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Comparative Psychology Commons

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Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Sentience Collection

2002

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Comparative Psychology

Do Female Rainbowfish (Melanotaenia Spp.) Prefer To Shoal With Familiar Individuals Under Predation Pressure?, Culum Brown Sep 2002

Do Female Rainbowfish (Melanotaenia Spp.) Prefer To Shoal With Familiar Individuals Under Predation Pressure?, Culum Brown

Sentience Collection

Shoaling with familiar individuals may have many benefits including enhanced escape responses or increased foraging efficiency. This study describes the results of two complimentary experiments. The first utilised a simple binary choice experiment to determine if rainbowfish (Melanotaenia spp.) preferred to shoal with familiar individuals or with strangers. The second experiment used a “free range” situation where familiar and unfamiliar individuals were free to intermingle and were then exposed to a predator threat. Like many other small species of fish, rainbowfish were capable of identifying and distinguishing between individuals and choose to preferentially associate with familiar individuals as opposed to …


Vigilance And Predation Risk In Gunnison’S Prairie Dogs (Cynomys Gunnisoni), J. L. Verdolin, C. N. Slobodchikoff Jul 2002

Vigilance And Predation Risk In Gunnison’S Prairie Dogs (Cynomys Gunnisoni), J. L. Verdolin, C. N. Slobodchikoff

Sentience Collection

Group living in animals is believed to confer advantages related to a decrease in predation risk and an energetic trade-off between vigilance and foraging efficiency. Eight Gunnison’s prairie dog, Cynomys gunnisoni, colonies in Flagstaff, Arizona (elevation 2300 m), were studied from April to August 2000 to examine the adaptive significance of colonial living in the context of predation risk and antipredator behavioral strategies. Each colony was sampled once every 10 days for a period of 3 h. Upright and quadrepedal vigilance was recorded using scan samples. All predation events were recorded. Results suggest that vigilant behavior in Gunnison’s prairie dogs …