Life Sciences Commons^™

Aspects Of The Nesting Ecology Of Least Terns And Piping Plovers In Central Nebraska, Craig A. Faanes

Papers in Ornithology

Breeding habitat of the least tern is made up primarily of coastal beaches and inland river sandbars. Populations of the interior (Sterna antillarum athalassos) and east coast (S. a. antillarum) subspecies are now declining (Marshall et al. 1975, Duffy 1977, Jernigan et al. 1978) and the western subspecies (S. a. browni) is endangered (Wilbur 1974). Although coastal populations have received considerable attention (Wolk 1974, Atwood et al. 1977, Blodgett 1978), little research has been conducted on the interior race (Hardy 1957, Downing 1975).

The piping plover inhabits river sandbars and sand beaches and, like …

Optimal Foraging Theory And The Psychology Of Learning, Alan Kamil

Avian Cognition Papers

The development of optimization theory has made important contributions to the study of animal behavior. But the optimization approach needs to be integrated with other methods of ethology and psychology. For example, the ability to learn is an important component of efficient foraging behavior in many species, and the psychology of animal learning could contribute substantially to testing and extending the predictions of optimal foraging theory.

Visual Search And Selection Of Natural Stimuli In The Pigeon: The Attention Threshold Hypothesis, Alan B. Bond

Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences

During visual search for samples of varying proportions of familiar, natural food grains displayed against a complex gravel background, pigeons exhibited “matching selection,” a tendency to overselect the more common grain. The matching selection effect was decreased at low levels of stimulus/background contrast and reversed when the grains were highly conspicuous. The results were consistent with the hypothesis that stimulus detectability should be enhanced by recent experience with a particular grain type, but they showed no convincing indications of a corresponding effect on the response criterion. An explanatory model, termed the attention threshold hypothesis, argues that the mean latency of …

Scaring Of Carrion Crows (Corvus Corone Corone) By Species-Specific Distress Calls And Suspended Bodies Of Dead Crows, Luzia Naef-Daenzer

Bird Control Seminars Proceedings

In Switzerland, carrion crows can cause considerable damage to sprouting corn fields when feeding on the germinated corn. I tried to evaluate a method to prevent these damages. The use of species-specific distress calls, for the first time described by Frings and Jumber (1954), seemed to be the most promising method. Agronomes and biologists have applied it in field studies to several different bird species causing damage in agriculture and on airports (e.g., Gramet, 1962; Brough, 1968). However, the literature either describes single actions or several different scaring devices being used together. To be able to judge the method, quantitative …

The Transmission Of Learned Behavior: An Observational Study Of Father-Child Interactions During Fishing, Judy Diamond, Alan B. Bond

Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences

Mechanisms of transmission of learned behavior were described in terms of the behavioral interactions between fathers and their children as they fished from a pier on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Verbal and nonverbal behaviors were analyzed using hierarchical cluster analysis and the patterns of association in the behavioral repertoire were described in detail. Groupings of associated behaviors ranged from clusters suggestive of modeling or simple showing to complex combinations of behaviors involved in teaching. There were indications that the transmission behaviors varied with the content of the transmitted information and the role of the performer. Role differentiation in the transmission behaviors …

The Foraging Behavior Of Lacewing Larvae On Vertical Rods, Alan B. Bond

Alan Bond Publications

The foraging behavior of lacewing larvae (Chrysopa carnea Stephens, Chrysopidae, Neuroptera) on vertical lucite rods was observed under a variety of experimental conditions to investigate the decision processes responsible for the distribution of foraging effort. Food deprivation increased the duration of searching on all parts of the rod, whereas contact with prey at the rod tip induced only a local enhancement of searching activity. Searching at the rod tip did not decline with repeated trials on the same rod, but the duration of searching on the rest of the rod was reduced, evidently reflecting recognition and avoidance of previously-searched …