Behavioural Processes最新文献

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 420 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.

Environmental conditions influence the condition and survival of organisms and may influence levels of activity, relative condition, and mortality rates. Temperature has a direct effect on energetic demands associated with activity and rest and temperature-mediated physiological rates. Most organisms operate within narrow tolerance thresholds for temperature. Exposure to conditions outside these thresholds may have deleterious effects on metabolic demands, energy retention, and physiological rates. Experimental trials are one tool that may provide insight to species-specific tolerance to elevated temperatures. We ran experimental trials to examine the effects of elevated temperature on Pacific sand lance (Ammodytes personatus), an important forage fish in the North Pacific. Fish were held in tank trials at ambient (11°C) and elevated (18°C) temperatures in tanks with and without sediment. Analyses compared the effect of increased sea temperature on activity level, condition, and mortality. Experimental trials also examined the influence of the presence/absence of sediment on behavior. To compare experimental results with conditions experienced in situ, we evaluated a comparison dataset from the Salish Sea that spanned the 2014-2016 marine heat wave in the North Pacific. Analysis of in situ data showed a reduction in condition of Pacific sand lance populations in the Salish Sea during the 2014-2016 period of anomalous warming, but also recovery. Experimental trials demonstrated the importance of both temperature and sediment. Elevated temperatures resulted in reduced activity, reduced condition, and increased mortality. Absence of sediment had a negative effect on fish condition and survival and interfered with behavior associated with estivation and winter dormancy. Results provide insight into energetics and mortality that might be associated with future marine heat waves and have application to parametrizing ecosystem models.

More time spent by prey avoiding predators often results in less time allocated to energy acquisition and reproductive-related activities. Thereby, individuals that optimize this trade-off and respond appropriately to current risk levels in their environment should be at an advantage. But how does this tradeoff change when individuals repeatedly encounter predation threats? There may be advantages to prey by modulating behavior in response to repeated exposures to a threat. Moreover, it is unclear how evolutionary history of a population might affect such individual responses. Our study addressed two questions: (1) how does the fish Brachyrhaphis rhabdophora respond to repeated predation cues; and (2) do responses to repeated cues differ based on predation environment? To answer these questions, we repeatedly exposed B. rhabdophora individuals from high- and low-predation populations to a chemical predation cue. We measured the change in total distance traveled during 15-minutes before and after each cue exposure and compared the proportional change in response of each successive cue. We found that fish from both populations responded consistently to each of the four successive cue exposures. These results provide insights in understanding how both recent risk exposure and evolutionary history of risk influence individual response to threats over time.