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18 results for “Nest choice”
Nest choice in arboreal ants is an emergent consequence of network creation under spatial constraints
<p>Biological transportation networks must balance competing functional priorities. The self-organizing mechanisms used to generate such networks have inspired scalable algorithms to construct and maintain low-cost and efficient human-designed transport networks. The pheromone-based trail networks of ants have been especially valuable in this regard. Here, we use turtle ants as our focal system: In contrast to the ant species usually used as models for self-organized networks, these ants live in a spatially constrained arboreal environment where both nesting options and connecting pathways are limited. Thus, they must solve a distinct set of challenges which resemble those faced by human transport engineers constrained by existing infrastructure. Here, we ask how a turtle ant colony's choice of which nests to include in a network may be influenced by their potential to create connections to other nests. In laboratory experiments with Cephalotes varians and Cephalotes texanus, we show that nest choice is influenced by spatial constraints, but in unexpected ways. Under one spatial configuration, colonies preferentially occupied more connected nest sites; however, under another spatial configuration, this preference disappeared. Comparing the results of these experiments to an agent-based model, we demonstrate that this apparently idiosyncratic relationship between nest connectivity and nest choice can emerge without nest preferences via a combination of self-reinforcing random movement along constrained pathways and density-dependent aggregation at nests. While this mechanism does not consistently lead to the de-novo construction of low-cost, efficient transport networks, it may be an effective way to expand a network, when coupled with processes of pruning and restructuring.</p>
Data from: Does the history of option quality affect nest site choice in the acorn ant?
<p>During decision−making, animals consider not only the current but also the past quality of options. For example, when humans evaluate performance (e.g. sales) of employees, they do not only consider the average performance but also the trend of performance ascending performance is often viewed as more favorable than descending performance. In our study, we test if non-human animals have a similar bias when they are evaluating options using house-hunting by the acorn ant, <em>Temnothorax curvispinosus</em>, as our model system. Our data show that when nest-site quality is static over time, ant colonies tend to prefer the nest site which was better (i.e. darker) between two nest options. However, when the nest quality changes—one improves and the other worsens—over time, more colonies choose the low-quality, but improving, nest than the high-quality, but worsening, nest. These results suggest that a continuous change of option quality may influence evaluation. We discuss alternative explanations for our results, possible mechanisms and potential ecological benefits for keeping track of the nest-site quality.</p>
Nest choice in arboreal ants is an emergent consequence of network creation under spatial constraints
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Adult sex-ratio bias does not lead to detectable adaptive offspring sex allocation via nest-site choice in a turtle with temperature-dependent sex determination
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Data from: Does the history of option quality affect nest site choice in the acorn ant?
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Temporal variation in maternal nest choice and its consequences for lizard embryos
Microhabitat choice of nest sites is an important maternal effect that influences the survival and development of embryos in oviparous species. Embryos of many species display a high degree of plasticity in response to developmental environments, which places maternal nesting behavior under strong selective pressure, particularly in temporally-changing environments. Nesting behavior varies widely across taxa that exhibit diverse reproductive strategies. The brown anole (Anolis sagrei), for example, lays one egg every 7-10 days across an extended reproductive season from April to October. This aspect of their reproduction provides an opportunity to examine temporal shifts in nesting behavior and its consequences on egg survival and offspring development under seasonally-changing climatic conditions. We conducted a two-part study to quantify temporal variation in maternal nesting behavior and its effect on development of A. sagrei embryos. First, we measured nest microenvironments over the nesting season. Second, we "planted" eggs across the landscape at our field site to examine the influence of nest conditions on egg survival and hatchling phenotypes. We also incubated eggs inside chambers in the field to decouple effects of nest moisture from those of other environmental variables (e.g., temperature).Females chose nest sites with higher moisture and lower temperatures relative to what was generally available across the landscape during the nesting season. In addition, eggs exposed to relatively cool temperatures had higher hatching success, and high nest moisture increased egg survival and body condition of hatchlings. Overall, we provide evidence in the field that maternal nesting behavior facilitates offspring survival.
Data from: Mother knows best: Nest-site choice homogenizes embryo thermal environments among populations in a widespread ectotherm
<p><span>Species with large geographic ranges provide an excellent model of how different populations respond to dissimilar local conditions, particularly variation in climate. Maternal effects, such as oviposition-site choice greatly affect offspring phenotypes and survival. Thus, maternal behavior has the potential to mitigate the effects of divergent climatic conditions across a species' range. We delineated natural nesting areas of six populations of painted turtles (<em>Chrysemys picta</em>) that span a broad latitudinal range and quantified spatial and temporal variation in nest characteristics. To quantify microhabitats available for females to choose, we also identified sites within the nesting area of each location that were representative of available thermal microhabitats. Across the range females nested non-randomly and targeted microhabitats that generally had less canopy cover and thus higher nest temperatures. Nest microhabitats differed among locations but did not predictably vary with latitude or historic mean air temperature during embryonic development. In conjunction with other studies of these populations, nest-site choice appears to be homogenizing nest environments, buffering embryos from thermally-induced selection, which could stymie evolution of embryonic traits. Thus, although effective at a macroclimatic scale, nest-site choice may be unable to compensate for novel stressors that rapidly increase local temperatures.</span></p>
Temporal variation in maternal nest choice and its consequences for lizard embryos
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Data from: Mother knows best: Nest-site choice homogenizes embryo thermal environments among populations in a widespread ectotherm
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Data from: Host nest site choice depends on risk of cuckoo parasitism in magpie hosts
Avian brood parasites impose large fitness costs on their hosts and, thus, brood parasitism has selected for an array of host defensive mechanisms to avoid them. So far most studies have focused on antiparasite defenses operating at the egg and chick stages and neglected defenses that may work prior to parasite egg deposition. Here, we experimentally explore the possibility that hosts, as part of a front-line defense, might minimize parasitism costs through informed nest site choice based on perceived risk of cuckoo parasitism. We conducted a large-scale manipulation of visual and auditory cues potentially informing on the risk of great spotted cuckoo Clamator glandarius parasitism during the nest site choice period of the magpie Pica pica host to investigate its effect on host's nest settlement and individual year to year site fidelity. Early breeding magpies preferentially placed their nests in safe areas (i.e., in sites of low perceived risk of parasitism), and, this effect diluted with time elapsed since risk of parasitism was manipulated. Site fidelity of individual magpies decreased with risk of cuckoo parasitism, for those that were not parasitized in the previous year. Our results constitute the first strong evidence showing that hosts can minimize the costs of cuckoo parasitism through informed nest-site choice, calling for future consideration of defenses potentially operating prior to parasite egg deposition to achieve a better understanding of cuckoo-host coevolution.
Choice of nest attributes as a frontline defense against brood parasitism
<p>Breeding- and nest-site choice is a behavioral strategy often used to counter negative interactions. Site choices prior to breeding prevents costs of predation and competition but has been neglected in the context of brood parasitism. For hosts of brood parasites, the earlier brood parasitism is prevented in the breeding cycle the lower the future costs. Suitable nest-sites for cavity-nesting common redstarts (<i><span>Phoenicurus phoenicurus</span></i><span>)</span>, a host of the common cuckoo (<i><span>Cuculus canorus</span></i>), are a limited resource, but their cavity-nesting strategy could potentially deter predators and brood parasites. We altered the entrance size of breeding cavities and investigated redstart nest site choice and its consequences to nest predation and brood parasitism risk, while accounting for potential interspecific competition for nest sites. We set-up paired nest-boxes and let redstarts choose between 7 cm and 5 cm entrance sizes. Additionally, we monitored occupancy rates in nest-boxes with 3 cm, 5 cm and 7 cm entrance sizes and recorded brood parasitism and predation events. We found that redstarts preferred to breed in 5 cm entrance size cavities, where brood parasitism was eliminated but nest predation rates were comparable to 7 cm entrance size cavities. Only in 3 cm cavities were both brood parasitism and predation rates reduced. In contrast to the other cavity-nesting species, redstart settlement was lowest in 3 cm entrance size cavities, potentially suggesting interspecific competition for small entrance size cavities. Nest site choice based on entrance size could be a front-line defense strategy that redstarts use to reduce brood parasitism.</p>
Data from: Host nest site choice depends on risk of cuckoo parasitism in magpie hosts
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Data from: Offspring dispersal ability covaries with nest-site choice
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Data from: Antipredator behavioural syndromes and nest site choice in a freshwater turtle
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Choice of nest attributes as a frontline defense against brood parasitism
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Data from: Noise affects nest box choice of 2 competing songbird species, but not their reproduction
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Data on nest choices by long-tailed tit helpers
<p>Cooperative breeding sometimes occurs when adult breeders form groups following natal dispersal and mating. In such cases, individuals typically face a choice of potential social partner with whom to cooperate. Selection of appropriate social partners is crucial to maximising the fitness payoffs from cooperation, but our understanding of the criteria guiding social partner choice is limited. Here, we analyse helping decisions by long-tailed tits (<em>Aegithalos caudatus</em>), which may redirect their care to assist breeders in raising offspring following the failure of their own breeding attempts. In this species, helpers show a preference for helping relatives at nearby nests, but it is unclear whether other criteria that may affect helper fitness are also important in helping decisions. Contrary to expectations, when controlling for kinship, we found that helping decisions were not sensitive to the size or age of broods available to be helped. Individuals were, however, more likely to help broods that were closer to their own failed nesting attempts and that were already being cared for by other helpers. Both effects likely reflect the limited choice available to helpers: although individuals breed close to relatives within kin neighbourhoods, a high rate of nest predation constrains helpers' choice of broods. In other species where cooperatively-breeding groups form after natal dispersal, a greater range of options may be available and here more detailed analysis of group formation will be helpful for determining the decision rules that underpin partner choice and permit stable cooperation in the face of alternative options.</p>
Data on nest choices by long-tailed tit helpers
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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.
Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)
ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.
DANDI Archive for NWB datasets
DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.
International Brain Laboratory public data
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.