Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
Social interactions are required for the direct transmission of infectious diseases. Consequently, the social network structure of populations plays a key role in shaping infectious disease dynamics. A huge research effort has examined how specific social network structures make populations more (or less) vulnerable to damaging epidemics. However, ...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractChanges to the environment often affect animal behavior at the individual and group levels. For aquatic species, disturbances such as heavy rains and runoff may create a highly turbid (i.e., cloudy or visually obscured) environment, which potentially may affect individual interactions and group coordination. Surprisingly, we know little abo...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractThe heterogeneity of resource availability shapes animal movements at different spatio-temporal scales. Given that movements at various scales are assumed to be linked, the space use of temperate ungulates within seasonal ranges (winter, summer) should be related to their movement patterns at the annual scale. In this study, we aimed to eva...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractAnimal vocal communication ranges from simple to complex based on repertoire size, structure and composition of calls and the information encoded in them. It is expected that social species will possess a functionally and structurally complex vocal repertoire. While several studies on mammalian systems exist supporting this, evidence from a...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractUnderstanding the information content of animal displays is crucial for studying signal function and evolution. Previous works focused largely on display variations and their adaptation to background noise, with limited attention to the information content. Here, we explored the information content of tail displays of an Asian agamid lizard...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractSome birds cover their eggs with nest material when they leave to forage. It has been suggested that such egg-covering aids thermoregulation or prevents predation but here we present a new hypothesis, that secondary cavity-nesting species cover their eggs to prevent nest usurpation by other birds. When the bottom of the cavity is dark, as w...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractMales and females often have divergent evolutionary interests, generating sexual conflicts. This is particularly true in organisms that exhibit facultative sexuality, whereby females are capable of reproducing without fitness costs of mating. Here, we provide the first documented evidence with quantitative tracking showing that sex interact...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractAdverse experiences during early life exert important effects on development, health, reproduction, and social bonds, with consequences often persisting across generations. A mother’s early life experiences can impact her offspring’s development through a number of pathways, such as maternal care, physiological signaling through glucocortic...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractForest monkeys often form semi-permanent mixed-species associations to increase group-size related anti-predator benefits without corresponding increases in resource competition. In this study, we analysed the alarm call system of lesser spot-nosed monkeys, a primate that spends most of its time in mixed-species groups while occupying the l...
Published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology
AbstractIn eusocial insects, worker polymorphism is shaped by several factors, including colony size, queen mating frequency, and the timing of queen-worker differentiation during larval development. In a comparative study of 18 species of Cataglyphis desert ants representing a wide range of worker sizes, we used phylogenetically controlled analyse...
