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Grinder, M. I., Krausman, P. R., & Hoffmann, R. S. (2006). Equus asinus. Mammalian Species, 794(1), 1–9.
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Reznikova, Z. I. (2006). [The study of tool use as the way for general estimation of cognitive abilities in animals]. Zh Obshch Biol, 67(1), 3–22.
Abstract: Investigation of tool use is an effective way to determine cognitive abilities of animals. This approach raises hypotheses, which delineate limits of animal's competence in understanding of objects properties and interrelations and the influence of individual and social experience on their behaviour. On the basis of brief review of different models of manipulation with objects and tools manufacturing (detaching, subtracting and reshaping) by various animals (from elephants to ants) in natural conditions the experimental data concerning tool usage was considered. Tool behaviour of anumals could be observed rarely and its distribution among different taxons is rather odd. Recent studies have revealed that some species (for instance, bonobos and tamarins) which didn't manipulate tools in wild life appears to be an advanced tool users and even manufacturers in laboratory. Experimental studies of animals tool use include investigation of their ability to use objects physical properties, to categorize objects involved in tool activity by its functional properties, to take forces affecting objects into account, as well as their capacity of planning their actions. The crucial question is whether animals can abstract general principles of relations between objects regardless of the exact circumstances, or they develop specific associations between concerete things and situations. Effectiveness of laboratory methods is estimated in the review basing on comparative studies of tool behaviour, such as “support problem”, “stick problem”, “tube- and tube-trap problem”, and “reserve tube problem”. Levels of social learning, the role of imprinting, and species-specific predisposition to formation of specific domains are discussed. Experimental investigation of tool use allows estimation of the individuals' intelligence in populations. A hypothesis suggesting that strong predisposition to formation of specific associations can serve as a driving force and at the same time as obstacle to animals' activity is discussed. In several “technically gifted” species (such as woodpecker finches, New Caledonian crows, and chimpanzees) tool use seems to be guided by a rapid process of trial and error learning. Individuals that are predisposed to learn specific connections do this too quickly and thus become enslaved by stereotypic solutions of raising problems.
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Drummond, H. (2006). Dominance in vertebrate broods and litters. Quarterly Review of Biology, 81(1), 3–32.
Abstract: Drawing on the concepts and theory of dominance in adult vertebrates, this article categorizes the relationships of dominance between infant siblings, identifies the behavioral mechanisms that give rise to those relationships, and proposes a model to explain their evolution. Dominance relationships in avian broods can be classified according to the agonistic roles of dominants and subordinates as “aggression-submission,” “aggression-resistance, ” “aggression-aggression,” “aggression-avoidance,” “rotating dominance,” and “flock dominance.” These relationships differ mainly in the submissiveness/pugnacity of subordinates, which is pivotal, and in the specificity/generality of the learning processes that underlie them. As in the dominance hierarchies of adult vertebrates, agonistic roles are engendered and maintained by several mechanisms, including differential fighting ability, assessment, trained winning and losing (especially in altricial species), learned individual relationships (especially in precocial species), site-specific learning, and probably group-level effects. An evolutionary framework in which the species-typical dominance relationship is determined by feeding mode, confinement, cost of subordination, and capacity for individual recognition, can be extended to mammalian litters and account for the aggression-submission and aggression-resistance observed in distinct populations of spotted hyenas and the “site-specific dominance” (teat ownership) of some pigs, felids, and hyraxes. Little is known about agonism in the litters of other mammals or broods of poikilotherms, but some species of fish and crocodilians have the potential for dominance among broodmates. Copyright © 2006 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.
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Robertson, S. (2006). The importance of assessing pain in horses and donkeys. Equine Vet J, 38(1), 5–6.
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Sumpter, D. J. T. (2006). The principles of collective animal behaviour. Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci., 361(1465), 5–22.
Abstract: In recent years, the concept of self-organization has been used to understand collective behaviour of animals. The central tenet of self-organization is that simple repeated interactions between individuals can produce complex adaptive patterns at the level of the group. Inspiration comes from patterns seen in physical systems, such as spiralling chemical waves, which arise without complexity at the level of the individual units of which the system is composed. The suggestion is that biological structures such as termite mounds, ant trail networks and even human crowds can be explained in terms of repeated interactions between the animals and their environment, without invoking individual complexity. Here, I review cases in which the self-organization approach has been successful in explaining collective behaviour of animal groups and societies. Ant pheromone trail networks, aggregation of cockroaches, the applause of opera audiences and the migration of fish schools have all been accurately described in terms of individuals following simple sets of rules. Unlike the simple units composing physical systems, however, animals are themselves complex entities, and other examples of collective behaviour, such as honey bee foraging with its myriad of dance signals and behavioural cues, cannot be fully understood in terms of simple individuals alone. I argue that the key to understanding collective behaviour lies in identifying the principles of the behavioural algorithms followed by individual animals and of how information flows between the animals. These principles, such as positive feedback, response thresholds and individual integrity, are repeatedly observed in very different animal societies. The future of collective behaviour research lies in classifying these principles, establishing the properties they produce at a group level and asking why they have evolved in so many different and distinct natural systems. Ultimately, this research could inform not only our understanding of animal societies, but also the principles by which we organize our own society.
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Haslam, S. M., Brown, S. N., Wilkins, L. J., Kestin, S. C., Warriss, P. D., & Nicol, C. J. (2006). Preliminary study to examine the utility of using foot burn or hock burn to assess aspects of housing conditions for broiler chicken. Br Poult Sci, 47(1), 13–18.
Abstract: 1. Eleven broiler chicken farms, representing 4 production system types, were visited during the last 5 d of the flock cycle: bird and flock details were recorded. Litter friability was assessed at 9 sites within the house, atmospheric ammonia was measured at three sites and bird cleanliness was assessed on a numerical rating scale. 2. For these flocks, hock burn, foot burn and breast burn were measured at the processing plant by standardised assessors. 3. Significant correlations were identified between the percentage of birds with foot burn and average litter score, average house ammonia concentrations and feather score. 4. No correlation was found between the percentage of birds with hock burn or breast burn and average litter scores, average ammonia concentrations or feather score. 5. No correlation was found between stocking density and foot burn, hock burn or breast burn.6. If confirmed, these findings may have implications for the draft EU Broiler Directive, for which it is proposed that permitted stocking density on farm may be determined by the incidence and severity of contact dermatitis measured on plant.
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Virányi, Z., Topál, J., Miklósi, Á., & Csányi, V. (2006). A nonverbal test of knowledge attribution: a comparative study on dogs and children. Anim. Cogn., 9(1), 13–26.
Abstract: The sensitivity of eleven pet dogs and eleven 2.5-year-old children to others' past perceptual access was tested for object-specificity in a playful, nonverbal task in which a human Helper's knowledge state regarding the whereabouts of a hidden toy and a stick (a tool necessary for getting the out-of-reach toy) was systematically manipulated. In the four experimental conditions the Helper either participated or was absent during hiding of the toy and the stick and therefore she knew the place(s) of (1) both the toy and the stick, (2) only the toy, (3) only the stick or (4) neither of them. The subjects observed the hiding processes, but they could not reach the objects, so they had to involve the Helper to retrieve the toy. The dogs were more inclined to signal the place of the toy in each condition and indicated the location of the stick only sporadically. However the children signalled both the location of the toy and that of the stick in those situations when the Helper had similar knowledge regarding the whereabouts of them (i.e. knew or ignored both of them), and in those conditions in which the Helper was ignorant of the whereabouts of only one object the children indicated the place of this object more often than that of the known one. At the same time however, both dogs and children signalled the place of the toy more frequently if the Helper had been absent during toy-hiding compared to those conditions when she had participated in the hiding. Although this behaviour appears to correspond with the Helper's knowledge state, even the subtle distinction made by the children can be interpreted without a casual understanding of knowledge-formation in others.
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Chase, I. D. (2006). Music notation: a new method for visualizing social interaction in animals and humans. Front Zool, 3, 18.
Abstract: ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Researchers have developed a variety of techniques for the visual presentation of quantitative data. These techniques can help to reveal trends and regularities that would be difficult to see if the data were left in raw form. Such techniques can be of great help in exploratory data analysis, making apparent the organization of data sets, developing new hypotheses, and in selecting effects to be tested by statistical analysis. Researchers studying social interaction in groups of animals and humans, however, have few tools to present their raw data visually, and it can be especially difficult to perceive patterns in these data. In this paper I introduce a new graphical method for the visual display of interaction records in human and animal groups, and I illustrate this method using data taken on chickens forming dominance hierarchies. RESULTS: This new method presents data in a way that can help researchers immediately to see patterns and connections in long, detailed records of interaction. I show a variety of ways in which this new technique can be used: (1) to explore trends in the formation of both group social structures and individual relationships; (2) to compare interaction records across groups of real animals and between real animals and computer-simulated animal interactions; (3) to search for and discover new types of small-scale interaction sequences; and (4) to examine how interaction patterns in larger groups might emerge from those in component subgroups. In addition, I discuss how this method can be modified and extended for visualizing a variety of different kinds of social interaction in both humans and animals. CONCLUSION: This method can help researchers develop new insights into the structure and organization of social interaction. Such insights can make it easier for researchers to explain behavioural processes, to select aspects of data for statistical analysis, to design further studies, and to formulate appropriate mathematical models and computer simulations.
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[No authors listed]. (2006). African horse sickness--a serious disease (Vol. 84).
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Bonnie, K. E., & de Waal, F. B. M. (2006). Affiliation promotes the transmission of a social custom: handclasp grooming among captive chimpanzees. Primates, 47(1), 27–34.
Abstract: Handclasp grooming is a unique social custom, known to occur regularly among some, but not all populations of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). As with other cultural behaviors, it is assumed that this distinctive grooming posture is learned socially by one individual from another. However, statistical comparisons among factors thought to influence how a behavior spreads within a group have never, to our knowledge, been conducted. In the present study, the origination and spread of handclasp grooming in a group of captive chimpanzees was followed throughout more than 1,500 h of observation over a period of 12 years. We report on the frequency, bout duration, and number and demography of performers throughout the study period, and compare these findings to those reported for wild populations. We predicted that dyads with strong affiliative ties, measured by time spent in proximity to and grooming one another, were likely to develop a handclasp grooming partnership during the study period. A quadratic assignment procedure was used to compare correlations among observed frequencies of grooming and proximity with handclasp grooming in all possible dyads within the group. As predicted, the formation of new handclasp grooming dyads was positively correlated with the rate of overall grooming and proximity within a dyad. In addition, in nearly all dyads formed, at least one individual had been previously observed to handclasp groom. We concluded that affiliation and individual experience determines the transmission of handclasp grooming among captive chimpanzees.
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