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Valone; Thomas J.; Templeton, Jennifer J. |
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Public information for the assessment of quality: a widespread social phenomenon |
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Journal Article |
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2002 |
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Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences |
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Phil. Trans. Biol. Sci. |
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357 |
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1427 |
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1549-1557 |
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Breeding Patch Assessment Eavesdropping Fighting Mate Choice Copying Sociality Vicarious Sampling |
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We propose that the use of public information about the quality of environmental resources, obtained by monitoring the sampling behaviour of others, may be a widespread social phenomenon allowing individuals to make faster, more accurate assessments of their environment. To demonstrate this (i) we define public information and distinguish it from other kinds of social information; (ii) we review empirical work demonstrating the benefits and costs of using public information to estimate food patch quality; (iii) we examine recent work showing that individuals may also be using public information to improve their estimates of the quality of such disparate environmental parameters as breeding patches, opponents and mates; and finally (iv) we suggest avenues of future work to better understand the nature of public information use and when it might be used or ignored. Such work should lead to a more complete understanding of the behaviour of individuals in social aggregations. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4273 |
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Lloyd, A.S.; Martin, J.E.; Bornett-Gauci, H.L.I.; Wilkinson, R.G. |
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Horse personality: Variation between breeds |
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Journal Article |
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2008 |
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Applied Animal Behaviour Science |
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Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. |
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112 |
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3-4 |
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369-383 |
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Horse personality; Breed; Assessment; Questionnaire survey; Animal |
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Anecdotal evidence from horse owners and handlers suggests the existence of breed typical behaviour and personality in horses. This is further supported by current research on heritability of personality characteristics in a range of species. The Horse Personality Questionnaire (HPQ) is a 25-item rating method that has previously been shown to be reliable for the assessment of personality in horses. Principal component analysis on HPQ data has identified six underlying personality components in horses. These are Dominance, Anxiousness, Excitability, Protection, Sociability and Inquisitiveness. Using the HPQ a survey of 1223 horses of eight different breeds was completed. Data were analysed to explore any differences in personality between breeds across the six personality components. Breed differences in personality were identified, and it was noted that variability between breeds varied between personality components. Anxiousness and Excitability showed the most variation between breeds, whilst Dominance and Protection showed the least variance. The results identified breed typical personalities that were comparable to results from previous studies as well as anecdotal evidence provided by the popular equine literature. The results are discussed in terms of the potential selection pressures that may have resulted in these differences. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4279 |
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Beaugrand, J.P |
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Relative importance of initial individual differences, agonistic experience, and assessment accuracy during hierarchy formation: a simulation study |
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1997 |
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Behavioural Processes |
Abbreviated Journal |
Behav. Process. |
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41 |
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177-192 |
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Dominance; Hierarchy formation; RHP; Agonistic experience; Assessment; Self-organization; Simulation |
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This simulation study explores some conditions leading to transitivity within dominance orders. Combinations of three parameters were varied to study their consequences upon hierarchy formation and upon the degree of linearity of resultant structures. The factors studied were: (1) the importance of initial resource holding potentials (RHPs); (2) changes brought in RHPs by successive victories and defeats; and (3) accuracy of RHP assessment made by opponents. Results show that initial differences in RHP always lead to perfectly transitive chains whose rank order reflects the importance of initial differences. Even when simulated animals make important errors while assessing each other during round robin tournaments, emerging dominance structures are perfectly linear and ranks obtained in the structure are highly correlated with initial values in RHPs. Moreover, accumulated experiences of victory and/or defeat alone always lead to perfectly linear hierarchies. Their combination with initial individual differences in RHP led to the same conclusion. Even when assessment was far from being perfect, not only perfect chains were formed but initial values in RHPs significantly influenced rank order when the contribution of victory and defeat to RHP was relatively unimportant. The higher the importance of victory and defeat to RHP as compared to that of initial RHP values, the lower was the correlation between initial RHP values and the ranks order reached by individuals in the resultant hierarchies. In general also, the lower the variation within initial RHPs, the lower was the correlation between initial RHPs and ranks in the hierarchy. At a given level of initial RHP dispersion, increasing the contribution of victory and defeat to RHP diminished the correlation between initial RHP values and obtained ranks. In addition, inaccurate assessment reduced the overall correlation, especially when dispersion of initial RHP values was low and the contribution of victory and defeat relatively unimportant. These results shed some light on the controversy about the respective roles of initial individual attributes and that of patterns of resolution in the formation of animal hierarchies. We present the emergence of social order within closed systems as those simulated here as a case of self-organization. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4290 |
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Beaugrand, J.P. |
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Relative importance of initial individual differences, victory and defeat experiences, and assessment accuracy during hierarchy formation: A simulation study |
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Miscellaneous |
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1997 |
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Cogprints |
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41 |
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177-192 |
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Dominance; Hierarchy formation; RHP; agonistic experience; Assessment; Self-organization; Simulation |
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This simulation study explores some conditions leading to transitivity within dominance orders. Combinations of three parameters were varied to study their consequences upon hierarchy formation and upon the degree of linearity of resultant structures. The factors studied were (i) the importance of initial Resource Holding Potentials (RHPs) , (ii) changes brought in RHPs by successive victories and defeats, and (iii) accuracy of RHP assessment made by opponents. Results show that initial differences in RHP always lead to perfectly transitive chains whose rank order reflects the importance of initial differences. Even when simulated animals make important errors while assessing each other during round robin tournaments, emerging dominance structures are perfectly linear and ranks obtained in the structure are highly correlated with initial values in RHPs. Moreover, accumulated experiences of victory and/or defeat alone always lead to perfectly linear hierarchies. Their combination with initial individual differences in RHP led to the same conclusion. Even when assessment was far from being perfect, not only perfect chains were formed but initial values in RHPs significantly influenced rank order when the contribution of victory and defeat to RHP was relatively unimportant. The higher the importance of victory and defeat to RHP as compared to that of initial RHP values, the lower was the correlation between initial RHP values and the ranks order reached by individuals in the resultant hierarchies. In general also, the lower the variation within initial RHPs, the lower was the correlation between initial RHPs and ranks in the hierarchy. At a given level of initial RHP dispersion, increasing the contribution of victory and defeat to RHP diminished the correlation between initial RHP values and obtained ranks. In addition, inaccurate assessment reduced the overall correlation, especially when dispersion of initial RHP values was low and the contribution of victory and defeat was high. These results shed some light on the controversy about the respective roles of initial individual attributes and that of patterns of resolution in the formation of animal hierarchies. We present the emergence of social order within closed systems as those simulated here as a case of self-organization. |
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Elsevier |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ cogprints:1965 |
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4291 |
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Jonart, L.M.; Hill, G.E.; Badyaev, A.V. |
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Fighting ability and motivation: determinants of dominance and contest strategies in females of a passerine bird |
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2007 |
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Animal Behaviour. |
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Anim. Behav. |
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74 |
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6 |
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1675-1681 |
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aggression; Carpodacus mexicanus; communication; house finch; passerines; resource holding potential |
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The communication of aggressive motivation or fighting ability has important fitness consequences for competing animals. Selection should favour rapid and honest communication between opponents to settle dominance relationships while avoiding prolonged and intense fighting. We investigated factors that influence fighting strategies and contest outcomes in female house finches, Carpodacus mexicanus, specifically focusing on the following questions. (1) What social contexts trigger an aggressive response? (2) Does body size and condition contribute to female fighting ability? (3) Do contextual factors, such as mate presence, nest status, nest proximity, and site experience contribute to fighting motivation? (4) Does contest intensity and duration increase as the differences in fighting ability between opponents decrease? (5) What is the relative contribution of fighting ability and aggressive motivation to the outcome of a contest? We found that aggression was triggered most frequently by female intrusions in the vicinity of nest and by extrapair female intrusions on an established pair. Female fighting and contest outcomes were strongly influenced by body condition and body size, and females were more motivated to initiate fights and won more contests when their mates were present. Females at the later breeding stages and those fighting closer to their nests were dominant and won more fights compared to females at earlier breeding stages or further from their nests. Females initiated a greater proportion of contests against opponents with similar local familiarity and breeding history. Escalated and prolonged contests, while rare, occurred exclusively between females of the most similar body size and condition. When differences in body condition between opponents are not easily perceived, contestants might escalate contests for more reliable assessments of relative fighting ability. Finally, body condition was not a strong determinant of contest outcome in the contexts with easily assessed differences in the resource value (e.g. mate presence), but without these motivational differences, body condition was the ultimate determinant of contest outcomes. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4317 |
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Lansade, L.; Bouissou, M.-F.; Erhard, H.W. |
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Reactivity to isolation and association with conspecifics: A temperament trait stable across time and situations |
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2008 |
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Applied Animal Behaviour Science |
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Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci. |
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106 |
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2-4 |
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355-373 |
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Horse; Equus caballus; Temperament; Trait; Isolation; Conspecific association; Stability |
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A temperament trait is generally defined as individual differences in behaviour that are present early in life and relatively stable across situations and over time. The aim of this study was to test the existence of a trait <<gregariousness>> in horses, by testing the stability across situations and over time of the responses to different social events. Sixty-six Welsh ponies and 44 Anglo-Arab horses were successively tested at 8 months and 1.5 years of age. Among them, 33 ponies and 21 horses were also tested at 2.5 years of age. They were submitted to four test situations: isolation and separation from, attraction towards and passing conspecifics. We carried out the analysis using each of four test groups as a unit (e.g. 33 Welsh ponies born in 2001, tested in isolation). Isolation and separation stood out as tests that showed a high consistency within test, across tests and across time. The most interesting behavioural parameter was the frequency of neighing, which was well correlated with other parameters measured in the same tests, such as defecation, locomotion and vigilance, as well as across the 3 years (e.g. for separation test: 0.41 < R < 0.61). Therefore, the behaviour of neighing observed in separation or isolation tests as early as 8 months of age appears to be a good indicator of similar behaviour in similar situations later in life, but also of other behaviours which can render the horse difficult to use. No parameter recorded during the attraction test presented stability across situations and time: the reactions to this test were not the expression of a stable characteristic of the individual and did not reflect the same characteristic as the three other tests. Of the different parameters recorded during the passing conspecifics test, the time to cross the arrival line near conspecifics showed good stability across years (0.35 < R < 0.68). This parameter was also correlated with many others recorded during the same test, and also, to a certain extent, to the frequency of neighing in the isolation and separation tests. This stability across responses expressed in various social contexts, and this stability over time, from 8 months to 2.5 years of age suggest the existence of a trait of gregariousness in the horse. From a practical point of view, that means it is possible to estimate the level of gregariousness of a horse as early as 8 months of age. Furthermore, additional analysis shows that gregariousness decreases with age. |
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Admin @ knut @ |
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4350 |
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Wilson, R.T. |
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Biodiversity of Domestic Livestock in the Republic of Yemen |
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2003 |
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Tropical Animal Health and Production |
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35 |
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1 |
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27-46 |
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Abstract This paper describes the domestic livestock of the Republic of Yemen and aspires to complement earlier sources listing or partially describing `breeds'. It attempts to cover all species and provide indications of production parameters through a literature review and via field observations made by the author in 1999. Information is provided on livestock numbers and the economic importance of animal production. Most animals are kept in sedentary mixed crop-livestock production systems; transhumant systems have the next greatest number of stock; with nomadic systems being of least and declining importance. Yemen's livestock appear to comprise at least 11 breeds of sheep, 5 breeds of goat, 2 breeds of cattle, 4 breeds of camel, 2 breeds of donkey and 1 breed of horse. There are no data on breeds of poultry but domestic fowl (where clearly considerable diversity exists) and pigeons are kept. There is little formal information on the history and relationships of most breeds. Some appear to be of ancient local origin, whereas others show affinities with those of neighbouring and other countries. None of the identified types is considered endangered, so conservation would be premature. A more formal and detailed genetic characterization, to add to the largely morphological and traditional classification, may, however, reveal such a need. |
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Abstract This paper describes the domestic livestock of the Republic of Yemen and aspires to complement earlier sources listing or partially describing `breeds'. It attempts to cover all species and provide indications of production parameters through a literature review and via field observations made by the author in 1999. Information is provided on livestock numbers and the economic importance of animal production. Most animals are kept in sedentary mixed crop-livestock production systems; transhumant systems have the next greatest number of stock; with nomadic systems being of least and declining importance. Yemen's livestock appear to comprise at least 11 breeds of sheep, 5 breeds of goat, 2 breeds of cattle, 4 breeds of camel, 2 breeds of donkey and 1 breed of horse. There are no data on breeds of poultry but domestic fowl (where clearly considerable diversity exists) and pigeons are kept. There is little formal information on the history and relationships of most breeds. Some appear to be of ancient local origin, whereas others show affinities with those of neighbouring and other countries. None of the identified types is considered endangered, so conservation would be premature. A more formal and detailed genetic characterization, to add to the largely morphological and traditional classification, may, however, reveal such a need. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4389 |
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Connor, R.C.; Wells, R.S.; Mann, J.; Read,A.J. |
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The bottlenose dolphin: Social relationships in a fission-fusion society. |
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2000 |
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Cetacean Societies: Field Studies of Dolphins and Whales. |
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91-126 |
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cetacean social behavior, male alliance formation, most cetacean species, platanistid river dolphins, cetacean sociality, strategies and social bonds, female cetaceans, many cetologists, most mysticetes, sperm whale calves, passive fishing nets, variant whistles, historical whaling records, cetacean systematics, stable matrilineal groups, peak calving season, suction cup tags, mutualistic groups, cetacean vocalizations, focal animal studies, larger odontocetes, predictive signaling, individual cetaceans, sperm whale clicks, resident killer whales |
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Book Description
“Part review, part testament to extraordinary dedication, and part call to get involved, Cetacean Societies highlights the achievements of behavioral ecologists inspired by the challenges of cetaceans and committed to the exploration of a new world.”-from the preface by Richard Wrangham
Long-lived, slow to reproduce, and often hidden beneath the water's surface, whales and dolphins (cetaceans) have remained elusive subjects for scientific study even though they have fascinated humans for centuries. Until recently, much of what we knew about cetaceans came from commercial sources such as whalers and trainers for dolphin acts. Innovative research methods and persistent efforts, however, have begun to penetrate the depths to reveal tantalizing glimpses of the lives of these mammals in their natural habitats.
Cetacean Societies presents the first comprehensive synthesis and review of these new studies. Groups of chapters focus on the history of cetacean behavioral research and methodology; state-of-the-art reviews of information on four of the most-studied species: bottlenose dolphins, killer whales, sperm whales, and humpback whales; and summaries of major topics, including group living, male and female reproductive strategies, communication, and conservation drawn from comparative research on a wide range of species.
Written by some of the world's leading cetacean scientists, this landmark volume will benefit not just students of cetology but also researchers in other areas of behavioral and conservation ecology as well as anyone with a serious interest in the world of whales and dolphins.
Contributors are Robin Baird, Phillip Clapham, Jenny Christal, Richard Connor, Janet Mann, Andrew Read, Randall Reeves, Amy Samuels, Peter Tyack, Linda Weilgart, Hal Whitehead, Randall S. Wells, and Richard Wrangham. |
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University of Chicago Press |
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Chicago |
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Mann, J.;Connor, R.C.; Tyack, P.L.;Whitehead, H. |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4427 |
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Drummond, H. |
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Dominance in vertebrate broods and litters |
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2006 |
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Quarterly Review of Biology |
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81 |
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1 |
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3-32 |
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Aggression; Assessment; Dominance; Individual recognition; Sibling conflict; Trained losing |
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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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Instituto de Ecología, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, A.P. 70-275, 04510 D.F., Mexico |
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Cited By (since 1996): 20; Export Date: 23 October 2008; Source: Scopus |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4559 |
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Whitehead, H. |
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Precision and power in the analysis of social structure using associations |
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2008 |
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Animal Behaviour. |
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Anim. Behav. |
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75 |
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3 |
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1093-1099 |
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association; precision; social structure; statistical power |
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I develop guidelines for assessing the precision and power of statistical techniques that are frequently used to study nonhuman social systems using observed dyadic associations. Association indexes estimate the proportion of time that two individuals are associated. Binomial approximation and nonparametric bootstrap methods produce similar estimates of the precision of association indexes. For a mid-range (0.4-0.9) association index to have a standard error of less than 0.1 requires about 15 observations of the pair associated, and for it to be less than 0.05, this rises to 50 observations. The coefficient of variation among dyads of the proportion of time that pairs of individuals are actually associated describes social differentiation (S), and this may be estimated from association data using maximum likelihood. With a poorly differentiated population (S~0.2), a data set needs about five observed associations per dyad to achieve a correlation between true and estimated association indexes of r=~0.4. It requires about 10 times as much data to achieve a representation with r=~0.8. Permutation tests usually reject the null hypothesis that individuals have no preferred associates when S2H>5, where H is the mean number of observed associations per individual. Thus most situations require substantial numbers of observations of associations to give useful portrayals of social systems, and sparse association data inform only when social differentiation is high. |
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0003-3472 |
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Equine Behaviour @ team @ |
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4692 |
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