Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractMale ejaculates in insects include a complex array of substances other than sperm whose proximate functions have proven to be diverse. Some function as allohormones that manipulate post-mating female physiology and behaviour. As each sex pursues their own reproductive interests to maximise fitness, seminal allohormones are expected to promo...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractLife history theory predicts that individuals will differ in their risk-taking behavior according to their expected future fitness. Understanding consequences of such individual variation within a behavioral trait is crucial in explaining potential trade-offs between different traits and in predicting future dynamics in changing environment...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractVigilance is used to monitor extra-group threats as well as risky group members. We examined whether relationship quality affects vigilance patterns of spider monkeys. We used focal animal sampling to collect data on social interactions and individual vigilance of all adults and subadults (N = 22) in a community of well-habituated Geoffroy’...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractIn the sexual conflict over the duration of maternal care, male mammals may improve their reproductive success by forcing early mother–offspring separation in species where lactation supresses estrus. However, when individual females benefit from continuing to care for their current offspring, they should adopt counter-strategies to avoid s...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractFemale birds can influence offspring development by adjusting egg size or by a differential allocation of egg resources. Such maternal effects can be expected to be shaped by natural selection, given the costs connected to the allocation of maternal resources. Among egg components, yolk androgens play an important role in affecting offsprin...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractFemale mass in most altricial birds reaches its maximum during breeding at egg laying, which coincides temporally with the fertile phase when extra-pair paternity (EPP) is determined. Higher mass at laying may have two different effects on EPP intensity. On the one hand, it would lead to increased wing loading (body mass/wing area), which m...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractSexually signalling animals must trade off the benefits of attracting mates with the consequences of attracting predators. For male guppies, predation risk depends on their behaviour, colouration, environmental conditions and changing intensity of predation throughout the day. Theoretically, this drives diel patterns of display behaviour in...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractWithin the optimal foraging theory framework, parasitoids constitute ideal models to elucidate combined physiological and environmental determinism of foraging behavior between current and future fitness gains. Parasitoid females need hosts to lay eggs for their reproduction (immediate gain), but also sugar food resources for their survival...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractKnowledge of proximate (causation and development) and ultimate (evolution and survival function) causes of gregariousness is necessary to advance our knowledge of animal societies. Delphinids are among the most social taxa; however, fine-scale understanding of their intra-specific relationships is hindered by the need for underwater observ...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractAnimal vocalizations experience pressures from ecological conditions, but their diversification may be constrained by morphology and evolutionary history. To date, the relative contribution of these factors to acoustic diversity is unclear in most vertebrate groups. Bats constitute one of the most speciose and diverse mammal groups, and mos...
