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Crowell-Davis, S. L. (1986). Spatial relations between mares and foals of the Welsh pony (Equus caballus). Anim Beh, 34(4), 1007–1015.
Abstract: Welsh pony mares and foals (Equus caballus) were usually found to be within 1 or 5 m of each other during the first week of the foal's life and gradually spent more time at greater distances as the foals became older. There was an overall levelling of the trend during the 9th-15th weeks of life of the foal, followed by a second period of change during weeks 16-24. Through weeks 21-24, mares and foals spent at least half of their time within 5 m of each other. Proximity was primarily due to foal activity except during foal recumbency. During the first 8 weeks of the foal's life, a mare remained close by when it was recumbent, either by grazing in a circle around it or by standing upright beside it. Mares and foals were most likely to be close together when they were resting upright with the other ponies in the herd and most likely to be far apart when the foal was playing. Similarities in patterns of spatial relationship between the foals of a given mare were demonstrated. There was no difference between colts and filies in the development of independence.
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Jennings, D. J., Gammell, M. P., Carlin, C. M., & Hayden, T. J. (2003). Is the parallel walk between competing male fallow deer, Dama dama, a lateral display of individual quality? Anim. Behav., 65(5), 1005–1012.
Abstract: During competitive encounters protagonists are expected to use signals of individual quality particularly if there is a risk of injury or death. Lateral presentation of body profile, by which information regarding phenotypic characteristics associated with individual quality are displayed, may represent such a strategy. During aggressive interactions, male fallow deer frequently engage in parallel walking which is assumed to represent a mutual display of quality, as mediated by exposure of the maximal profile of the body or antlers. We examined the context and role of the parallel walk during competitive encounters to investigate whether there was evidence that dyads of competing males were assessing differences in phenotypic characteristics. There was no evidence to support the hypotheses that the parallel walk is a lateral display of body size or weaponry or that its use is associated with a reduced level of escalated or risky behaviours during fighting. Total time spent fighting was not shorter when a parallel walk was present than when there was no parallel walk. The parallel walk was highly associated with fighting and it was more likely to be initiated by the subsequent loser. Furthermore, parallel walking frequently followed bouts of fighting and as such may represent a strategy that permits an animal the opportunity to decide whether to continue fighting. Parallel walking was also associated with a failure to resolve contests in favour of one animal indicating that it may be a means of withdrawing from further fighting without incurring a loss in dominance status. Copyright 2003 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd on behalf of The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
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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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Heyes, C. M. (1993). Imitation, culture and cognition. Anim. Behav., 46(5), 999–1010.
Abstract: Abstract. This paper examines the significance of imitation in non-human animals with respect to the phylogenetic origins of culture and cognitive complexity. It is argued that both imitation (learning about behaviour through nonspecific observation) and social learning (learning about the environment through conspecific observation) can mediate social transmission of information, and that neither is likely to play an important role in supporting behavioural traditions or culture. Current evidence suggests that imitation is unlikely to do this because it does not insulate information from modification through individual learning in the retention period between acquisition and re-transmission. Although insignificant in relation to culture, imitation apparently involves complex and little-understood cognitive operations. It is unique in requiring animals spontaneously to equate extrinsic visual input with proprioceptive and/or kinaesthetic feedback from their own actions, but not in requiring or implicating self-consciousness, representation, metarepresentation or a capacity for goal-directed action.
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Miklósi, Á., Topál, J., & Csányi, V. (2004). Comparative social cognition: what can dogs teach us? Anim. Behav., 67(6), 995–1004.
Abstract: Research in comparative social cognition addresses how challenges of social living have formed the cognitive structures that control behaviours involved in communication, social learning and social understanding. In contrast to the traditional psychological approach, recent investigations take both evolutionary and functional questions into account, but the main emphasis is still on the mechanisms of behaviour. Although in traditional research `comparative' meant mainly comparisons between humans and other primates, ethological influences have led to a broadening of the spectrum of species under study. In this review, we evaluated how the study of dogs broadens our understanding of comparative social cognition. In the early days of ethology, dogs enjoyed considerable interest from ethologists, but during the last 20 years, dogs have rarely been studied by ethological methods. Through a complex evolutionary process, dogs became adapted for living in human society; therefore, the human environment and social setting now represents a natural ecological niche for this species. We have evidence that dogs have been selected for adaptations to human social life, and that these adaptations have led to marked changes in their communicative, social, cooperative and attachment behaviours towards humans. Until now, the study of dogs was hindered by the view that they represent an `artificial' species, but by accepting that dogs are adapted to their niche, as are other `natural' species, comparative investigations can be put into new light.
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Feh, C.,. (1990). Long-term paternity data in relation to different aspects of rank for Camargue stallions, Equus caballus. Anim. Behav., 40(5), 995–996.
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Jameson, K. A., Appleby, M. C., & Freeman, L. C. (1999). Finding an appropriate order for a hierarchy based on probabilistic dominance. Anim. Behav., 57(5), 991–998.
Abstract: Methods of ranking individuals in a dominance hierarchy that use transitivity of relationships may obscure irregularities. Furthermore, these methods use only a small proportion of the information available from dominance encounters. This paper presents an intuitively appealing and easily implemented alternative to existing methods for ordering dominance data, developed from the work of Batchelder et al. (1992Journal of Mathematical Psychology36, 185-212). The procedure presented here is based on a mathematical model of paired comparisons and it involves only simple estimation procedures. We illustrate its use with data on dominance among red deerCervus elaphus, stags. The results indicate that dominance relationships are well characterized by the scale values that the model provides, and, because the method provides predictions for all pairings of animals, dominance predictions also exist for pairs of animals that have yet to be observed. Moreover, the dominance outcomes predicted by the model using the order scale are highly correlated with actual dominance observations at all levels. Overall, the procedure described provides a solution to the problem of identifying an appropriate order for a near-linear dominance hierarchy.
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Bonanni, R., Cafazzo, S., Valsecchi, P., & Natoli, E. (2010). Effect of affiliative and agonistic relationships on leadership behaviour in free-ranging dogs. Anim. Behav., 79(5), 981–991.
Abstract: Consensus decisions about the nature and timing of group activities allow animals to maintain group cohesiveness, but also entail costs because individuals often differ with respect to their optimal activity budgets. Two mechanisms whereby animals reach a consensus include ‘consistent leadership’, in which a single dominant individual makes the decision, and ‘variable leadership’ in which several group members contribute to the decision outcome. Sharing of consensus decisions is expected to reduce consensus costs to most group members. Both patterns are thought to emerge from the complexity of social relationships of group members. We investigated the distribution of leadership during group departures in two packs of free-ranging dogs, Canis lupus familiaris, and tested how its distribution between individuals was affected by dominance rank-related affiliative and agonistic relationships. Although leadership was not entirely concentrated on a single group member, both packs had a limited number of habitual leaders. In the largest pack, the pattern of leadership changed from ‘variable’ to nearly ‘consistent’ after its size had shrunk. Habitual leaders were usually old and high-ranking individuals. However, high-ranking dogs that received affiliative submissions in greeting ceremonies were more likely to lead than dominant dogs receiving submissions only in agonistic contexts. During resting times, habitual followers associated more closely with habitual leaders than with other followers. These results suggest that in social species collective movements may arise from the effort of subordinates to maintain close proximity with specific valuable social partners.
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Rutberg, A. T., & Keiper, R. R. (1993). Proximate causes of natal dispersal in feral ponies: some sex differences. Anim. Behav., 46(5), 969–975.
Abstract: Abstract. Fifteen years of data on natal dispersal age and the context of dispersal for the feral ponies of Assateague Island, Maryland are presented. Ninety-seven per cent of males and 81% of females dispersed from their natal groups by 5 years of age. For animals that left their natal group, average age of dispersal was 20[middle dot]8 months for males and 24[middle dot]6 months for females. Male dispersal age was strongly and significantly correlated with number of peers in the natal group, and males dispersing with peers were significantly older than males dispersing without peers, suggesting that males delayed dispersal when peers were available for interaction. Female dispersal age was not influenced by number of peers, but was correlated with age of first reproduction. Factors not influencing dispersal age in either sex were presence of a younger sibling, maternal band transfers, and maternal age and dominance rank. The relatively high frequency of females failing to disperse from their natal groups is puzzling in light of data showing diminished fecundity in non-dispersing pony mares.
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Livoreil, B., & Giraldeau, L. (1997). Patch departure decisions by spice finches foraging singly or in groups. Anim. Behav., 54(4), 967–977.
Abstract: The marginal value theorem predicts that when resources are clumped in space, a forager can maximize its rate of intake by deciding to leave a patch when its current feeding rate falls below the average for the habitat. A group version of the model predicts that when rate-maximizing group members share a patch, they should leave sooner, and each with less gain, than single animals exploiting the same patch. We tested these predictions in the laboratory by measuring patch departure decisions of spice finches, Lonchura punctulataexploiting food patches alone or in groups of three under two habitats that require different travel times. As predicted, group members left the patch sooner and with fewer seeds than single foragers. Unlike the model's assumptions, however, birds did not share the patch equally, and their exploitation curves could not be simply derived from those of single foragers. Grouping decreased the effect of travel time on patch exploitation. Moreover, within each group the bird expected to leave first delayed its departure although it collected fewer seeds than the others. This delayed departure could aim to maintain group membership. We noted an increased variability in seed number collected by group members compared with single foragers, which could be a cost of group foraging.Copyright 1997 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour1997The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour
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