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Kharazyan, F., Hassani, A., Ahmadinejad, M., & Houpt, K. A. (2008). The response of horses to predator stimuli. In IESM 2008.
Abstract: It is unknown whether or not wild horses“ instinct has remained during their centuries of taming. The knowledge of this matter gives riders the opportunity of knowing more not only about horse behavior but also about horse and rider safety. In the current research we try to study behavior of the two Iranian horse breed (Asil & Caspian) in confrontation with stimuli from predators. We explored which kind of stimuli (olfactory stimuli accompanied by auditory stimuli) affects horses more. We groupe horses based on breed, sex and age. All horses are adult. The test area is a room that equipped with ventilator, speaker, and other facilities that needs. The time spent in the test area varies between 5 and 20 min .The experiments were designed to investigate behavioral responses (locomotive activity ( standing , walk , trot , and exploration), eliminatory behavior (defecation, urination)) and physiological responses (measure and record of adrenalin dosages in blood samples before and after facing to stimuli and measured blood”s glucose and cortisol too) of horses to novel auditory and olfactory stimuli.
We explored which kind of stimuli(Olfactory stimuli or auditory stimuli) affects horses more. The experiments were carried out under standardized conditions a total of 60 horses (30 Caspian ponies and 30 Asil horses), of different ages.
We investigated how horses respond to two predator animals" (wolf and Iranian leopard) olfactory and auditory stimulus. The olfactory stimuli were: A: Urine /feces stimuli, B: Fur-derived stimuli. And The auditory stimulus were sound of wolf and Iranian Leopard.
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Christensen, J. W., & Rundgren, M. (2008). Predator odour per se does not frighten domestic horses. Appl. Anim. Behav. Sci., 112(1-2), 136–145.
Abstract: Horses frequently react nervously when passing animal production farms and other places with distinctive smells, leading riders to believe that horses are innately frightened by certain odours. In three experiments, we investigated how horses respond to (1) urine from wolves and lions, (2) blood from slaughtered conspecifics and fur-derived wolf odour, and (3) a sudden auditory stimulus in either presence or absence of fur-derived wolf odour. The experiments were carried out under standardised conditions using a total of 45 naive, 2-year-old horses. In the first two experiments we found that horses showed significant changes in behaviour (Experiments 1 and 2: increased sniffing; Experiment 2 only: increased vigilance, decreased eating, and more behavioural shifts), but no increase in heart rate compared to controls when exposed to predator odours and conspecific blood in a known test environment. However, the third experiment showed that exposure to a combination of wolf odour and a sudden stimulus (sound of a moving plastic bag) caused significantly increased heart rate responses and a tendency to a longer latency to resume feeding, compared to control horses exposed to the sudden stimulus without the wolf odour. The results indicate that predator odour per se does not frighten horses but it may cause an increased level of vigilance. The presence of predator odour may, however, cause an increased heart rate response if horses are presented to an additional fear-eliciting stimulus. This strategy may be adaptive in the wild where equids share habitats with their predators, and have to trade-off time and energy spent on anti-predation responses against time allocated to essential non-defensive activities.
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Shier, D. M., & Owings, D. H. (2007). Effects of social learning on predator training and postrelease survival in juvenile black-tailed prairie dogs, Cynomys ludovicianus. Anim. Behav., 73(4), 567–577.
Abstract: We examined how social context and experience affected development of antipredator behaviour and subsequent postrelease survival in the black-tailed prairie dog. Captive-reared juveniles were initially exposed to four stimulus animals: a ferret, a rattlesnake, a hawk and a cottontail control (pretraining tests). Subjects were then trained with or without an adult female demonstrator. Training involved exposure to each stimulus animal two to three times over 5 weeks. After training, each juvenile was retested with each stimulus animal (post-training tests). During pretraining tests, juveniles responded differentially to the stimulus animals. They were least active with the snake, fled the most in tests with the hawk, and were less vigilant with the ferret than with the snake. Following training, juveniles trained with experienced adults were more wary with all three predators than juveniles trained without an experienced adult present. We then compared the antipredator behaviour of captive-reared juveniles trained with experienced adult females with that of wild-reared juveniles of the same age. For all behavioural measures except shelter use, wild-experienced animals differentiated more strongly among predator types than did captive-trained juveniles. One year after reintroduction, survivorship of juveniles trained with experienced adults was higher than that of juveniles trained without experienced adults, but did not differ from that of wild-reared juveniles. These findings provide the first evidence that social transmission of antipredator behaviour during training can enhance long-term survival following release and that as long as a social training regime is used, predator avoidance training can emulate experience acquired in the wild.
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Wolf, M., van Doorn, G. S., Leimar, O., & Weissing, F. J. (2007). Life-history trade-offs favour the evolution of animal personalities. Nature, 447(7144), 581–584.
Abstract: In recent years evidence has been accumulating that personalities are not only found in humans but also in a wide range of other animal species. Individuals differ consistently in their behavioural tendencies and the behaviour in one context is correlated with the behaviour in multiple other contexts. From an adaptive perspective, the evolution of animal personalities is still a mystery, because a more flexible structure of behaviour should provide a selective advantage. Accordingly, many researchers view personalities as resulting from constraints imposed by the architecture of behaviour (but see ref. 12). In contrast, we show here that animal personalities can be given an adaptive explanation. Our argument is based on the insight that the trade-off between current and future reproduction often results in polymorphic populations in which some individuals put more emphasis on future fitness returns than others. Life-history theory predicts that such differences in fitness expectations should result in systematic differences in risk-taking behaviour. Individuals with high future expectations (who have much to lose) should be more risk-averse than individuals with low expectations. This applies to all kinds of risky situations, so individuals should consistently differ in their behaviour. By means of an evolutionary model we demonstrate that this basic principle results in the evolution of animal personalities. It simultaneously explains the coexistence of behavioural types, the consistency of behaviour through time and the structure of behavioural correlations across contexts. Moreover, it explains the common finding that explorative behaviour and risk-related traits like boldness and aggressiveness are common characteristics of animal personalities.
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Heinrich, B., & Bugnyar, T. (2007). Just how smart are ravens? Sci Am, 296(4), 64–71.
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Krama, T. [1], & Krams, I. [2]. (2005). Cost of mobbing call to breeding pied flycatcher, Ficedula hypoleuca. Behav. Ecol., 16, 37–40.
Abstract: Mobbing signals advertise the location of a stalking predator to all prey in an area and recruit them into the inspection aggregation. Such behavior usually causes the predator to move to another area. However, mobbing calls could be eavesdropped by other predators. Because the predation cost of mobbing calls is poorly known, we investigated whether the vocalizations of the mobbing pied flycatcher, Ficedula hypoleuca, a small hole nesting passerine, increase the risk of nest predation. We used mobbing calls of pied flycatchers to examine if they could lure predators such as the marten, Martes martes. This predator usually hunts by night and may locate its mobbing prey while resting nearby during the day. Within each of 56 experimental plots, from the top of one nest-box we played back mobbing sounds of pied flycatchers, whereas blank tapes were played from the top of another nest-box. The trials with mobbing calls were carried out before sunset. We put pieces of recently abandoned nests of pied flycatchers and a quail, Coturnix coturnix, egg into each of the nest-boxes. Nest-boxes with playbacks of mobbing calls were depredated by martens significantly more than were nest-boxes with blank tapes. The results of the present study indicate that repeated conspicuous mobbing calls may carry a significant cost for birds during the breeding season.
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Thornton, A., & McAuliffe, K. (2006). Teaching in wild meerkats. Science, 313(5784), 227–229.
Abstract: Despite the obvious benefits of directed mechanisms that facilitate the efficient transfer of skills, there is little critical evidence for teaching in nonhuman animals. Using observational and experimental data, we show that wild meerkats (Suricata suricatta) teach pups prey-handling skills by providing them with opportunities to interact with live prey. In response to changing pup begging calls, helpers alter their prey-provisioning methods as pups grow older, thus accelerating learning without the use of complex cognition. The lack of evidence for teaching in species other than humans may reflect problems in producing unequivocal support for the occurrence of teaching, rather than the absence of teaching.
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Burke, D., Cieplucha, C., Cass, J., Russell, F., & Fry, G. (2002). Win-shift and win-stay learning in the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus). Anim. Cogn., 5(2), 79–84.
Abstract: Numerous previous investigators have explained species differences in spatial memory performance in terms of differences in foraging ecology. In three experiments we attempted to extend these findings by examining the extent to which the spatial memory performance of echidnas (or “spiny anteaters”) can be understood in terms of the spatio-temporal distribution of their prey (ants and termites). This is a species and a foraging situation that have not been examined in this way before. Echidnas were better able to learn to avoid a previously rewarding location (to “win-shift”) than to learn to return to a previously rewarding location (to “win-stay”), at short retention intervals, but were unable to learn either of these strategies at retention intervals of 90 min. The short retention interval results support the ecological hypothesis, but the long retention interval results do not.
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Fujita, K., Kuroshima, H., & Masuda, T. (2002). Do tufted capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) spontaneously deceive opponents? A preliminary analysis of an experimental food-competition contest between monkeys. Anim. Cogn., 5(1), 19–25.
Abstract: A new laboratory procedure which allows the study of deceptive behavior in nonhuman primates is described. Pairs of tufted capuchin monkeys faced each other in a food-competition contest. Two feeder boxes were placed between the monkeys. A piece of food was placed in one of the boxes. The subordinate individual was able to see the food and to open the box to obtain the bait. A dominant male was unable to see the food or to open the box but was able to take the food once the box was opened by the subordinate. In experiment 1, two of four subordinate monkeys spontaneously started to open the unbaited box first with increasing frequency. Experiment 2 confirmed that this “deceptive” act was not due to a drop in the rate of reinforcement caused by the usurping dominant male, under the situation in which food sometimes automatically dropped from the opened box. In experiment 3, two subordinate monkeys were rerun in the same situation as experiment 1. One of them showed some recovery of the “deceptive” act but the other did not; instead the latter tended to position himself on the side where there was no food before he started to open the box. Although the results do not clearly indicate spontaneous deception, we suggest that operationally defined spontaneous deceptive behaviors in monkeys can be analyzed with experimental procedures such as those used here.
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Punzo, F., & Ludwig, L. (2002). Contact with maternal parent and siblings affects hunting behavior, learning, and central nervous system development in spiderlings of Hogna carolinensis (Araeneae: Lycosidae). Anim. Cogn., 5(2), 63–70.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of early experience (rearing conditions) on the central nervous system (CNS) and behavior of spiderlings of Hogna carolinensis (Lycosidae). We were interested in whether or not spiderlings that were allowed to remain in contact with their maternal parent and siblings (enriched condition, EC) would exhibit differences in CNS development or subsequent behavior when compared with those reared in isolation (improverished condition, IC). Spiderlings emerged from their egg sacs and climbed onto the dorsal surface of their mother's abdomen where they remained until their yolk supply was depleted (5 days). They dispersed on day 6 after emergence. We compared the ability of 16-day-old EC and IC spiderlings to capture prey in a linear runway and to learn a complex maze (spatial learning). We also compared certain aspects of CNS development (brain weight, total number of brain cells, volume of central body and protocerebral neuropil) in EC and IC spiderlings. Results indicated that EC subjects are more efficient at capturing moving prey (crickets) and exhibited improved performance (significantly fewer blind alley errors) in the maze. The volume of the protocerebral neuropil in 6-day-old EC animals increased 30% over a 5-day period after emergence as compared to IC animals of the same age. The volume of the central body of EC animals increased 34.8% over the same time period. On day 6 after emergence, the weight of the protocerebrum was significantly greater in EC versus IC subjects. There were no significant effects of rearing condition (EC vs IC) or age (1- and 6-day-old spiderlings) on the total number of nerve cells in the protocerebrum, suggesting that the difference in protocerebral weight was due primarily to differences in supporting glial tissues and neuropil matrix. In conclusion, the data suggest that early contact with the maternal parent and siblings is of vital importance to CNS development in lycosid spiderlings and can influence the capacity for spatial learning as well as the ability to capture prey.
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