A standardised ethogram for the Psittaciformes

Abstract

The standardisation of ethograms offers behavioural researchers many practical advantages. They make it possible to describe behavioural repertoires and their occurrence in different contexts accurately. As there is no standardised ethogram for Psittaciformes in the scientific literature, this study aimed to create one by compiling information from scientific articles to facilitate and standardise the naming and description of the group's behaviours, allowing for future comparisons between studies. Bibliographic searches for ethograms were carried out on the Scopus and Web of Science platforms, and the selected papers were evaluated to identify the terminology used for the behaviours and their description. The standardised ethogram for Psittaciformes was finalised with 102 behaviours, divided into 11 behavioural categories. The category with the highest number of behaviours was activity. Only 21 species of the order were covered, most from the Psittacidae family, representing 5 % of the 421 described species. Of the articles containing ethograms, 76 % of the authors created them rather than using those already published in the scientific literature. These results collectively indicate the importance of having a standardised ethogram for the Order, as this would facilitate future studies for the group. The standardised ethogram was built in the present study to facilitate behavioural researchers with more precise definitions of all the behaviours and to help unify and compare behavioural research on Psittaciformes.