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Behavior and Ethology Commons

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2004

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Articles 1 - 14 of 14

Full-Text Articles in Behavior and Ethology

Nest-Building And Spawning Behaviors In Nocomis Effusus (Actinopterygii: Cyprindae), Eugene G. Maurakis, George E. Maurakis Oct 2004

Nest-Building And Spawning Behaviors In Nocomis Effusus (Actinopterygii: Cyprindae), Eugene G. Maurakis, George E. Maurakis

Virginia Journal of Science

Spawning behavior in Nocomis effusus is described from direct observations and review of videotapes made in Yellow Creek (Cumberland River drainage), Tennessee in 2003. Nest construction (i.e., excavating a concavity, forming a platform, and building a mound), and spawning behavior in N. effusus where a single breeding male excavates a pit and spawns with females on the upstream slope of his nest is like that described for Nocomis asper and Nocomis biguttatus. In digging a spawning pit, a male N. effusus reshapes and reorganizes substrate materials that results in spawning areas on the upstream slope of the nest composed …


Strong Interactions Between Juvenile Caribbean Spiny Lobster (Panulirus Argus) And Caribbean Reef Octopus (Octopus Briareus) In The Florida Keys, Jennifer Anne Lear Oct 2004

Strong Interactions Between Juvenile Caribbean Spiny Lobster (Panulirus Argus) And Caribbean Reef Octopus (Octopus Briareus) In The Florida Keys, Jennifer Anne Lear

Biological Sciences Theses & Dissertations

Coexisting species may simultaneously compete for resources and interact as predator and prey, creating a strong interaction that can alter the structure of animal communities. This type of interaction potentially occurs between juvenile Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) and Caribbean reef octopus (Octopus briareus) within hard-bottom habitats in the Florida Keys, FL (USA), where octopuses may consume juvenile lobsters and also compete with them for limited crevice shelters. I conducted a series of field and mesocosm studies to investigate the nature of octopus-lobster interactions and their implications for the structure of their populations in the wild. …


Wild Justice And Fair Play: Cooperation, Forgiveness, And Morality In Animals, Marc Bekoff Sep 2004

Wild Justice And Fair Play: Cooperation, Forgiveness, And Morality In Animals, Marc Bekoff

Ethology Collection

In this paper I argue that we can learn much about ‘wild justice’ and the evolutionary origins of social morality – behaving fairly – by studying social play behavior in group-living animals, and that interdisciplinary cooperation will help immensely. In our efforts to learn more about the evolution of morality we need to broaden our comparative research to include animals other than non-human primates. If one is a good Darwinian, it is premature to claim that only humans can be empathic and moral beings. By asking the question ‘What is it like to be another animal?’ we can discover rules …


Pinyon Jays Use Transitive Inference To Predict Social Dominance, Guillermo Paz-Y-Miño C, Alan B. Bond, Alan Kamil, Russell P. Balda Aug 2004

Pinyon Jays Use Transitive Inference To Predict Social Dominance, Guillermo Paz-Y-Miño C, Alan B. Bond, Alan Kamil, Russell P. Balda

Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences

Living in large, stable social groups is often considered to favor the evolution of enhanced cognitive abilities, such as recognizing group members, tracking their social status and inferring relationships among them. An individual’s place in the social order can be learned through direct interactions with others, but conflicts can be time-consuming and even injurious. Because the number of possible pairwise interactions increases rapidly with group size, members of large social groups will benefit if they can make judgments about relationships on the basis of indirect evidence. Transitive reasoning should therefore be particularly important for social individuals, allowing assessment of relationships …


Record High Wolf, Canis Lupus, Pack Density, L. David Mech, Shawn Tracy Jan 2004

Record High Wolf, Canis Lupus, Pack Density, L. David Mech, Shawn Tracy

USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

This report documents a year-around Wolf (Canis lupus) density of 18.2/100 km2 and a summer density of 30.8/100 km2, in a northeastern Minnesota Wolf pack. The previous record was a summer density of 14.1/100 km2, for a Wolf pack on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada.


Unusual Behavior By Bison, Bison Bison, Toward Elk, Cervus Elaphus, And Wolves, Canis Lupus, L. David Mech, Rick T. Mcintyre, Douglas W. Smith Jan 2004

Unusual Behavior By Bison, Bison Bison, Toward Elk, Cervus Elaphus, And Wolves, Canis Lupus, L. David Mech, Rick T. Mcintyre, Douglas W. Smith

USGS Northern Prairie Wildlife Research Center

Incidents are described of Bison (Bison bison) in Yellowstone National Park mauling and possibly killing a young Elk (Cervus elaphus) calf, chasing wolves (Canis lupus) off Elk they had just killed or were killing, and keeping the wolves away for extended periods. During one of the latter cases, the Bison knocked a wolf-wounded Elk down. Bison were also seen approaching wolves that were resting and sleeping, rousting them, following them to new resting places and repeating this behavior. These behaviors might represent some type of generalized hyper-defensiveness that functions as an anti-predator strategy.


Sociality And The Evolution Of Intelligence, Alan Kamil Jan 2004

Sociality And The Evolution Of Intelligence, Alan Kamil

Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences

Two recently published studies provide important new data relevant to the evolution of human intelligence. Both studies of social behavior in baboons, Bergman et al. demonstrated that baboons use two criteria simultaneously to classify other troop members, and Silk et al. showed that highly social female baboons have higher reproductive success than less social females. Taken together, these studies provide strong evidence for the importance of social context in cognitive evolution.


The Geometry Of Foraging Patterns: Components Of Thoroughness In Random Searching, Alan B. Bond Jan 2004

The Geometry Of Foraging Patterns: Components Of Thoroughness In Random Searching, Alan B. Bond

Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences

A Monte Carlo simulation of the movements of a randomly-searching predator was used to develop a novel geometrical measure, the "thoroughness" of the search, and to investigate the effects of meander, turn asymmetry, and path length. Thoroughness varied directly with the meander and the square of the asymmetry measure and remained relatively invariant with path length. The regularity of its relationship to the generating parameters of the search and the ease with which it may be estimated from field data recommend thoroughness for use in characterizing empirical search patterns and in testing for the occurrence of systematic searching.


The Natural History And Morphology Of The Eastern Cricket Frog, Acris Crepitans Crepitans, In West Virginia, Kimberly Ann Bayne Jan 2004

The Natural History And Morphology Of The Eastern Cricket Frog, Acris Crepitans Crepitans, In West Virginia, Kimberly Ann Bayne

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Two subspecies of cricket frogs, Acris crepitans blanchardi and Acris crepitans crepitans, historically have occurred in West Virginia. The range of Acris c. blanchardi, Blanchard’s Cricket Frog, begins along the Ohio River extending into West Virginia. The Eastern Cricket Frog, Acris c. crepitans, is found in counties located in the eastern panhandle. The Eastern Cricket Frog is a species of great concern. Two sites where Acris c. crepitans historically occurred, two sites that never contained A. c. crepitans, one historical site that currently has A. c. crepitans, and two new sites that have A. c. crepitans were studied by auditory …


Law, Evolution, And The Brain: Applications And Open Questions, Owen D. Jones Jan 2004

Law, Evolution, And The Brain: Applications And Open Questions, Owen D. Jones

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This essay discusses several issues at the intersection of law and brain science. If focuses principally on ways in which an improved understanding of how evolutionary processes affect brain function and human behavior may improve law's ability to regulate behavior. It explores sample uses of such "evolutionary analysis in law" and also raises questions about how that analysis might be improved in the future. Among the discussed uses are: 1) clarifying cost-benefit analyses; 2) providing theoretical foundation and potential predictive power; 3) assessing comparative effectiveness of legal strategies; and 4) revealing deep patterns in legal architecture. Throughout, the essay emphasizes …


Clark’S Nutcrackers (Nucifraga Columbiana) And The Effects Of Goal-Landmark Distance On Overshadowing, Aleida J. Goodyear, Alan Kamil Jan 2004

Clark’S Nutcrackers (Nucifraga Columbiana) And The Effects Of Goal-Landmark Distance On Overshadowing, Aleida J. Goodyear, Alan Kamil

Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences

Three groups of Clark’s nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) were trained to find a goal location defined by an array of 4 landmarks that varied in goal–landmark distance. The arrays for each group differed in the distance of the closest landmark and contained goal–landmark distances that were common across groups, allowing for the examination of the effects of both relative and absolute goal–landmark distance on encoding of a landmark array. All 3 groups readily learned the task and were subsequently tested in probe tests with only single landmarks from the array available. Search error in tests with single landmarks was …


Social Play In Kaka (Nestor Meridionalis) With Comparisons To Kea (Nestor Notabilis), Judy Diamond, Alan B. Bond Jan 2004

Social Play In Kaka (Nestor Meridionalis) With Comparisons To Kea (Nestor Notabilis), Judy Diamond, Alan B. Bond

Papers in Behavior in Biological Sciences

Social play in the kaka (Nestor meridionalis), a New Zealand parrot, is described and contrasted with that of its closest relative, the kea (Nestor notabilis), in one of the first comparative studies of social play in closely related birds. Most play action patterns were clearly homologous in these two species, though some contrasts in the form of specific play behaviors, such as kicking or biting, could be attributed to morphological differences. Social play in kakas is briefer, more predictable, and less sequentially diverse than that shown by keas. Kaka play also appears to be restricted to …


A Conceptual Framework For Non-Kin Food Sharing: Timing And Currency Of Benefits, Jeffrey R. Stevens, Ian C. Gilby Jan 2004

A Conceptual Framework For Non-Kin Food Sharing: Timing And Currency Of Benefits, Jeffrey R. Stevens, Ian C. Gilby

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Many animal species, from arthropods to apes, share food. This paper presents a new framework that categorizes nonkin food sharing according to two axes: (1) the interval between sharing and receiving the benefits of sharing, and (2) the currency units in which benefits accrue to the sharer (especially food versus nonfood). Sharers can obtain immediate benefits from increased foraging efficiency, predation avoidance, mate provisioning, or manipulative mutualism. Reciprocity, trade, status enhancement and group augmentation can delay benefits. When benefits are delayed or when food is exchanged for nonfood benefits, maintaining sharing can become more difficult because animals face discounting and …


The Selfish Nature Of Generosity: Harassment And Food Sharing In Primates, Jeffrey R. Stevens Jan 2004

The Selfish Nature Of Generosity: Harassment And Food Sharing In Primates, Jeffrey R. Stevens

Jeffrey Stevens Publications

Animals may share food to gain immediate or delayed fitness benefits. Previous studies of sharing have concentrated on delayed benefits such as reciprocity, trade and punishment. This study tests an alternative model (the harassment or sharing–under–pressure hypothesis) in which a food owner immediately benefits because sharing avoids costly harassment from a beggar. I present an experiment that varies the potential ability of the beggar to harass, and of the owner to defend the food, to examine the effects of harassment on food sharing in two primate species: chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and squirrel monkeys (Saimiri boliviensis). For …