Abstract: We describe a series of playback experiments designed to test whether free-ranging baboons, Papio cynocephalus ursinus, recognize the calls of other group members and also associate signallers with their close genetic relatives. Pairs of unrelated females were played sequences of calls that mimicked a fight between their relatives. As controls, the same females heard sequences that involved either (1) only the more dominant female's relative or (2) neither of the females' relatives. When call sequences involved their relatives, subjects looked towards the speaker for a longer duration than when the sequences involved nonkin. When the sequences involved the other female's relative, they also looked towards that female. Subjects did not look towards one another when call sequences involved nonkin. Dominant subjects were more likely to supplant their subordinate partners following playbacks of sequences that mimicked a dispute between their relatives than following the two control trials. In contrast, both subjects were more likely to approach one another and to interact in a friendly manner following the two control trials than following the test trial. Results indicate that female baboons recognize the screams and threat grunts not only of their own close relatives but also of unrelated individuals. They also replicate previous studies in suggesting that female monkeys recognize the close associates of other individuals and adjust their interactions with others according to recent events involving individuals other than themselves. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.

Abstract: The way in which cognitive functioning is affected by stressors is an important area of research for applied ethologists because stress caused by captive conditions may disrupt cognitive processes and lead to welfare and husbandry problems. Such problems may be minimised through an understanding of the links between stress and cognition. The effects of stress on cognitive function have been studied in disciplines ranging from human perceptual psychology to animal neuroscience. The aim of this paper is to provide an introduction to this research, focusing on the effects of stressors on attention, memory formation and memory recall. Findings from such a diverse literature with little apparent inter-disciplinary communication are inevitably complex and often contradictory. Nevertheless, some generalities do emerge. The idea that an inverted U-shaped relationship exists between an individual's state of stress or arousal and its ability to perform a cognitive task effectively, the so-called Yerkes-Dodson law, is commonly encountered. The law has limited explanatory value because it is unlikely that different stressors act on cognitive function via the same intervening, non-specific state. Furthermore, the law only provides a very general description of the relationship between stress and cognitive function. Empirical research on attention and memory processes reveals more specific findings. Stressors appear to cause shifts, lapses and narrowing of attention, and can also influence decision speed. These processes may be viewed as serving an adaptive role helping the animal to search for and scrutinise a source of danger. There is conflicting evidence as to whether hormones involved in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal stress response play a part in these processes. These hormones and those involved in the sympathetic-adrenomedullary stress response do appear to play an important role in memory formation. Low or moderate concentrations of circulating glucocorticoids and catecholamines can enhance memory formation, while excessively high or prolonged elevations of these hormones can lead to memory disruption. The effects of stressors on memory recall are less clear. There is evidence for disruptive effects, and for facilitatory effects indicating state-dependent memory recall; events experienced under conditions of high arousal may be best recalled under similar conditions. Applied ethologists have the opportunity to extend work in this area, which often involves studies of single stressors/stress hormones acting in isolation and limited measures of cognitive function, by focusing on real-life husbandry stressors encountered by captive animals. This will yield fundamental information which also has direct relevance to animal welfare and management issues.

Abstract: Studies of parental investment in mammals have frequently used suckling behaviour to estimate energy transfer from mother to offspring, and consequently to measure maternal input. Such studies assume that the more an offspring sucks, the more milk it will receive. This assumption has been questioned, and a review of the literature found little support for it. To test if suckling behaviour provided an accurate index of milk or energy intake we used a radioactive isotope technique to label the milk of thoroughbred mares and to measure milk transfer to foals. We found no significant linear relationship between usual measures of suckling behaviour and milk or energy intake. No behaviours associated with suckling nor with characteristics of mares and foals improved the relationship; only the number of butts associated with each suck episode even approached significance. If we had used suckling behaviour to test theories on differential maternal investment our conclusions would have been in error. For example, female foals tended to suck for longer than males did but there was no difference in the amount of milk transferred. Consequently, we show that measures of suckling behaviour do not adequately predict milk intake in the domestic horse and we suggest that conclusions about differential maternal investment in mammals based on suckling behaviour are likely to be in error. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.

Abstract: A study of a herd of Camargue horsesEquus caballus, showed that while the majority of high-ranking stallions held single-male harems, some sons of low-ranking mares, being low ranking themselves, formed alliances that could last a lifetime. The two stallions were each other's closest associate and preferential grooming partner. Alliances were based on coalitions in which either both partners confronted an intruder synchronously or the dominant of the pair tended the female(s) while the subordinate simultaneously displayed towards the rival. Alliance partners were of similar age but were not more closely related to each other than to other stallions in the herd. Long-term paternity data revealed that subordinates sired close to a quarter of the foals born into the alliance group, and significantly more foals than low-ranking stallions in the herd adopting a `sneak'-mating strategy. The dominant appeared to benefit from the presence of his subordinate partner. Fights occurred all year round, and the subordinate stallion of each alliance pair fought outside competitors more than twice as often as the dominant. Forming short-term alliances before defending mares on their own may enhance long-term reproductive success for both partners. Other benefits to both partners include higher survivorship of their foals and increased access to proven reproductive mares. These results suggest that the relationship between alliance partners is based on mutualism, but several conditions for reciprocity seem to be fulfilled: the benefit to the dominant (assistance in fights), and the benefit to the subordinate (access to reproduction), are both costly to the other partner and delayed in time.

Abstract: When detecting a predator, some prey animals respond in a counterintuitive fashion by approaching, rather than fleeing, that potential threat of extinction. This seemingly paradoxical behaviour, known aspredator inspection, has been reported for a wide variety of taxa--and therefore can be assumed to be adaptive. However, the view of predator inspection as a paradoxical behaviour rests on two implicit assumptions: (a) initial predator detecting is unambiguous, with no uncertainty in discriminating between hunting and non hunting members of predator species, or members of predator species and unrelated phenomena; (b) the costs of flight are negligible relative to the risk of predation. Upon reflection assumption (a) is not really tenable. Whereas assumption (b) is not consistent with experimental evidence [Godin & Crossman (1994)Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol.34,359-366]. Given that predator detection is ambiguous and the costs of flight are not negligible, a prey individual may benefit by a closer approach to the source of the alarming signals, thus improving its assessment of the situation--despite the increased risk of predation. In this paper, the above statement is given rigor by reformulating the problem in game theoretical terms. The results indicate that a prey will minimize its costs by performing predator inspection whenever its degree of certainty regarding predator identification and/or assessment of its intentions is less than a threshold, which is determined by the model's parameters.