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Author Lansade, L.; Bouissou, M.-F. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Reactivity to humans: A temperament trait of horses which is stable across time and situations Type Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Applied Animal Behaviour Science Abbreviated Journal Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci.  
  Volume 114 Issue 3-4 Pages 492-508  
  Keywords Horse; Equus caballus; Reactivity to humans; Temperament trait; Personality; Behavioural consistency  
  Abstract The aim of this study was to test the existence of a “reactivity-to-humans” trait which is stable over time and across situations. For this purpose, four test situations were repeated on the same animals at 8 months, 1.5 years (N = 110 horses) and 2.5 years of age (N = 54 horses). These situations involved a “familiar passive human test” during which a familiar person stayed motionless in the test pen, a “familiar active human test” and an “unfamiliar active human test” during which a familiar or unfamiliar person attempted to touch the horse, and a “halter-fitting and heart-rate measurement test”, during which the horse was haltered and equipped with a surcingle and then had its heart-rate measured. Many behavioural variables were recorded during the tests, and correlations between ages and variables measured during other situations were investigated. When correlations were found, we concluded that the variables corresponded to temperament traits which are stable over time and across situations. The horses tested were divided into four groups according to breed (Anglo-Arab and Welsh) and year of birth (2001 and 2002). Data for each group were analysed separately with Spearman rank correlations. Regarding stability over time, there was a strong correlation between ages in the frequency of licking/nibbling the passive human, the time taken by a familiar or unfamiliar person to touch the horse, and the time taken to fit a halter (e.g. the time taken to touch the horse's muzzle was significantly correlated between ages in 7 out of the 8 possible cases: 0.40 <= R <= 0.67). Regarding stability across situations, results indicate that the more frequently a horse sniffed, licked or nibbled a passive human, the easier it was for either a familiar or unfamiliar active human to touch and halter it. Moreover, a horse which could be touched easily by a familiar human could also be touched and haltered easily by an unfamiliar human. These behaviours, which are linked directly to humans, therefore indicate good stability over time and across situations. In conclusion, this stability suggests the existence of a “reactivity-to-humans” temperament trait, whether the human is passive or active, familiar or unfamiliar. When the animals do not have frequent contact with humans, this reactivity is stable over time and can be measured as early as 8 months of age using the behavioural variables cited above.  
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  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0168-1591 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4710  
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Author Lansade, L.; Bouissou, M.-F.; Erhard, H.W. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Fearfulness in horses: A temperament trait stable across time and situations Type Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Applied Animal Behaviour Science Abbreviated Journal Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci.  
  Volume 115 Issue 3-4 Pages 182-200  
  Keywords Horse; Temperament; Fearfulness; Novelty; Suddenness; Behavioural tests  
  Abstract The purpose of this study was to test the existence of a “fearfulness” trait in horses, by testing the stability across situations and over time of the responses to different fear-eliciting situations. It was also to identify which behavioural parameters are the best indicators of this trait. Sixty-six Welsh ponies and 44 Anglo-Arab horses were successively tested at 8 months and 1.5 years of age. Of these, 33 Welsh ponies and 21 Anglo-Arabs were also tested at 2.5 years of age. At each age, they were subjected to four test situations. The first test involved the introduction of a novel object in the test pen (novel object test). In the second test, a novel area was placed in the pen between the horse and a bucket of food, to determine the time the horse took to cross the area (novel area test). Finally, the third test consisted in suddenly opening an umbrella in front of the horse while it was eating (surprise test). During these tests, many behavioural parameters were recorded. A fourth test consisted of a surprise test during which the horse was held by a handler while its heart rate was measured. Spearman correlations were used to identify links between behavioural parameters measured during different tests and between different ages. Reactions to the first three tests showed consistency between them and over time. Among all the behavioural parameters measured during these tests, some presented high stability over time and were well correlated with behaviours expressed during other tests, indicating they are the best indicators of a fearfulness trait: the frequency of licking/nibbling the novel object, the time to put one foot on the novel area and to eat from a bucket placed just behind it, and the flight distance and the time to eat under the opened umbrella. The stability across responses expressed in various fear-eliciting events and over time from 8 months to 2.5 years of age suggests the existence of a [`]fearfulness' trait in horses. The different indexes of heart rate measured or calculated during the surprise effect present limited stability over time and almost no correlation with the behavioural parameters measured during the other three tests. We conclude that, in contrast to the previously mentioned behaviours, these are not reliable measures of a temperament trait. From a practical point of view, this study shows that it is possible to identify a horse's level of fearfulness as early as 8 months of age using the first three tests.  
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  ISSN 0168-1591 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5167  
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Author Gould, J.L. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Animal Navigation: The Evolution of Magnetic Orientation Type Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Current Biology Abbreviated Journal  
  Volume 18 Issue 11 Pages R482-R484  
  Keywords  
  Abstract Summary Animals have several types of magnetic organ, often separately specialized for determining direction versus location. Recent results offer hints about how these once-unimaginable detectors may have evolved.  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0960-9822 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4770  
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Author Uher, J.; Asendorpf, J.B.; Call, J. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Personality in the behaviour of great apes: temporal stability, cross-situational consistency and coherence in response Type Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 75 Issue 1 Pages 99-112  
  Keywords behaviour prediction; bonobo; bottom-up approach; chimpanzee; gorilla; individual differences; orang-utan; personality; traits  
  Abstract Using a multidisciplinary approach, the present study complements ethological behaviour measurements with basic theoretical concepts, methods and approaches of the personality psychological trait paradigm. Its adoptability and usefulness for animal studies are tested exemplarily on a sample of 20 zoo-housed great apes (five of each of the following species): bonobos, Pan paniscus; chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes verus; gorillas, Gorilla gorilla gorilla; and orang-utans, Pongo pygmaeus abelii. Data on 76 single trait-relevant behaviours were recorded in a series of 14 laboratory-based situations and in two different group situations. Data collection was repeated completely after a break of 2 weeks within a 60-day period. All behaviour records were sufficiently reliable. Individual- and variable-oriented analyses showed high/substantial temporal stability on different levels of aggregation. Distinctive and stable individual situational and response profiles clarified the importance of situations and of multiple trait-relevant behaviours. The present study calls for a closer collaboration between behavioural biologists and personality psychologists to tap the full potential of animal personality research.  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4278  
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Author Palagi, E. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Sharing the motivation to play: the use of signals in adult bonobos Type Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 75 Issue 3 Pages 887-896  
  Keywords bonobo; full play face; Pan paniscus; play face; playful propensity; ritualization; social play; social tolerance; solitary play; visual communication  
  Abstract Gestures and facial displays are involved in regulating many aspects of mammal social life such as aggression, dominance-subordinate relationships, appeasement and play. Playful activity is an interesting behaviour for examining the role of signals as intentional communication systems. When animals play they perform patterns that are used in other serious contexts. To avoid miscommunication, many species have evolved signals to maintain a playful mood. Bonobos, Pan paniscus, with their flexible social relationships and playful propensity, may represent a good model species to test some hypotheses on adult play signalling. I analysed the potential roles of facial play expressions and solitary play in soliciting and regulating social play and found that adult bonobos used the play face (relaxed open-mouth display) in a selective manner. Play faces were more frequent during social than solitary play and, within social play, polyadic sessions (even though less frequent than dyadic sessions) were characterized by a higher frequency of signals. Following the rule of play intensity matching, play faces were more frequent when the two players matched in age and size (sessions among adults). Moreover, among dyads there was a positive correlation between the frequency of aggressive interactions performed and the frequency of play signals used, thus suggesting that signals are crucial in play negotiations among individuals showing high baseline levels of aggression. Finally, solitary play, especially when it involved pirouettes and somersaults, had an important role in triggering social play.  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4316  
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Author Schwab, C.; Bugnyar, T.; Schloegl, C.; Kotrschal, K. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Enhanced social learning between siblings in common ravens, Corvus corax Type Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 75 Issue 2 Pages 501-508  
  Keywords affiliation; cognition; common raven; Corvus corax; siblings; social learning; social relations  
  Abstract It has been suggested that social dynamics affect social learning but empirical support for this idea is scarce. Here we show that affiliate relationships among kin indeed enhance the performance of common ravens, Corvus corax, in a social learning task. Via daily behavioural protocols we first monitored social dynamics in our group of captive young ravens. Siblings spent significantly more time in close proximity to each other than did nonsiblings. We subsequently tested birds on a stimulus enhancement task in model-observer dyads composed of both siblings and nonsiblings. During demonstration the observer could watch the model manipulating one particular object (target object) in an adjacent room. After removing the model, the observer was confronted with five different objects including the former target object. Observers from sibling dyads handled the target object for significantly longer periods of time as compared with the other four available objects, whereas observers from nonsibling dyads did not show a preference for the target object. Also, siblings matched the model's decision to cache or not to cache objects significantly more often than did nonsiblings. Hence, siblings were likely to attend to both, the behaviour of the model (caching or noncaching) and object-specific details. Our results support the hypothesis that affiliate relations between individuals affect the transmission of information and may lead to directed social learning even when spatial proximity has been experimentally controlled for.  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5300  
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Author Wey, T.; Blumstein, D.T.; Shen, W.; Jordán, F. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Social network analysis of animal behaviour: a promising tool for the study of sociality Type Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 75 Issue 2 Pages 333-344  
  Keywords animal behaviour; quantifying sociality; social network analysis; social structure  
  Abstract Social animals live and interact together, forming complex relationships and social structure. These relationships can have important fitness consequences, but most studies do not explicitly measure those relationships. An approach that explicitly measures relationships will further our understanding of social complexity and the consequences of both direct and indirect interactions. Social network analysis is the study of social groups as networks of nodes connected by social ties. This approach examines individuals and groups in the context of relationships between group members. Application of social network analysis to animal behaviour can advance the field by identifying and quantifying specific attributes of social relationships, many of which are not captured by more common measures of sociality, such as group size. Sophisticated methods for network construction and analysis exist in other fields, but until recently, have seen relatively little application to animal systems. We present a brief history of social network analysis, a description of basic concepts and previous applications to animal behaviour. We then highlight relevance and constraints of some network measures, including results from an original study of the effect of sampling on network parameter estimates, and we end with promising directions for research. By doing so, we provide a prospective overview of social network analysis' general utility for the study of animal social behaviour.  
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  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4691  
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Author Whitehead, H. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Precision and power in the analysis of social structure using associations Type Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 75 Issue 3 Pages 1093-1099  
  Keywords association; precision; social structure; statistical power  
  Abstract 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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  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4692  
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Author Lusseau, D.; Whitehead, H.; Gero, S. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Incorporating uncertainty into the study of animal social networks Type Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 75 Issue 5 Pages 1809-1815  
  Keywords bootstrap; social behaviour; social network; social structure  
  Abstract  
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  Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title  
  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5173  
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Author Stueckle, S.; Zinner, D. url  doi
openurl 
  Title To follow or not to follow: decision making and leadership during the morning departure in chacma baboons Type Journal Article
  Year 2008 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 75 Issue 6 Pages 1995-2004  
  Keywords chacma baboon; collective movement; consensus; decision making; leadership; Papio hamadryas ursinus  
  Abstract To benefit from group living, group members need to keep the group cohesive by coordinating time and direction of travelling. Self-organization and leadership are two means of coordination and two types of decision can be made on the group level: combined and consensus. We studied the initiation process of group movements during the morning departure of a group of chacma baboons, Papio hamadryas ursinus, from its sleeping site in De Hoop Nature Reserve, South Africa. Findings from other female-bonded primate groups led us to hypothesize that females should play a major role in the decision-making process. Approximately 75% of the adults made a start attempt, with 62 of 92 attempts being by males. There was no sex difference in the probability of being successful when initiating an attempt. Lactating females initiated fewer than pregnant or cycling females. Thus, at least for this group of chacma baboons, leadership appeared to be distributed and the decision about the timing of departure and travel direction seemed to be a partially shared consensus decision with adult males contributing more to the decision outcome, with a slightly more prominent role of the dominant male. Our results do not support the [`]leading females' hypothesis. No behavioural patterns that might serve as specialized signals leading to a more successful recruitment of other group members were observed. The departure process appeared to be coordinated merely through individuals setting an example by moving off.  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5130  
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