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1,380 results for “Foraging”
Reactive response to predation risk affects foraging time of hares, yet not their phosphorus intake
<p>Antipredator responses could affect nutrient intake, which could lead to nutritional deficits. However, little is known about the antipredator response of small herbivores because most are nocturnal or crepuscular and therefore very difficult to study in the field. Therefore, we experimentally assessed the effect of a reactive response to predation risk on the nutrient (i.e., phosphorous) intake of the European hare (<em>Lepus</em> <em>europaeus</em>) using three different playback sounds. Additionally, we studied the time spent being costly vigilant, the time spent foraging, and the vegetation height in which the hares were present using accelerometers and GPS. Our results showed that elevated predation risk from our playback experiment did not affect the (1) phosphorus intake, (2) time spent being costly vigilant, and (3) time spent in tall vegetation. However, elevated predation risk did increase the time spent foraging. Possibly hares spent more time foraging with an increased predation risk because hares cannot seek refuge from predators. Additionally, the effect on phosphorus intake could be weak because phosphorous intake does not benefit a flight escape, while the reactive response acts late in the predation sequence limiting the effect on hare ecology. Prey anti-predator responses seem strongly related to the escape tactics of prey species that can differ between different habitats and the time of the day. More detailed field studies are necessary to get a better insight into species' anti-predator-food tactics.</p>
Data from: The role of fish predators and their foraging traits in shaping zooplankton community structure
<p><span>Differentiation of foraging traits among predator populations may help explain observed variation in the structure of prey communities. However, few studies have investigated the phenotypic effects of predators on their prey in natural communities. Here, we use a comparative analysis of 78 Greenlandic lakes to examine how foraging trait variation among threespine stickleback populations can help explain variation in zooplankton community composition among lakes. We find that landscape-scale variation in zooplankton composition was jointly explained by lake properties, such as size and water chemistry, and the presence and absence of both stickleback and arctic char. </span><span>Additional variation in zooplankton community structure can be explained by stickleback jaw protrusion, a trait with known utility for foraging on zooplankton, but only in lakes where stickleback co-occur with arctic char. Overall, our results illustrate how trait variation of consumers, alongside other ecosystem properties, can influence the composition of prey communities in nature.</span></p>
Data for: Nonrandom foraging and resource distributions
<p>Nonrandom foraging can cause animals to aggregate in resource-dense areas, increasing host density, contact rates, and pathogen transmission, but when should nonrandom foraging and resource distributions also have density-independent effects? Here, we used a factorial experiment with constant resource and host densities to quantify host contact rates across seven resource distributions. We also used an agent-based model to compare pathogen transmission when host movement was based on random foraging, optimal foraging, or something between those states. Nonrandom foraging strongly depressed contact rates and transmission relative to the classic random movement assumptions used in most epidemiological models. Given nonrandom foraging in the ABM and experiment, contact rates and transmission increased with resource aggregation and average distance to resource patches due to increased host movement in search of resources. Overall, we describe three density-independent mechanisms by which host behavior and resource distributions alter contact rate functions and pathogen transmission.</p>
Data from: Stingless bee foragers experience more thermally stressful microclimates but have wider thermal tolerance breadths than other worker subcastes
<p>The current state of anthropogenic climate change is of particular concern for insects, especially in the tropics where the effects are predicted to be the most deleterious. Researching climatic tolerance in social insects is challenging because adaptations can exist at both an individual level and a societal level. However, these studies are important because social insects comprise a tremendous portion of the planet's animal biomass, biodiversity, and include many important pollinators. Considering how individual physiologies construct group-level adaptations can improve the accuracy of climate change impact assessments for a variety of social species. <em>Tetragonisca angustula</em> is a neotropical stingless bee species known to exhibit particularly high worker subcaste specialization in the form of a morphologically distinct soldier caste, a trait most commonly found and studied in ants and termites. We used this model species to investigate 1) whether age- and size-differentiated task groups differ in thermal tolerance, 2) which worker subcastes operate closest to their thermal limits, and 3) the extent to which behavioral thermoregulation via shifting active foraging times can offset thermal stress in this species. We measured the thermal tolerance (CT<sub>max</sub> and CT<sub>min</sub>) of smaller-bodied foragers, and two soldier sub-castes (hovering guards and standing guards) in <em>T. angustula</em>. Despite the difference in body size between the foragers and guards, no differences in the upper or lower thermal limits were observed. However, the average thermal tolerance breadth of foragers was significantly larger than that of guards, indicating that soldiers at the nest entrance are more thermally specialized than foragers. Temperatures at foraging sites were more variable than at nest entrances, which caused warming tolerance to be significantly lower among small-bodied foragers as compared to either hovering guards or standing guards. The magnitude of warming tolerances indicated a low risk of imminent climate change impacts in this environment, but our results suggest that as temperatures increase, foragers are likely to meet their upper thermal limits before other worker subcastes. Foragers may shift the times they are active as a form of thermoregulation which could selectively impact pollination rates for plants leading to repercussions on agriculture and ecosystem functioning. This work establishes novel approaches to predicting climatic change risk in heterogeneous cooperative societies.</p>
Data from: Tool use increases mechanical foraging success and tooth health in southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis)
<p>Although it is well documented that tool use can enable the utilization of novel resources, the fitness benefits associated with this innovative behavior are difficult to test. Using longitudinal data from 196 radio-tagged southern sea otters, we found that individuals, particularly females, with frequent tool use gained access to harder, larger prey items. In turn, the mechanical advantages of tool use during food processing translated to reduced tooth damage in tool users. We also found that tool use diminishes trade-offs between access to different prey types, tooth health, and caloric intake that are highly dependent on the relative availability of prey in the environment. Overall, tool use allows individuals to maintain caloric requirements through the processing of alternative prey that are otherwise inaccessible without the use of tools, indicating that this innovative behavior is a necessity for the survival of southern sea otters in environments with depleted preferred prey.</p>
Good vibrations: Remote-tactile foraging success of wading birds is positively affected by the water content of substrates they forage in
<p>Some taxa of wading birds can locate buried prey by detecting vibratory cues in their foraging substrates while probe-foraging, using a sensory modality called "remote-touch". As more saturated substrates transmit vibrations better, we predict that these birds can detect prey in wetter substrates more easily. We used sensory assays to test whether substrate water content affects the remote-touch foraging success rate of Hadeda Ibises, <em>Bostrychia hagedash</em>. The birds were more successful at locating prey using vibratory cues than when relying on random direct contact with the beak alone. Their remote-touch foraging success rate was positively affected by increasing water contents of the soil, but water content had no effect on their direct contact foraging success (indicating this is not an artefact of ease of probing). This may partially explain the link between the range expansion of this species in southern Africa and increased soil irrigation, as it is easier for the birds to detect prey in wetter substrates. Thus, it is likely that the distribution of other remote-touch foraging birds is affected by substrate water content, and as many of these species are endangered and rely on sensitive wetland habitats, it is vital to understand their sensory requirements for foraging.</p>
Historical baleen plates indicate that once abundant Antarctic blue and fin whales demonstrated distinct migratory and foraging strategies
<p>Southern hemisphere blue (<em>Balaenoptera musculus intermedia</em>) and fin (<em>Balaenoptera physalus</em>) whales are the largest predators in the Southern Ocean, with similarities in morphology and distribution. Yet, understanding of their life history and foraging is limited due to current low abundances and limited ecological data. To address these gaps, historic Antarctic blue (n = 5) and fin (n = 5) whale baleen plates, collected in 1947–1948 and recently rediscovered in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, were analyzed for bulk (δ<sup>13</sup>C and δ<sup>15</sup>N) stable isotopes. Regular oscillations in isotopic ratios, interpreted as annual cycles, revealed that baleen plates contain approximately six years (14.35 ± 1.20 cm yr<sup>–1</sup>) of life history data in blue whales and four years (16.52 ± 1.86 cm yr<sup>–1</sup>) in fin whales. Isotopic results suggest that: 1) in the 1940s, blue and fin whales fed at the same trophic level but in slightly different habitats, 2) fin whales appear to have had more regular annual migrations, and 3) fin whales may have migrated to ecologically distinct sub-Antarctic waters annually while some blue whales may have resided year-round in the Southern Ocean. These results reveal differences in ecological niche and life history strategies between Antarctic blue and fin whales during a period when their populations were more abundant than today, and before major human-driven climatic changes occurred in the Southern Ocean.</p>
Data set for paper on Australian fur seal prey capture and foraging efficiency
<p>Data set for paper on Australian fur seal prey capture and foraging efficiency</p>
Prey diversity constrains the adaptive potential of predator foraging traits
<p>Predators are generally under selective pressure to get better at foraging, leading to steeper functional responses and stronger predator-prey interactions. Yet strong interactions can de-stabilize food webs, and most interactions across ecological communities are thought to be weak. This conflict between evolutionary and community expectations for the strength of predator-prey interactions represents a fundamental gap in our understanding of how the evolution of foraging plays out in food webs. Here we help to resolve the conflict by showing analytically that the expectation for the evolution of steeper functional responses is relaxed in communities with diverse prey types. We simulate communities with varying prey richness and show that increasing prey richness can indeed constrain the adaptive potential of predator foraging traits, but that at low prey richness predators can evolve to have a stronger interaction with prey that have high net energy yields. Our results also indicate that handling time plays a role in determining whether predators may evolve to have a stronger interaction with abundant prey, suggesting that the evolution of keystone predator modules in food webs is most likely when handling times are negligible. Our results also provide a new mechanism predicting more diffuse interactions in diverse tropical communities relative to more species-poor communities at higher latitudes.</p>
Data from: Evaluating temporal and spatial transferability of a tidal inundation model for foraging waterbirds
<p>For ecosystem models to be applicable outside their context of development, temporal and spatial transferability must be demonstrated. This presents a challenge for modeling intertidal ecosystems where spatiotemporal variation arises at multiple scales. Models specializing in tidal dynamics are generally inhibited from having wider ecological applications by coarse spatiotemporal resolution or high user competency. The Tidal Inundation Model of Shallow-water Availability (TiMSA) uniquely simulates tides to empirically derive a time-integrated measure of availability for a shallow water depth range defined by the user. To evaluate temporal and spatiotemporal transferability, we employed TiMSA at the development site in the Florida Keys and at novel sub-sites in the Florida Bay (application site) under a different time period (application period). We used foraging Little Blue Herons (<em>Egretta caerulea</em>) as the ecological unit with which to constrain the model's 'water depth window', i.e., range of water depths to estimate shallow-water availability. At the development site, temporally consistent water depth windows contrasted with interannual variation in shallow-water availability which revealed short-term changes in Little Blue Heron foraging habitat. At the application site, water depth accuracy varied by sub-site and was correlated with spatial error in bathymetric elevation. Although TiMSA parameters were sensitive to environmental temporal variation and uncertainty in spatial data, a spatially-explicit water depth window generated reliable estimates of shallow-water conditions over space and time at the development and application sites. By exploring the contributing factors to model error, we provide solutions to reduce uncertainty of TiMSA parameters at potential application sites and recommendations for addressing bathymetric inaccuracy in digital elevation models. Accurately quantifying spatiotemporal changes of shallow-water has implications for monitoring habitat conditions for tidally-influenced species and projecting future changes to coastal ecosystems in response to anthropogenic stressors and natural disturbances such as sea level rise.</p>
Data from: Evaluating the foraging performance of individual honey bees in different environments with automated field RFID systems
<p>Measuring the individual foraging performances of pollinators is crucial to guide environmental policies that aim at enhancing pollinator health and pollination services. Automated systems have been developed to track the activity of individual honey bees, but their deployment is extremely challenging. This has limited the assessment of individual foraging performances in full-strength bee colonies in the field. Most studies available to date have been constrained to use downsized bee colonies located in urban and suburban areas. Environmental policy-making, on the other hand, needs a more comprehensive assessment of honey bee performances in a broader range of environments, including in remote agricultural and wild areas. Here we detail a new autonomous field method to record high quality data on the flight ontogeny and foraging performance of honey bees, using Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID). We separate bee traffic into returning and exiting tunnels to improve data quality, solving many previous limitations of RFID systems caused by traffic jams and the parasitic coupling of RFID antennae. With this method, we assembled a large RFID dataset made of control bee colonies from experiments conducted in different locations and seasons. We hope our results will be a starting point to understand how ontogenetic and environmental factors affect the individual performances of honey bees, and that our method will enable the large-scale replication of individual pollinator performance studies.</p>
Fig. 1 in On The Diet And Foraging Strategy Of Tundra Waders At Sivash
Fig. 1. Map of monitoring areas (shown in circles) where the observations of the wader foraging behaviour were taken.
Reef effect of offshore structures on the occurrence and foraging activity of harbour porpoises
<p class="MsoNormal">With increasing numbers of offshore structures to be decommissioned, a better understanding of their effect on marine predators is timely. There is some evidence that oil and gas platforms may attract marine mammals acting as artificial reefs. However, it is unclear whether different man-made structure designs have similar effects. Further, due to the lack of baseline data prior to installation, it is unknown whether artificial structures modify the diel patterns of occurrence and foraging behaviour of marine mammals. Here, we used passive acoustics to investigate the occurrence and foraging activity of harbour porpoises (<em>Phocoena phocoena</em>) around three artificial structures of different age and complexity. We deployed an array of echolocation click detectors (CPODs) in 2021, along a gradient of distances to these structures and assessed the extent to which porpoises were attracted to them. We also investigated the effect of these structures on the diel patterns of occurrence and foraging activity of porpoises. The probability of porpoise occurrence and foraging activity decreased with distance from offshore structures. A significant increase in porpoise occurrence and foraging was detected during night-time compared to daytime around all three offshore structures (< 200 m). Comparing pre- and post-installation porpoise detections, the daily patterns of occurrence and foraging activity shifted from a weak <a>diel</a><span class="MsoCommentReference"><span> </span></span>pattern before the structure was installed, to a strong nocturnal pattern when the structure was present. These findings provide evidence that marine mammals are attracted to man-made structures and that porpoises modify their diel patterns of occurrence and foraging activity around them. This research suggests that offshore structures play an important role as foraging areas for marine mammals and provides key information for the decommissioning process.</p>
Foraging behaviour data for sympatric Ateles geoffroyi, Alouatta palliata, and Cebus imitator
<p><span>Senses form the interface between animals and environments, and their form and function provide a window into the ecology of past and present species. However, research on the senses used during foraging (e.g. smell, vision, touch, taste) by wild terrestrial frugivores is sparse. Here, we combine 26,094 fruit foraging sequences recorded from three wild, sympatric primates (<em>Cebus imitator, Ateles geoffroyi, Alouatta palliata</em>) with data on within- and between-species variation in colour vision, olfaction, taste, and hand anatomy. We hypothesize that dietary and sensory specialization shape foraging behaviours. We find that frugivorous spider monkeys (<em>Ateles geoffroyi</em>) sniff fruits most often, that omnivorous capuchins (<em>Cebus imitator</em>), the species with the highest measure of manual dexterity, uses manual touch most often, and that main olfactory bulb volume is a better predictor of sniffing behaviour than nasal turbinate surface area. We also identify an interaction between colour vision phenotype and use of other senses. Controlling for species, dichromats sniff and bite fruits more often than trichromats, and trichromats use manual touch to evaluate cryptic fruits more often than dichromats. Our findings help reveal how dietary specialization and sensory variation shape foraging behaviours, and inform methods for investigating relationships between behaviour and anatomy.</span></p>
Evaluating the summer landscapes of predation risk and forage quality for elk (Cervus canadensis)
<p>These data accompany the paper "Evaluating the summer landscapes of predation risk and forage quality for elk (<em>Cervus canadensis</em>)", and are the unscaled version of the second- and third-order resource selection data sets for elk. Each data set consists of 6 columns: elkid (a unique identifier for every individual), used (an indicator: 0 = available sample, 1 = used sample), year, de (modeled digestible energy), lion (predicted relative probability of selection for mountain lions) and wolf (predicted relative probability of selection for wolves).</p>
Bee Tracker – an open-source machine-learning based video analysis software for the assessment of nesting and foraging performance of cavity-nesting solitary bees
<p>The foraging and nesting performance of bees can provide important information on bee health and is of interest for risk and impact assessment of environmental stressors. While radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology is an efficient tool increasingly used for the collection of behavioral data in social bee species such as honey bees, behavioral studies on solitary bees still largely depend on direct observations, which is very time-consuming.</p> <p>Here, we present a novel automated methodological approach of individually and simultaneously tracking and analyzing foraging and nesting behavior of numerous cavity-nesting solitary bees. The approach consists of monitoring nesting units by video recording and automated analysis of videos by a machine learning based software. This <i>Bee Tracker</i> software consists of four trained deep learning networks to detect bees that enter or leave their nest and to recognize individual IDs on the bees' thorax as well as the IDs of their nests according to their positions in the nesting unit.</p> <p>The software is able to identify each nest of each individual nesting bee, which permits to measure individual-based measures of reproductive success. Moreover, the software quantifies the number of cavities a female enters until it finds its nest as a proxy of nest recognition, and it provides information on the number and duration of foraging trips. By training the software on 8 videos recording 24 nesting females per video, the software achieved a precision of 96% correct measurements of these parameters.</p> <p>The software could be adapted to various experimental setups by training it to an according set of videos. The presented method allows to efficiently collect large amounts of data on cavity-nesting solitary bee species and represents a promising new tool for the monitoring and assessment of behavior and reproductive success under laboratory, semi-field and field conditions.</p>
Source code and data from: Foraging personalities modify effects of habitat fragmentation on biodiversity
<p><span>Habitat loss undeniably poses a substantial threat to biodiversity, but whether fragmentation per se drives the loss of species is still widely debated. While negative consequences from fragmentation are often anticipated, many empirical studies report positive effects. However, the intrinsic mechanisms governing species' persistence in fragmented landscapes are not yet understood. In this study, we investigated consistent personality-dependent differences in foraging behavior among individuals as a possible mechanism underlying the discrepancy of reported fragmentation effects. </span><span>We </span><span>devised a mechanistic individual-based model simulating the home range behavior of a competitive small mammal community based on the availability of a shared resource. Thereby, an individual's risk-taking behavior dictates its foraging decisions at risky habitat edges, an inherent property of fragmentation per se. Our simulations show that differences in risk-taking while foraging are potentially a further mechanism contributing to reconciling the fragmentation debate. The first scenario considering risk-seeking communities showed a neutral response towards fragmentation, while the second scenario featuring risk-avoiding communities confirmed the negative effects of fragmentation. Notably, the third scenario, simulating behaviorally diverse communities including risk-avoiding and risk-seeking individuals, demonstrated a positive influence of fragmentation on biodiversity. Intraspecific differences in behavior could also enhance the temporal species coexistence (coviability) of communities threatened by an ongoing habitat loss. Our study highlights the importance of recognizing the behavioral composition of populations and communities for estimating fragmentation effects, because differences in risk-taking can influence the coping abilities of animal communities in light of fragmentation.</span></p>
Data from: Impact of human foraging on tree diversity, composition and abundance in a tropical rainforest
<p>These are summarised plot data from fifteen 40 m by 40 m sample plots established in Oban Division of Cross River National Park, Nigeria, between 23rd August 2019 and 9th September 2019. We have also included data summaries and RStudio codes used for analysis and generating results for the manuscript entitled: "Impact of human foraging on tree diversity, composition and abundance in a tropical rainforest", submitted for publication as an original research article in Biotropica. All data and R code required to generate the results as shown in the manuscript have been included. Complete tree species and plot data can be accessed at https://forestplots.net/.</p>
Data for: Do ectomycorrhizal exploration types reflect mycelial foraging strategies?
<p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst"><span>·<span> </span></span><span>Ectomycorrhizal exploration types are commonly assumed to denote spatial foraging patterns and resource-related niches of extraradical mycelia. However, empirical evidence of the consistency of foraging strategies within exploration types is lacking.</span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span>·<span> </span></span><span>Here, we analysed ectomycorrhizal foraging patterns by incubating root-excluding ingrowth mesh bags filled with six different substrates in mature <em>Picea abies </em>forests. High-throughput sequencing was used to characterize ectomycorrhizal fungal communities in the mesh bags and on adjacent fine roots after one growing season.</span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle"><span>·<span> </span></span><span>Contrary to expectations, many ectomycorrhizal genera of exploration types thought to produce little extraradical mycelium colonised ingrowth bags extensively, whereas genera commonly associated with ample mycelial production occurred sparsely in ingrowth bags relative to their abundance on roots. </span></p> <p class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast"><span>·<span> </span></span><span>Previous assumptions about soil foraging patterns of exploration types do not seem to hold. Instead, we propose that variation in the proliferation of extraradical mycelium is related to intergeneric differences in mycelial longevity and mobility of targeted resources. </span></p>
Social learning data in a foraging setting for Heliconius erato
<p><span>Insects may acquire social information by active communication and through inadvertent social cues. In a foraging setting, the latter may indicate the presence and quality of resources. Although social learning in foraging contexts is prevalent in eusocial species, this behaviour has been hypothesised to also exist between conspecifics in non-social species with sophisticated behaviours, including </span><span><em>Heliconius</em> </span><span>butterflies</span><span>. </span><span><em>Heliconius</em> </span><span>are the</span><span> only butterfly genus with active pollen feeding, a dietary innovation </span><span>associated with a specialised, spatially faithful foraging behaviour known as trap-lining. Long-standing hypotheses suggest that <em>Heliconius</em> may acquire trap-line information by following experienced individuals. Indeed, <em>Heliconius</em></span> <span>often aggregate in social roosts, which could act as 'information centres', and present conspecific following behaviour, enhancing opportunities for social learning. Here, we provide a direct test of social learning ability in <em>Heliconius</em> using an associative learning task in which naïve individuals completed a colour preference test in the presence of demonstrators trained to feed randomly or with a strong colour preference. We found no evidence that </span><span><em>Heliconius</em> <em>erato</em></span><span>, which roost socially, used social information in this task</span><span>. Combined with existing field studies our results add to data which contradict the hypothesised role of social learning in <em>Heliconius</em> foraging behaviour.</span></p>
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Allen Brain Atlas
Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.
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DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
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The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.
OpenNeuro
OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.