|
Griffin, A. S. (2008). Social learning in Indian mynahs, Acridotheres tristis: the role of distress calls. Anim. Behav., 75(1), 79–89.
Abstract: Socially acquired predator avoidance is a phenomenon in which individuals acquire an avoidance response towards an initially neutral stimulus after they have experienced it together with the antipredator signals of social companions. Earlier research has established that alarm calls used for intraspecific communication are effective stimuli for triggering acquisition. However, animals produce a large range of other antipredator responses that might engage antipredator learning. Here, I examine the effects of conspecific distress calls, a signal that is produced by birds when restrained by a predator, and that appears to be directed towards predators, rather than conspecifics, on predator avoidance learning in Indian mynahs, Acridotheres tristis. Distress calls reflect high levels of alarm in the caller and should, therefore, mediate robust learning. Experiment 1 revealed that subjects performed higher rates of head movements in response to a previously unfamiliar avian mount after it had been presented simultaneously with playbacks of conspecific distress vocalizations. Experiment 2 revealed that increased rates of head saccades resembled the spontaneous response evoked by a novel stimulus more closely than it resembled the response evoked by a perched raptor, suggesting that distress calls inculcated a visual exploratory response, rather than an antipredator response. While it is usually thought that the level of acquisition in learners follows a simple relationship with the level of alarm shown by demonstrators, the present results suggest that this relationship may be more complex. Antipredator signals with different functions may have differential effects on learners.
|
|
|
Sovrano, V. A., Rainoldi, C., Bisazza, A., & Vallortigara, G. (1999). Roots of brain specializations: preferential left-eye use during mirror-image inspection in six species of teleost fish. Behav. Brain. Res., 106(1-2), 175–180.
Abstract: It has recently been reported that predator inspection is more likely to occur when a companion (i.e. the mirror image of the test animal) is visible on the left rather than on the right side of mosquitofish Gambusia holbrooki. This very unexpected outcome could be consistent with the hypothesis of a preferential use of the right eye during sustained fixation of a predator as well as of a preferential use of the left eye during fixation of conspecifics. We measured the time spent in monocular viewing during inspection of their own mirror images in females of six species of fish, belonging to different families--G. holbrooki, Xenotoca eiseni, Phoxinus phoxinus, Pterophyllum scalare, Xenopoecilus sarasinorum, and Trichogaster trichopterus. Results revealed a consistent left-eye preference during sustained fixation in all of the five species. Males of G. holbrooki, which do not normally show any social behaviour, did not exhibit any eye preferences during mirror-image inspection. We found, however, that they could be induced to manifest a left-eye preference, likewise females, if tested soon after capture, when some affiliative tendencies can be observed. These findings add to current evidence in a variety of vertebrate species for preferential involvement of structures located in the right side of the brain in response to the viewing of conspecifics.
|
|
|
Hirsch, B. T. (2007). Costs and benefits of within-group spatial position: a feeding competition model. Q Rev Biol, 82(1), 9–27.
Abstract: An animal's within-group spatial position has several important fitness consequences. Risk of predation, time spent engaging in antipredatory behavior and feeding competition can all vary with respect to spatial position. Previous research has found evidence that feeding rates are higher at the group edge in many species, but these studies have not represented the entire breadth of dietary diversity and ecological situations faced by many animals. In particular the presence of concentrated, defendable food patches can lead to increased feeding rates by dominants in the center of the group that are able to monopolize or defend these areas. To fully understand the tradeoffs of within-group spatial position in relation to a variety of factors, it is important to be able to predict where individuals should preferably position themselves in relation to feeding rates and food competition. A qualitative model is presented here to predict how food depletion time, abundance of food patches within a group, and the presence of prior knowledge of feeding sites affect the payoffs of different within-group spatial positions for dominant and subordinate animals. In general, when feeding on small abundant food items, individuals at the front edge of the group should have higher foraging success. When feeding on slowly depleted, rare food items, dominants will often have the highest feeding rates in the center of the group. Between these two extreme points of a continuum, an individual's optimal spatial position is predicted to be influenced by an additional combination of factors, such as group size, group spread, satiation rates, and the presence of producer-scrounger tactics.
|
|
|
Isenbugel, E. (2002). [From wild horse to riding horse]. Schweiz Arch Tierheilkd, 144(7), 323–329.
Abstract: Over 45 million years of evolution the horse developed to a highly specialized animal in anatomy, physiology and behavior. No other animal had influenced the economic and cultural history of men to such extent. Hunting prey since the ice age, domesticated 4000 B.C. and used for thousands of years as unique animal all over the world has attained a new role today as partner in sport, as companion animal and even as cotherapeutic. The well known behavioral demands in use and keeping are still often not fulfilled.
Keywords: Animal Husbandry/*history; Animals; Animals, Domestic; Animals, Wild; *Bonding, Human-Pet; Breeding/history; Evolution; Female; History, 15th Century; History, 16th Century; History, 17th Century; History, 18th Century; History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; History, Ancient; History, Medieval; *Horses/physiology/psychology; Humans; Male; Paintings; Predatory Behavior; Sculpture; Sports/history
|
|
|
Dugatkin, L., & Alfieri, M. (1991). Tit-For-Tat in guppies (Poecilia reticulata): the relative nature of cooperation and defection during predator inspection. Evol. Ecol., 5(3), 300–309.
Abstract: Summary The introduction of game-theoretical thinking into evolutionary biology has laid the groundwork for a heuristic view of animal behaviour in which individuals employ “strategies” – rules that instruct them how to behave in a given circumstance to maximize relative fitness. Axelrod and Hamilton (1981) found that a strategy called Tit-For-Tat (TFT) is one robust cooperative solution to the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma game. There exists, however, little empirical evidence that animals employ TFT. Predator inspection in fish provides one ecological context in which to examine the use of the TFT strategy.
|
|
|
Palleroni, A., Hauser, M., & Marler, P. (2005). Do responses of galliform birds vary adaptively with predator size? Anim. Cogn., 8(3), 200–210.
Abstract: Past studies of galliform anti-predator behavior show that they discriminate between aerial and ground predators, producing distinctive, functionally referential vocalizations to each class. Within the category of aerial predators, however, studies using overhead models, video images and observations of natural encounters with birds of prey report little evidence that galliforms discriminate between different raptor species. This pattern suggests that the aerial alarm response may be triggered by general features of objects moving in the air. To test whether these birds are also sensitive to more detailed differences between raptor species, adult chickens with young were presented with variously sized trained raptors (small, intermediate, large) under controlled conditions. In response to the small hawk, there was a decline in anti-predator aggression and in aerial alarm calling as the young grew older and less vulnerable to attack by a hawk of this size. During the same developmental period, responses to the largest hawk, which posed the smallest threat to the young at all stages, did not change; there were intermediate changes at this time in response to the middle-sized hawk. Thus the anti-predator behavior of the adult birds varied in an adaptive fashion, changing as a function of both chick age and risk. We discuss these results in light of current issues concerning the cognitive mechanisms underlying alarm calling behavior in animals.
|
|
|
Cole, P. D., & Adamo, S. A. (2005). Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis: Cephalopoda) hunting behavior and associative learning. Anim. Cogn., 8(1), 27–30.
Abstract: Because most learning studies in cephalopods have been performed on octopods, it remains unclear whether such abilities are specific to octopus, or whether they correlate with having a larger and more centrally organized brain. To investigate associative learning in a different cephalopod, six sexually mature cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis) participated in a counterbalanced, within-subjects, appetitive, classical conditioning procedure. Two plastic spheres (conditioned stimuli, CSs), differing in brightness, were presented sequentially. Presentation of the CS+ was followed 5 s later by a live feeder fish (unconditioned stimulus, US). Cuttlefish began to attack the CS+ with the same type of food-acquisition seizures used to capture the feeder fish. After seven blocks of training (42 presentations of each CS) the difference in seizure probability between CS+ and CS- trials more than doubled; and was found to be significantly higher in late versus early blocks. These results indicate that cuttlefish exhibit autoshaping under some conditions. The possible ecological significance of this type of learning is briefly discussed.
|
|
|
Jackson, R. R., & Li, D. (2004). One-encounter search-image formation by araneophagic spiders. Anim. Cogn., 7(4), 247–254.
Abstract: An experimental study of search-image use by araneophagic jumping spiders (i.e., salticid spiders that prey routinely on other spiders) supports five conclusions. First, araneophagic salticids have an innate predisposition to form search images for specific prey from their preferred prey category (spiders) rather than for prey from a non-preferred category (insects). Second, single encounters are sufficient for forming search images. Third, search images are based on selective attention specifically to optical cues. Fourth, there are trade-offs in attention during search-image use (i.e., forming a search image for one type of spider diminishes the araneophagic salticid's attention to other spiders). Fifth, the araneophagic salticid's adoption of search images is costly to the prey (i.e., when the araneophagic salticid adopts a search, the prey's prospects for surviving encounters with the araneophagic salticid are diminished). Cognitive and ecological implications of search-image use are discussed.
|
|
|
Watve, M., Thakar, J., Kale, A., Puntambekar, S., Shaikh, I., Vaze, K., et al. (2002). Bee-eaters ( Merops orientalis) respond to what a predator can see. Anim. Cogn., 5(4), 253–259.
Abstract: Two sets of experiments are reported that show that the small green bee-eater ( Merops orientalis, a small tropical bird) can appreciate what a predator can or cannot see. Bee-eaters avoid entering the nest in the presence of a potential nest predator. In the first set of experiments bee-eaters entered the nest more frequently when the predator was unable to see the nest from its position, as compared to an approximately equidistant position from which the nest could be seen. In the second set of experiments bee-eaters entered the nest more frequently when the predator was looking away from the nest. The angle of gaze from the nest was associated significantly positively with the probability of entering the nest whereas the angle from the bird was not. Birds showed considerable flexibility as well as individual variation in the possible methods of judging the predator's position and direction of gaze.
|
|
|
Jackson, R. R., Pollard, S. D., Li, D., & Fijn, N. (2002). Interpopulation variation in the risk-related decisions of Portia labiata, an araneophagic jumping spider (Araneae, Salticidae), during predatory sequences with spitting spiders. Anim. Cogn., 5(4), 215–223.
Abstract: The extent to which decision-making processes are constrained in animals with small brains is poorly understood. Arthropods have brains much smaller and simpler than those of birds and mammals. This raises questions concerning limitations on how intricate the decision-making processes might be in arthropods. At Los Banos in the Philippines, Scytodes pallidus is a spitting spider that specialises in preying on jumping spiders, and Portia labiata is a jumping spider that preys on S. pallidus. Scytodid spit comes from the mouth, and egg-carrying females are less dangerous than eggless scytodids because the female uses her chelicerae to hold her eggs. Held eggs block her mouth, and she has to release them before she can spit. The Los Banos P. labiata sometimes adjusts its tactics depending on whether the scytodid encountered is carrying eggs or not. When pursuing eggless scytodids, the Los Banos P. labiata usually takes detour routes that enable it to close in from behind (away from the scytodid's line of fire). However, when pursuing egg-carrying scytodids, the Los Banos P. labiata sometimes takes faster direct routes to reach these safer prey. The Los Banos P. labiata apparently makes risk-related adjustments specific to whether scytodids are carrying eggs, but P. labiata from Sagada in the Philippines (allopatric to Scytodes) fails to make comparable risk-related adjustments.
|
|