.
Abstract: There is evidence that female three-spined sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus L., prefer to mate with males whose nests contain eggs rather than with males with empty nests. While there is consensus on this point, a dispute exists about whether this preference should be attributed to a direct effect of the eggs on the female's entering the nest or, alternatively, to a positive impact of the eggs on the courtship behaviour and breeding coloration of the male. In the field experiment reported here females strongly preferred nests with eggs over empty nests. Additionally, females were less likely to enter risky nests with eggs: nests that contained fewer eggs than one average clutch or more eggs than the average nest content of parental males in this population. However, in the field possible differences in male attractiveness were not controlled for. In supplementary laboratory experiments the effect on female choice of possible changes in male attractiveness (intensified courtship and coloration) as a result of the presence of eggs in the nest was tested. Other differences in male attractiveness as a result of differences in male quality (body size, breeding coloration before the test, territory quality and size) were controlled for. When females had no access to the nests, they showed no preference for males with eggs in their nests in simultaneous choice tests. These results, together with the earlier published data, make it likely that the preference of females for nests with eggs is partly a direct consequence of the eggs themselves. So female sticklebacks are influenced by the mate choice behaviour of other females, but remain selective as to the actual nest content.
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Goncalves, D. M., Oliveira, R. F., Korner, K., Poschadel, J. R., & Schlupp, I. (2000). Using video playbacks to study visual communication in a marine fish, Salaria pavo. Anim. Behav., 60(3), 351–357.
Abstract: Video playbacks have been successfully applied to the study of visual communication in several groups of animals. However, this technique is controversial as video monitors are designed with the human visual system in mind. Differences between the visual capabilities of humans and other animals will lead to perceptually different interpretations of video images. We simultaneously presented males and females of the peacock blenny, Salaria pavo, with a live conspecific male and an online video image of the same individual. Video images failed to elicit appropriate responses. Males were aggressive towards the live male but not towards video images of the same male. Similarly, females courted only the live male and spent more time near this stimulus. In contrast, females of the gynogenetic poecilid Poecilia formosa showed an equal preference for a live and video image of a P. mexicana male, suggesting a response to live animals as strong as to video images. We discuss differences between the species that may explain their opposite reaction to video images.
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