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Author Naug, D.
Title Structure and resilience of the social network in an insect colony as a function of colony size Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Abbreviated Journal Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol.
Volume 63 Issue (up) 7 Pages 1023-1028-1028
Keywords Biomedical and Life Sciences
Abstract Social interactions are critical to the organization of worker activities in insect colonies and their consequent ecological success. The structure of this interaction network is therefore crucial to our understanding of colony organization and functioning. In this paper, I study the properties of the interaction network in the colonies of the social wasp Ropalidia marginata. I find that the network is characterized by a uniform connectivity among individuals with increasing heterogeneity as colonies become larger. Important network parameters are found to be correlated with colony size and I investigate how this is reflected in the organization of work in colonies of different sizes. Finally, I test the resilience of these interaction networks by experimental removal of individuals from the colony and discuss the structural properties of the network that are related to resilience in a social network.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0340-5443 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5213
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Author Ramos-Fernández, G.; Boyer, D.; Aureli, F.; Vick, L.
Title Association networks in spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Abbreviated Journal Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol.
Volume 63 Issue (up) 7 Pages 999-1013-1013
Keywords Biomedical and Life Sciences
Abstract We use two novel techniques to analyze association patterns in a group of wild spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) studied continuously for 8 years. Permutation tests identified association rates higher or lower than chance expectation, indicating active processes of companionship and avoidance as opposed to passive aggregation. Network graphs represented individual adults as nodes and their association rates as weighted edges. Strength and eigenvector centrality (a measure of how strongly linked an individual is to other strongly linked individuals) were used to quantify the particular role of individuals in determining the network's structure. Female–female dyads showed higher association rates than any other type of dyad, but permutation tests revealed that these associations cannot be distinguished from random aggregation. Females formed tightly linked clusters that were stable over time, with the exception of immigrant females who showed little association with any adult in the group. Eigenvector centrality was higher for females than for males. Adult males were associated mostly among them, and although their strength of association with others was lower than that of females, their association rates revealed a process of active companionship. Female–male bonds were weaker than those between same-sex pairs, with the exception of those involving young male adults, who by virtue of their strong connections both with female and male adults, appear as temporary brokers between the female and male clusters of the network. This analytical framework can serve to develop a more complete explanation of social structure in species with high levels of fission–fusion dynamics.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0340-5443 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5220
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Author Ohtsuki, H.; Iwasa, Y.; Nowak, M.A.
Title Indirect reciprocity provides only a narrow margin of efficiency for costly punishment Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Abbreviated Journal Nature
Volume 457 Issue (up) 7225 Pages 79-82
Keywords
Abstract Indirect reciprocity1, 2, 3, 4, 5 is a key mechanism for the evolution of human cooperation. Our behaviour towards other people depends not only on what they have done to us but also on what they have done to others. Indirect reciprocity works through reputation5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. The standard model of indirect reciprocity offers a binary choice: people can either cooperate or defect. Cooperation implies a cost for the donor and a benefit for the recipient. Defection has no cost and yields no benefit. Currently there is considerable interest in studying the effect of costly (or altruistic) punishment on human behaviour18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. Punishment implies a cost for the punished person. Costly punishment means that the punisher also pays a cost. It has been suggested that costly punishment between individuals can promote cooperation. Here we study the role of costly punishment in an explicit model of indirect reciprocity. We analyse all social norms, which depend on the action of the donor and the reputation of the recipient. We allow errors in assigning reputation and study gossip as a mechanism for establishing coherence. We characterize all strategies that allow the evolutionary stability of cooperation. Some of those strategies use costly punishment; others do not. We find that punishment strategies typically reduce the average payoff of the population. Consequently, there is only a small parameter region where costly punishment leads to an efficient equilibrium. In most cases the population does better by not using costly punishment. The efficient strategy for indirect reciprocity is to withhold help for defectors rather than punishing them.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0028-0836 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes 10.1038/nature07601 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4705
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Author Harrison, S.A.; Tong, F.
Title Decoding reveals the contents of visual working memory in early visual areas Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Abbreviated Journal Nature
Volume 458 Issue (up) 7238 Pages 632-635
Keywords
Abstract Visual working memory provides an essential link between perception and higher cognitive functions, allowing for the active maintenance of information about stimuli no longer in view1, 2. Research suggests that sustained activity in higher-order prefrontal, parietal, inferotemporal and lateral occipital areas supports visual maintenance3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and may account for the limited capacity of working memory to hold up to 3–4 items9, 10, 11. Because higher-order areas lack the visual selectivity of early sensory areas, it has remained unclear how observers can remember specific visual features, such as the precise orientation of a grating, with minimal decay in performance over delays of many seconds12. One proposal is that sensory areas serve to maintain fine-tuned feature information13, but early visual areas show little to no sustained activity over prolonged delays14, 15, 16. Here we show that orientations held in working memory can be decoded from activity patterns in the human visual cortex, even when overall levels of activity are low. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and pattern classification methods, we found that activity patterns in visual areas V1–V4 could predict which of two oriented gratings was held in memory with mean accuracy levels upwards of 80%, even in participants whose activity fell to baseline levels after a prolonged delay. These orientation-selective activity patterns were sustained throughout the delay period, evident in individual visual areas, and similar to the responses evoked by unattended, task-irrelevant gratings. Our results demonstrate that early visual areas can retain specific information about visual features held in working memory, over periods of many seconds when no physical stimulus is present.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0028-0836 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes 10.1038/nature07832 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4944
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Author Clutton-Brock, T.
Title Cooperation between non-kin in animal societies Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Abbreviated Journal Nature
Volume 462 Issue (up) 7269 Pages 51-57
Keywords
Abstract Explanations of cooperation between non-kin in animal societies often suggest that individuals exchange resources or services and that cooperation is maintained by reciprocity. But do cooperative interactions between unrelated individuals in non-human animals really resemble exchanges or are they a consequence of simpler mechanisms? Firm evidence of reciprocity in animal societies is rare and many examples of cooperation between non-kin probably represent cases of intra-specific mutualism or manipulation.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0028-0836 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes 10.1038/nature08366 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5270
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Author Raquel Monclús; Heiko G. Rödel
Title Influence of Different Individual Traits on Vigilance Behaviour in European Rabbits Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Ethology Abbreviated Journal Ethology
Volume 115 Issue (up) 8 Pages 758-766
Keywords
Abstract An animal's level of vigilance depends on various environmental factors such as predator presence or the proximity of conspecific competitors. In addition, several individual traits may influence vigilance. We investigated the effects of body condition, social rank and the state of pregnancy on individual vigilance (scanning) rates in individually marked European rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus) of a field enclosure population. We found lower rates in young rabbits than in adult females, but male and female juveniles did not differ. Vigilance of juveniles was positively correlated with their age-dependent body mass (used as a measure of body condition), i.e. young rabbits with lower body condition scanned less. We suggest that juveniles with low body condition were trading off vigilance against feeding to maximise their growth. In contrast, there was no significant correlation between body mass and vigilance in adult females. Adult females increased scanning rates during late pregnancy, which might constitute a behavioural compensation because of their lower capacity to escape predator attacks. In addition, adult females with low social ranks scanned more than high ranking individuals, likely because of their higher risk of attacks by conspecifics. In summary, our results highlight various individual characteristics that influence vigilance behaviour in European rabbits.
Address Unidad de Zoologa, Dpto. Biologa, Universidad Autnoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain; Department of Animal Physiology, University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Place of Publication © 2009 Blackwell Verlag GmbH Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4994
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Author Gácsi, M.; Gyoöri, B.; Virányi, Z.; Kubinyi, E.; Range, F.; Belényi, B.; Miklósi, Á.
Title Explaining Dog Wolf Differences in Utilizing Human Pointing Gestures: Selection for Synergistic Shifts in the Development of Some Social Skills Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication PLoS ONE Abbreviated Journal PLoS ONE
Volume 4 Issue (up) 8 Pages e6584
Keywords
Abstract <sec> <title>Background</title> <p>The comparison of human related communication skills of socialized canids may help to understand the evolution and the epigenesis of gesture comprehension in humans. To reconcile previously contradicting views on the origin of dogs' outstanding performance in utilizing human gestures, we suggest that dog-wolf differences should be studied in a more complex way.</p> </sec><sec> <title>Methodology/Principal Findings</title> <p>We present data both on the performance and the behaviour of dogs and wolves of different ages in a two-way object choice test. Characteristic behavioural differences showed that for wolves it took longer to establish eye contact with the pointing experimenter, they struggled more with the handler, and pups also bit her more before focusing on the human's signal. The performance of similarly hand-reared 8-week-old dogs and wolves did not differ in utilizing the simpler proximal momentary pointing. However, when tested with the distal momentary pointing, 4-month-old pet dogs outperformed the same aged hand reared wolves. Thus early and intensive socialisation does not diminish differences between young dogs and wolves in behaviour and performance. Socialised adult wolves performed similarly well as dogs in this task without pretraining. The success of adult wolves was accompanied with increased willingness to cooperate.</p> </sec><sec> <title>Conclusion/Significance</title> <p>Thus, we provide evidence for the first time that socialised adult wolves are as successful in relying on distal momentary pointing as adult pet dogs. However, the delayed emergence of utilising human distal momentary pointing in wolves shows that these wild canines react to a lesser degree to intensive socialisation in contrast to dogs, which are able to control agonistic behaviours and inhibition of actions in a food related task early in development. We suggest a “synergistic” hypothesis, claiming that positive feedback processes (both evolutionary and epigenetic) have increased the readiness of dogs to attend to humans, providing the basis for dog-human communication.</p> </sec>
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Public Library of Science Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5196
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Author Nguyen, N.; Van Horn, R.; Alberts, S.; Altmann, J.
Title “Friendships” between new mothers and adult males: adaptive benefits and determinants in wild baboons (Papio cynocephalus) Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Abbreviated Journal Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol.
Volume 63 Issue (up) 9 Pages 1331-1344
Keywords Biomedical and Life Sciences
Abstract Close associations between adult males and lactating females and their dependent infants are not commonly described in non-monogamous mammals. However, such associations [sometimes called friendships (Smuts 1985)] are regularly observed in several primate species in which females mate with multiple males during the fertile period. The absence of mating exclusivity among friends suggests that males should invest little in infant care, raising questions about the adaptive significance of friendship bonds. Using data from genetic paternity analyses, patterns of behavior, and long-term demographic and reproductive records, we evaluated the extent to which friendships in four multi-male, multi-female yellow baboon (Papio cynocephalus) groups in Amboseli, Kenya represent joint parental care of offspring or male mating effort. We found evidence that mothers and infants benefited directly from friendships; friendships provided mother–infant dyads protection from harassment from other adult and immature females. In addition, nearly half of all male friends were the genetic fathers of offspring and had been observed mating with mothers during the days of most likely conception for those offspring. In contrast, nearly all friends who were not fathers were also not observed to consort with the mother during the days of most likely conception, suggesting that friendships between mothers and non-fathers did not result from paternity confusion. Finally, we found no evidence that prior friendship increased a male’s chances of mating with a female in future reproductive cycles. Our results suggest that, for many male–female pairs at Amboseli, friendships represented a form of biparental care of offspring. Males in the remaining friendship dyads may be trading protection of infants in exchange for some resources or services not yet identified. Our study is the first to find evidence that female primates gain social benefits from their early associations with adult males.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Springer Berlin / Heidelberg Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0340-5443 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5243
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Author Warneken, F.; Tomasello, M.
Title Varieties of altruism in children and chimpanzees Type Abstract
Year 2009 Publication Trends in cognitive sciences Abbreviated Journal Trends Cogn Sci
Volume 13 Issue (up) 9 Pages 397-402
Keywords
Abstract Recent empirical research has shed new light on the perennial question of human altruism. A number of recent studies suggest that from very early in ontogeny young children have a biological predisposition to help others achieve their goals, to share resources with others and to inform others of things helpfully. Humans nearest primate relatives, such as chimpanzees, engage in some but not all of these behaviors: they help others instrumentally, but they are not so inclined to share resources altruistically and they do not inform others of things helpfully. The evolutionary roots of human altruism thus appear to be much more complex than previously supposed.
Address
Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Elsevier Science, Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1364-6613 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ S1364-6613(09)00149-1 DOI - 10.1016/j.tics.2009.06.008 Serial 5608
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