Abstract: Animals can acquire information from the environment privately, by sampling it directly, or socially, through learning from others. Generally, private information is more accurate, but expensive to acquire, while social information is cheaper but less reliable. Accordingly, the 'costly information hypothesis' predicts that individuals will use private information when the costs associated with doing so are low, but that they should increasingly use social information as the costs of using private information rise. While consistent with considerable data, this theory has yet to be directly tested in a satisfactory manner. We tested this hypothesis by giving minnows (Phoxinus phoxinus) a choice between socially demonstrated and non-demonstrated prey patches under conditions of low, indirect and high simulated predation risk. Subjects had no experience (experiment 1) or prior private information that conflicted with the social information provided by the demonstrators (experiment 2). In both experiments, subjects spent more time in the demonstrated patch than in the non-demonstrated patch, and in experiment 1 made fewer switches between patches, when risk was high compared with when it was low. These findings are consistent with the predictions of the costly information hypothesis, and imply that minnows adopt a 'copy-when-asocial-learning-is-costly' learning strategy.

Abstract: Tbourida is a traditional Moroccan equestrian sport in which 15 horses gallop 200 m in a line while riders fire into the sky with muskets. The stop is the finale and representative demands of this equestrian event. Such particular sudden stop after a fast gallop requires a hyperextension of the metacarpophalangeal joint. Indeed, it is well known that Tbourida show predisposes horses to different injuries of the hard and soft tissues of the distal forelimbs. Yet, there is a paucity of research that examined such lesions. The aim of the present study was to investigate for the first time the type and the prevalence of osteoarticular findings in the distal forelimbs of Tbourida horses using radiographic images. The study was conducted on 127 Tbourida horses aged between 2.5 and 15 years old with 6-year-old horses being the most affected. Data analysis showed that 93,7% of horses exhibit degenerative joint lesions of the fetlock, 86,6% showed ossification of the ungual cartilage, 78,7% had enthesophytes associated with the deep digital flexor tendons, 81,1% had enthesophytes associated with the suspensory ligament branches, and 19,6% showed a particular exostosis on the first phalanx. This large number of lesions reflects how this sport is difficult for horses and also argues that animals are suffering from a lack of welfare and care in their husbandry management.

Abstract: Tool use has not yet been confirmed in horses, mules or donkeys. As this subject is difficult to research with conventional methods, we used a crowdsourcing approach to gather data. We contacted equid owners and carers and asked them to report and video examples of �unusual� behaviour via a dedicated website. We also searched YouTube and Facebook for videos of equids showing tool use. From 635 reports, including 1014 behaviours, we found 20 cases of tool use, 13 of which were unambiguous in that it was clear that the behaviour was not trained, caused by reduced welfare, incidental or accidental. We then assessed (a) the effect of management conditions on tool use and (b) whether the animals used tools alone, or socially, involving other equids or humans. We found that management restrictions were associated with corresponding tool use in 12 of the 13 cases (p = 0.01), e.g., equids using sticks to scrape hay within reach when feed was restricted. Furthermore, 8 of the 13 cases involved other equids or humans, such as horses using brushes to groom others. The most frequent tool use was for foraging, with seven examples, tool use for social purposes was seen in four cases, and there was just one case of tool use for escape. There was just one case of tool use for comfort, and in this instance, there were no management restrictions. Equids therefore can develop tool use, especially when management conditions are restricted, but it is a rare occurrence.

Abstract: 1. The recent recovery of the wolf in southern Europe has not yet removed the risk
of local extinction. Wolf populations are fragmented and often comprise fewer than
500 individuals. In North America, northern and eastern Europe, wolves feed maiiily
on wild herbivores. In southern Europe, this canid has apparently adapted to feed
also on fruit, rubbish, livestock, small and medium-size mammals.
2. The main conservation problem lies with predation o n domestic ~ingulates,w liich
leads to extensive killing of wolves. The reintroduction of wild large herbivores has
been advocated as a means of reducing attacks on livestock, but predatiori on the
latter may remain high if domestic ungulates are locally abundant.
3. Our synthesis of 15 studies, published in the last 15 years, on food habits of the
wolf in southern Europe, has shown that ungulates have been the main diet component
overall. A significant inverse correlation was found between the occurrence (%) of
wild and domestic ungulates in the diet. The presence of relatively few wild ungulate
species was necessary to reduce predation on livestock.
4. Selection of wild and domestic ungulate prey was influenced mainly by their local
abundance, but also by their accessibility. Feeding dependence on rubbish was local
and rare. In Italy, the consumption of riibbish/fruit and that of ungulates was significantly
negatively correlated. Diet breadth increased as the presence of large prey
in tlie diet decreased.
5. The simultaneous reintroduction of severa1 wild ungulate species is likely to reduce
predation on livestock and may prove to be one of the most effective conservation
measures.

Abstract: Summary Many publications documenting large-scale trends in the distribution of species make use of opportunistic citizen data, that is, observations of species collected without standardized field protocol and without explicit sampling design. It is a challenge to achieve reliable estimates of distribution trends from them, because opportunistic citizen science data may suffer from changes in field efforts over time (observation bias), from incomplete and selective recording by observers (reporting bias) and from geographical bias. These, in addition to detection bias, may lead to spurious trends. We investigated whether occupancy models can correct for the observation, reporting and detection biases in opportunistic data. Occupancy models use detection/nondetection data and yield estimates of the percentage of occupied sites (occupancy) per year. These models take the imperfect detection of species into account. By correcting for detection bias, they may simultaneously correct for observation and reporting bias as well. We compared trends in occupancy (or distribution) of butterfly and dragonfly species derived from opportunistic data with those derived from standardized monitoring data. All data came from the same grid squares and years, in order to avoid any geographical bias in this comparison. Distribution trends in opportunistic and monitoring data were well-matched. Strong trends observed in monitoring data were rarely missed in opportunistic data. Synthesis and applications. Opportunistic data can be used for monitoring purposes if occupancy models are used for analysis. Occupancy models are able to control for the common biases encountered with opportunistic data, enabling species trends to be monitored for species groups and regions where it is not feasible to collect standardized data on a large scale. Opportunistic data may thus become an important source of information to track distribution trends in many groups of species.