Article
Behavioral Sciences
Jeffrey Podos
Summary: This essay explores the roles of costs and constraints in the evolution of sexual traits. The author suggests that the relative influence of costs and constraints shifts over different stages of sexual trait elaboration, with constraints ultimately becoming the dominant factor.
Article
Ornithology
Francisco Javier Aznar
Summary: This study examines the effects of stone morphometry on male Black Wheatears. The results show that the display stones are thinner, generate higher torques, but lower outward-pushing forces compared to ground stones. Additionally, in abandoned houses, the display stones are thicker but have lower mass, resulting in similar transport costs between territory types.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Clementine Mitoyen, Cliodhna Quigley, Thibault Boehly, Leonida Fusani
Summary: This study investigated the association between multimodal courtship signals of male ring doves and immediate behavioral responses by females. It found that certain courtship components, such as male calls, courtship duration, and bout duration, influenced female tail-quivering behavior, while variables like courtship rate did not affect female response. Additionally, repeated encounters with individuals of the opposite sex had an effect on male courtship variables and female sexual responses. Further research is needed to understand how different male courtship elements impact female behavior and mating decisions.
Article
Ecology
Simona Kralj-Fiser, Jutta M. Schneider, Matjaz Kuntner, Kate Laskowski, Francisco Garcia-Gonzalez
Summary: Genetic differences in aggression, activity, and exploration were found between sexes in a sexually size-dimorphic spider species, while no differences were observed in boldness. However, the high degree of uncertainty in the estimates prevents a robust conclusion on sex differences in genetic influences.
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2021)
Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
J. Kecman, J. Neu, N. Goeres, B. Voss, F. Rosner, N. Kemper, H. H. Swalve
Summary: Ensuring work safety for stockpersons is gaining importance with the keeping of lactating sows in loose housing systems. The present study developed tests characterising the behaviour of lactating sows in farrowing environments with more freedom to move and examined their behaviour towards humans in different management procedures. The developed tests are suitable for assessing the behaviour of sows towards humans, and the derived behavioural traits could be used for the genetic selection of gentle and easy-to-handle sows.
Article
Ecology
Nicole M. Moody, Emma K. Vivlamore, Matthew J. Fuxjager
Summary: This study explores the coevolution of the woodpecker drum display components among and within species, finding strong coevolution of drum speed and length among species, and largely independent variation within species. The relationship between drum speed and length is positive at both macro- and microevolutionary scales, indicating mutual elaboration of display components.
Article
Biology
Alexandre Palaoro, Paulo Enrique Cardoso Peixoto
Summary: In species that compete for resources, individuals use specialized structures as weapons to gain a mechanical advantage. This study examines the impact of weapons on contest outcomes and identifies patterns in how animals use their weapons. The results show that the extent to which weapons influence contest success depends on weapon traits and fighting style. The study highlights the need to consider weapon function and a wider diversity of species when studying animal weapons.
BIOLOGICAL REVIEWS
(2022)
Article
Biology
Victoria M. Arbour, Lindsay E. Zanno, David C. Evans
Summary: The tail club of ankylosaurid dinosaurs was primarily used for intraspecific combat rather than defense against predators, according to a new study. The researchers found evidence of injuries consistent with ritualized combat on the flanks of the hip region, supporting the hypothesis that the tail club was a sexually selected structure. The findings suggest that ankylosaurs were behaviorally complex animals that engaged in social dominance battles.
Article
Biology
Michael S. S. Reichert, Ivan de la Hera
Summary: By studying the preferences of both sexes in response to novel mating signals in grey treefrogs, evidence of sensory bias was found in both males and females: males exhibited more intense responses to complex stimuli, while females sometimes preferred complex stimuli.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Anne E. Wignall, Marie E. Herberstein
Summary: Male spiders generate shudder vibrations in the female's web to reduce the risk of being mistaken for prey by females during courtship. These vibrations also delay female aggression towards real prey in the web. The structure of shudder vibrations varies among distantly related spider species, indicating the influence of female preferences on courtship signals. Male courtship in web-building spiders serves multiple functions, including reducing the risk of sexual cannibalism. Shudder vibrations are highly conserved across web-building spider species, but there are variations in their structure.
BEHAVIORAL ECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Biology
Philipp Kaufmann, James Malcolm Howie, Elina Immonen
Summary: The study found that sexually antagonistic selection can maintain high genetic variance, while sex-limited directional selection leads to a reduction in genetic variance. In a body size selection experiment, sexually antagonistic selection maintained more ancestral, autosomal additive genetic variance compared to sex-limited selection. Both forms of selection preserved a high genetic correlation between the sexes, indicating that sexual antagonism can maintain more genetic variance and fuel sex-specific adaptation in a short evolutionary time scale by reducing sexual conflict over alternative alleles.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Review
Ecology
Justa L. Heinen-Kay, Adam D. Kay, Marlene Zuk
Summary: Urbanization is rapidly changing landscapes and creating new selection pressures on organisms, impacting sexual communication and mating behaviors. Despite some documented adaptive shifts in trait expression, the ultimate impact on fitness is rarely tested. More research is needed to understand the mechanisms driving these changes and their effects on evolutionary processes in urban environments.
ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2021)
Article
Ecology
N. J. Klappstein, L. Thomas, T. Michelot
Summary: The HMM-SSF method provides a versatile framework for analyzing behavior-specific habitat selection, allowing for simultaneous estimation of behavior transitions and habitat selection. It offers a more efficient and general approach compared to previous methods, and can be applied to a wide range of species and systems.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
David Canal, Monika Jablonszky, Katalin Krenhardt, Gabor Marko, Gergely Nagy, Eszter Szasz, Janos Torok, Sandor Zsebok, Laszlo Zsolt Garamszegi
Summary: This study revealed the relative importance of male and female identity in male courtship behavior, as well as the increased male responsiveness to stimulus females as the breeding season progressed. Furthermore, the results suggest that invitation latency is a consistent courtship attribute in males that can be adjusted plastically according to perceived female quality and environmental conditions.
Article
Biology
Akanksha Rathore, Kavita Isvaran, Vishwesha Guttal
Summary: Lekking is a unique mating system in which males form organized clusters of territories during the mating season, while females visit these leks for mating. This article proposes viewing lekking through the lens of collective behavior, highlighting the importance of local interactions and habitat in the formation and maintenance of leks. The article suggests using concepts and tools from the literature on collective animal behavior to test these ideas and offers examples of how agent-based models and high-resolution video tracking can be applied to study leks. The application of collective behavior approach to understanding leks may provide novel insights into the factors that shape them.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Endocrinology & Metabolism
Matthew J. Fuxjager, Meredith C. Miles, Franz Goller, John Petersen, Julia Yancey
Article
Ecology
Meredith C. Miles, Samantha Cheng, Matthew J. Fuxjager
Review
Behavioral Sciences
Matthew J. Fuxjager, Meredith C. Miles, Barney A. Schlinger
JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE PHYSIOLOGY A-NEUROETHOLOGY SENSORY NEURAL AND BEHAVIORAL PHYSIOLOGY
(2018)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Meredith C. Miles, Matthew J. Fuxjager
Article
Zoology
Meredith C. Miles, Maren N. Vitousek, Jerry F. Husak, Michele A. Johnson, Lynn B. Martin, Conor C. Taff, Cedric Zimmer, Matthew B. Lovern, Matthew J. Fuxjager
INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY
(2018)
Article
Ecology
Meredith C. Miles, Matthew J. Fuxjager
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY
(2018)
Article
Biology
Meredith C. Miles, Franz Goller, Matthew J. Fuxjager