Abstract: Horses were domesticated from the Eurasian steppes 5,000-6,000 years ago. Since then, the use of horses for transportation, warfare, and agriculture, as well as selection for desired traits and fitness, has resulted in diverse populations distributed across the world, many of which have become or are in the process of becoming formally organized into closed, breeding populations (breeds). This report describes the use of a genome-wide set of autosomal SNPs and 814 horses from 36 breeds to provide the first detailed description of equine breed diversity. FST calculations, parsimony, and distance analysis demonstrated relationships among the breeds that largely reflect geographic origins and known breed histories. Low levels of population divergence were observed between breeds that are relatively early on in the process of breed development, and between those with high levels of within-breed diversity, whether due to large population size, ongoing outcrossing, or large within-breed phenotypic diversity. Populations with low within-breed diversity included those which have experienced population bottlenecks, have been under intense selective pressure, or are closed populations with long breed histories. These results provide new insights into the relationships among and the diversity within breeds of horses. In addition these results will facilitate future genome-wide association studies and investigations into genomic targets of selection.

Abstract: Monkeys readily learn to discriminate between rewarded and unrewarded items or actions by observing their conspecifics. However, they do not systematically learn from humans. Understanding what makes human-to-monkey transmission of knowledge work or fail could help identify mediators and moderators of social learning that operate regardless of language or culture, and transcend inter-species differences. Do monkeys fail to learn when human models show a behavior too dissimilar from the animals' own, or when they show a faultless performance devoid of error? To address this question, six rhesus macaques trained to find which object within a pair concealed a food reward were successively tested with three models: a familiar conspecific, a 'stimulus-enhancing' human actively drawing the animal's attention to one object of the pair without actually performing the task, and a 'monkey-like' human performing the task in the same way as the monkey model did. Reward was manipulated to ensure that all models showed equal proportions of errors and successes. The 'monkey-like' human model improved the animals' subsequent object discrimination learning as much as a conspecific did, whereas the 'stimulus-enhancing' human model tended on the contrary to retard learning. Modeling errors rather than successes optimized learning from the monkey and 'monkey-like' models, while exacerbating the adverse effect of the 'stimulus-enhancing' model. These findings identify error modeling as a moderator of social learning in monkeys that amplifies the models' influence, whether beneficial or detrimental. By contrast, model-observer similarity in behavior emerged as a mediator of social learning, that is, a prerequisite for a model to work in the first place. The latter finding suggests that, as preverbal infants, macaques need to perceive the model as 'like-me' and that, once this condition is fulfilled, any agent can become an effective model.

Abstract: <p>Social evaluation of others is often influenced by the physical attractiveness of the person being judged, leading to either a beauty premium or penalty depending on the circumstances. Here we asked Chinese participants to act as an interest-free third party in a dictator game and to evaluate the fairness level of monetary allocation by attractive and less attractive proposers of the same or opposite sex. We also instructed participants to express their willingness to punish the proposers by using a visual analogue scale. Results confirmed that the reasonableness evaluation was mainly affected by the reasonableness of offers. However, participants' intention to punish the proposers was affected by the level of reasonableness in the asset distribution and by both the sex and attractiveness of the proposers. Overall, male proposers were punished more severely than female proposers. Moreover, the same-sex proposers were punished more severely than opposite-sex proposers when they were physically attractive; this pattern was reversed when the proposers were less physically attractive. These results demonstrate social responses following an individual's unfair asset distribution can be affected by both social norms and the personal characteristics of the individual.</p>

Abstract: Anecdotal reports of horses opening fastened doors and gates are an intriguing way of exploring the possible scope of horses' problem-solving capacities. The species' natural environment has no analogues of the mechanisms involved. Scientific studies on the topic are missing, because the rate of occurrence is too low for exploration under controlled conditions. Therefore, we compiled from lay persons case reports of horses opening closed doors and gates. Additionally, we collected video documentations at the internet platform YouTube, taking care to select raw data footage of unedited, clearly described and clearly visible cases of animals with no distinct signs of training or reduced welfare. The data included individuals opening 513 doors or gates on hinges, 49 sliding doors, and 33 barred doors and gateways; mechanisms included 260 cases of horizontal and 155 vertical bars, 43 twist locks, 42 door handles, 34 electric fence handles, 40 carabiners, and 2 locks with keys. Opening was usually for escape, but also for access to food or stable-mates, or out of curiosity or playfulness. While 56 percent of the horses opened a single mechanism at one location, 44 percent opened several types of mechanism (median = 2, min. = 1, max. = 5) at different locations (median = 2, min. = 1, max. = 4). The more complex the mechanism was, the more movements were applied, varying from median 2 for door handles to 10 for carabiners. Mechanisms requiring head- or lip-twisting needed more movements, with significant variation between individuals. 74 horses reported in the questionnaire had options for observing the behaviour in stable mates, 183 did not, which indicates that the latter learned to open doors and gates either individually or from observing humans. Experience favours opening efficiency; subjects which opened several door types applied fewer movements per lock than horses which opened only one door type. We failed to identify a level of complexity of door-fastening mechanism that was beyond the learning capacity of the horse to open. Thus, all devices in frequent use, even carabiners and electric fence handles, are potentially vulnerable to opening by horses, something which needs to be considered in relation to keeping horses safely.

Abstract: Background
Behavioral laterality is known for a variety of vertebrate and invertebrate animals. Laterality in social interactions has been described for a wide range of species including humans. Although evidence and theoretical predictions indicate that in social species the degree of population level laterality is greater than in solitary ones, the origin of these unilateral biases is not fully understood. It is especially poorly studied in the wild animals. Little is known about the role, which laterality in social interactions plays in natural populations. A number of brain characteristics make cetaceans most suitable for investigation of lateralization in social contacts.
Methodology/Principal Findings
Observations were made on wild beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas) in the greatest breeding aggregation in the White Sea. Here we show that young calves (in 29 individually identified and in over a hundred of individually not recognized mother-calf pairs) swim and rest significantly longer on a mother's right side. Further observations along with the data from other cetaceans indicate that found laterality is a result of the calves' preference to observe their mothers with the left eye, i.e., to analyze the information on a socially significant object in the right brain hemisphere.
Conclusions/Significance
Data from our and previous work on cetacean laterality suggest that basic brain lateralizations are expressed in the same way in cetaceans and other vertebrates. While the information on social partners and novel objects is analyzed in the right brain hemisphere, the control of feeding behavior is performed by the left brain hemisphere. Continuous unilateral visual contacts of calves to mothers with the left eye may influence social development of the young by activation of the contralateral (right) brain hemisphere, indicating a possible mechanism on how behavioral lateralization may influence species life and welfare. This hypothesis is supported by evidence from other vertebrates.