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opencc-zeroApr 2024View details →

Location and caller familiarity influence mobbing behaviour and the likely ecological impact of noisy miners around colony edges

Mobbing is a widespread, vocally coordinated behaviour where species approach and harass a threat. The noisy miner (Manorina melanocephala) is a notorious native Australian honeyeater, well-known for its hyperaggressive mobbing. Numerous studies have identified negative impacts of their mobbing behaviour, highlighting the exclusion of competitors from colony areas and the resulting loss of woodland-bird biodiversity. Despite this, few studies have investigated mobbing itself, and our understanding of the factors which influence its expression remains limited. Here, we use a field-based playback experiment to investigate whether mobbing responses vary in relation to colony borders and caller familiarity. Noisy miners were more likely to respond, reacted more quickly, and responded more strongly to mobbing calls broadcast inside as opposed to outside the colony. These behavioural differences likely arise from variation in the relative costs and benefits of responding. When noisy miners did mob outside the colony, more individuals joined in response to unfamiliar as opposed to familiar callers. Our results reveal that noisy miner mobbing may not be as indiscriminate as often assumed, with caller familiarity and location influencing this behaviour. We suggest there are benefits to greater consideration of the factors impacting noisy miner mobbing behaviour.

Fig. 3 in Influence of Hepatozoon parasites on host-seeking and host-choice behaviour of the mosquitoes Culex territans and Culex pipiens

Fig. 3. Time of mosquito biting activity on infected or uninfected frogs. Mosquitoes that fed on infected frogs are represented by the solid line, and those that fed on uninfected frogs are represented by the dashed line. The top figure represents the time for each mosquito to land in trials where mosquitoes were allowed to feed to repletion (i.e., uninterrupted trials). A significantly higher proportion of mosquitoes that fed on infected frogs began to land later in the trial, compared to mosquitoes feeding on uninfected frogs. The bottom figure represents the time for each mosquito to land in trials where mosquitoes were allow to land but were removed before feeding (i.e., interrupted trials). A significant difference in the time for mosquitoes to land on infected or uninfected frogs was not observed in interrupted trials.

Fig. 4 in Influence of Hepatozoon parasites on host-seeking and host-choice behaviour of the mosquitoes Culex territans and Culex pipiens

Fig. 4. Time between mosquito bites on infected and uninfected frogs. Mosquitoes that were allowed to feed are represented by a solid line. Mosquitoes that were aspirated off the frog after landing are represented by the dashed line. A significantly longer amount of time passed between the bite of one mosquito and the bite of the following mosquito during trials in which mosquitoes were allowed to feed on a frog, compared to trials where mosquitoes were removed before feeding.

Fig. 1 in Influence of Hepatozoon parasites on host-seeking and host-choice behaviour of the mosquitoes Culex territans and Culex pipiens

Fig. 1. Number of mosquitoes that chose wild-caught frogs paired by different levels of infection. Each panel represents a pairing by infection level in green frogs. Each trial was repeated three times, and separate trials are shown by different shapes. Higher numbers of mosquitoes chose to land on wild-caught frogs with high infections of H. clamatae when paired with frogs with moderate infections or without infection. Infection level had a weakly significant effect on the number of mosquitoes that chose to land on a frog. UI = uninfected.

Fig. 2 in Influence of Hepatozoon parasites on host-seeking and host-choice behaviour of the mosquitoes Culex territans and Culex pipiens

Fig. 2. Number of mosquitoes that chose laboratory-raised frogs that were uninfected or experimentally infected. Each panel represents a pairing of infected or uninfected green frogs. Each pairing was repeated four times and each trial is represented by a different shape. Infection level did not have a significant effect on the number of mosquitoes choosing to land on a frog.

opencc-by-4.0Oct 2022View details →

Data and R code from: Haemosporidian infections influence risk-taking behaviours in young male blackcaps Sylvia atricapilla

This repository contains all data and code necessary to reproduce the results and figures of the paper: Remacha, C., Ramírez, A., Arriero, E. and Pérez-Tris, J. 2023. Haemosporidian infections influence risk-taking behaviours in young male blackcaps Sylvia atricapilla. Animal Behaviour, 196, 113-126. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.12.001">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.12.001</a> The repository contains a readme file (README_SYAT_MS_ANIBEH_Scripts.txt) with a description of the code and the data. The code is organised in eight R script files. Instructions to run the code are provided in the readme file. The data are organised in two separate files. One file (SYAT_MS_BH_ANIBEHdata.txt) contains data of exploratory and antipredatory behaviours of 43 young male blackcaps. The other one (SYAT_MS_BH_BIOL_ANIBEHdata.txt) contains biological and experimental attributes of the same individuals: status and intensity of parasite infection, experimental treatment, morphology and body mass.

opencc-zeroJun 2023View details →

Variation in foraging activity influences area-restricted search behaviour by bottlenose dolphins

Area-restricted search (ARS) behaviour is commonly used to characterise spatio-temporal variation in foraging activity of predators, but evidence of the drivers underlying this behaviour in marine systems is sparse. Advances in underwater sound recording techniques and automated processing of acoustic data now provide opportunities to investigate these questions where species use different vocalisations when encountering prey. Here, we used passive acoustics to investigate drivers of ARS behaviour in a population of dolphins, to determine if residency in key foraging areas increased following encounters with prey. Analyses were based on two independent proxies of foraging: echolocation buzzes (widely used as foraging proxies), and bray calls (vocalizations linked to salmon predation attempts). Echolocation buzzes were extracted from echolocation data loggers and bray calls from broadband recordings by a convolutional neural network (CNN). We found a strong positive relationship between the duration of encounters and the frequency of both foraging proxies, supporting the theory that bottlenose dolphins engage in ARS behaviour in response to higher prey encounter rates. This study provides empirical evidence for one driver of ARS behaviour and demonstrates the potential for applying passive acoustic monitoring in combination with deep learning-based techniques to investigate the behaviour of vocal animals.

publicMay 2025View details →

The influence of temperature, humidity and wind on the drinking behaviour of the Australian zebra finch

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publicJun 2023View details →

Variation in foraging activity influences area-restricted search behaviour by bottlenose dolphins

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publicSep 2025View details →

Behavioural predictability in chickens in response to anxiogenic stimuli is influenced by maternal corticosterone levels during egg formation

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publicApr 2024View details →

Location and caller familiarity influence mobbing behaviour and the likely ecological impact of noisy miners around colony edges

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opencc-by-4.0Dec 2019View details →

Data for: Does migration distance influence intra-individual variation in migratory behaviour in a seabird species with diverse migration strategies?

GPS tracking data from adult lesser black-backed gulls (L. fuscus) with 2 – 7 years of tracking data per individual from several colonies in the Netherlands, Belgium and the UK. This data has gone through initial cleaning to remove faulty GPS locations was combined with meta data from colonies to create a single .RDS file.  Result for the manuscript "High repeatability in migratory behaviours in a generalist seabird regardless of migration strategy" can be obtained from this data using the R scripts at https://github.com/jbrow247/LBBG_MigrationPlasticity_Pub.

opencc-by-4.0May 2021View details →

RECOVERY TIME FROM PRIOR SUBLETHAL HEAT STRESS INFLUENCES SUBSEQUENT HEATWAVE-DRIVEN MORTALITY AND BEHAVIOUR

<ol> <li>Rising global ocean temperatures are influencing the incidences of extreme thermal events – including marine heatwaves (MHWs) – which, in turn, are affecting marine organisms physiologically. The consequence of acute stress depends, in part, on the temporal pattern of exposure. Such influence results as the molecular mechanisms triggered by stressful conditions are energetically costly, and therefore their activation can help or hinder an organism faced with additional stress depending on relative timing of exposure.</li> <li>Here we test the effect of consecutive MHWs separated by varying lengths of recovery on the shallow subtidal gastropod species, Monodonta labio. We exposed M. labio to two separate heatwave events (32 ºC) separated by either a 5-day, 10-day or 15-day recovery period (28 ºC) and assessed the effects on mortality, behaviour (attempt to right, success righting), and physiological performance (oxygen consumption rates) after each time period.</li> <li>While some mortality was experienced in the first heatwave event, it was significantly greater in the second event with a trend toward more mortality in the longer than shorter recovery period treatments. Over the duration of the experiment, longer recovery periods were associated with greater overall cumulative mortality. In terms of behaviour, although there was no change in attempt to right across the experimental periods, the proportion to successfully complete the behaviour decreased following the second heatwave. Interestingly, during the second heatwave no gastropods in the 5-day recovery treatment successfully righted, with some success observed for those with a longer recovery period. Despite these changes in mortality and behaviour, oxygen consumption rates remained consistent across treatments and the experimental period, indicating organisms did not adjust this process.</li> <li>Together, our results highlight that where a MHW event has sublethal effects, this could modify the response organisms show to a subsequent  MHW. Moreover, the influence of this earlier MHW will be dependent upon the duration of the intervening recovery period afforded to organisms. Consequently, it will be important to consider repeat events, and the duration of recovery between them, when considering the effects of altered heatwave patterns driven by global climate change.</li> </ol>

opencc-zeroJun 2021View details →

Natural and anthropogenic sources of habitat variation influence exploration behaviour, stress response, and brain morphology in a coastal fish

1. Evolutionary ecology aims to better understand how ecologically important traits respond to environmental heterogeneity. Environments vary both naturally and as a result of human activities, and investigations that simultaneously consider how natural and human-induced environmental variation affect diverse trait types grow increasingly important as human activities drive species endangerment. 2. Here, we examine how habitat fragmentation and structural habitat complexity, affect disparate trait types in Bahamas mosquitofish (Gambusia hubbsi) inhabiting tidal creeks. We tested a priori predictions for how these factors might influence exploratory behaviour, stress reactivity, and brain anatomy. 3. We examined approximately 350 adult Bahamas mosquitofish from seven tidal creek populations across Andros Island, The Bahamas that varied in both human-caused fragmentation (three fragmented, four unfragmented) and natural habitat complexity (e.g. 5-fold variation in rock habitat). 4. Populations that had experienced severe human-induced fragmentation, and thus restriction of tidal exchange from the ocean, exhibited greater exploration of a novel environment, stronger physiological stress responses to a mildly stressful event, and smaller telencephala (relative to body size). These changes matched adaptive predictions based mostly on 1) reduced chronic predation risk and 2) decreased demands for navigating tidally dynamic habitats. Populations from sites with greater structural habitat complexity showed a higher propensity for exploration and a relatively larger optic tectum and cerebellum. These patterns matched adaptive predictions related to increased demands for navigating complex environments. 5. Our findings demonstrate environmental variation, including recent anthropogenic impacts (<50 years), can significantly affect complex, ecologically important traits. Yet trait-specific patterns may not be easily predicted, as we found strong support for only six of 12 predictions. Our results further highlight the utility of simultaneously quantifying multiple environmental factors—e.g. had we failed to account for habitat complexity, we would not have detected effects of fragmentation on exploratory behaviours. These responses, and their ecological consequences, may be complex: rapid and adaptive phenotypic responses to anthropogenic impacts can facilitate persistence in human-altered environments, but may come at a cost of population vulnerability if ecological restoration were to occur without consideration of the altered traits.

opencc-zeroNov 2023View details →

Data for: Feeding frequency does not interact with BPA exposure to influence metabolism of behaviour in zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Resource limitation can constrain energy (ATP) production, and thereby affect locomotion and behaviour such as exploration of novel environments and boldness. Consequently, ecological processes such as dispersal and interactions within and between species may be influenced by food availability. Energy metabolism, and behaviour are regulated by endocrine signaling, and may therefore be impacted by endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) such as bisphenol A (BPA) derived from plastic manufacture and pollution. It is important to determine the impacts of these novel environmental contexts to understand how human activity alters individual physiology and behaviour and thereby populations. Our aim was to determine whether BPA exposure interacts with feeding frequency to alter metabolism and behaviour. In a fully factorial experiment, we show that low feeding frequency reduced zebrafish (Danio rerio) mass, condition, resting metabolic rates, total distance moved and speed in a novel arena, as well as anxiety indicated by the number of times fish returned to a dark shelter. However, feeding frequency did not significantly affect maximal metabolic rates, aerobic scope, swimming performance, latency to leave a shelter, or metabolic enzyme activities (citrate synthase and lactate dehydrogenase). Natural or anthropogenic fluctuation in food resources can therefore impact energetics and movement of animals with repercussions for ecological processes such as dispersal. BPA exposure reduced LDH activity and body mass, but did not interact with feeding frequency. Hence, behaviour of adult fish is relatively insensitive to disruption by BPA. However, alteration of LDH activity by BPA could disrupt lactate metabolism and signalling and together with reduction in body mass could affect size-dependent reproductive output. BPA released by plastic manufacture and pollution can thereby impact conservation and management of natural resources.

opencc-by-4.0Mar 2022View details →

Influence of product selection criteria on clothing purchase and post-purchase behaviours

To analyse the influence of the attributes for sustainable clothing selection on sustainable purchase and post-purchase behaviours.

opencc-zeroMay 2022View details →

Behavioural and morphological traits influence sex-specific floral resource use by hummingbirds

Research on resource partitioning in plant-pollinator mutualistic systems is mainly concentrated at the levels of species and communities, whereas differences between males and females are typically ignored. Nevertheless, pollinators often show large sexual differences in behaviour and morphology, which may lead to sex-specific patterns of resource use with the potential to differentially affect plant reproduction and diversification. We investigated variation in behavioural and morphological traits between sexes of hummingbird species as potential mechanisms underlying sex-specific flower resource use in ecological communities. To do so, we compiled a dataset of plant-hummingbird interactions based on pollen loads for 31 hummingbird species from 13 localities across the Americas, complemented by data on territorial behaviour (territorial or nonterritorial) and morphological traits (bill length, bill curvature, wing length and body mass). We assessed the extent of intersexual differences in niche breadth and niche overlap in floral resource use across hummingbird species. Then, we tested whether floral niche breadth and overlap between sexes are associated with sexual dimorphism in behavioural or morphological traits of hummingbird species, while accounting for evolutionary relatedness among the species. We found striking differences in patterns of floral resource use between sex. Females had a broader floral niche breadth and were more dissimilar in the plant species visited with respect to males of the same species, resulting in a high level of resource partitioning between sexes. We found that both territoriality and morphological traits were related to sex-specific resource use by hummingbird species. Notably, niche overlap between sexes was greater for territorial than nonterritorial species, and moreover, niche overlap was negatively associated with sexual dimorphism in bill curvature across hummingbird species. These results reveal the importance of behavioural and morphological traits of hummingbird species in sex-specific resource use and that resource partitioning by sex is likely to be an important mechanism to reduce intersexual competition in hummingbirds. These findings highlight the need for better understanding the putative role of intersexual variation in shaping patterns of interactions and plant reproduction in ecological communities.

opencc-zeroAug 2022View details →

Data from: Empirically testing the influence of light regime on diel activity patterns in a marine predator reveals complex interacting factors shaping behaviour

Diel cycles in marine predator diving behaviour centre around the light-mediated diel vertical migration (DVM) of prey, and are considered critical for optimizing foraging and limiting competition across global seascapes. Yet our understanding of predator diel behaviour is based primarily on examining relative depth usage between constant day/night cycles with no formal investigation of how varying light regimes interact with abiotic factors to shape diel activity. The extreme seasonal light regimes (midnight sun, polar night, day/night cycle) in the Arctic provide a unique natural experimental setting to empirically investigate the occurrence and intensity of diel behaviour in marine predators relative to changing light levels while concomitantly assessing interacting abiotic factors. Depth time series data from satellite-linked tags deployed on six belugas for up to 12 months were used to quantify diel behaviour by calculating dissimilarity in time-at-depth between periods of low and high solar altitude on each day. Generalized additive mixed effects models were used to examine the influence of hours of daylight across extreme light cycles, coupled with bathymetry and sea ice concentration; focal diel patterns were further examined relative to the thermal structure of the water column. As predicted, belugas exhibited cathemerality during the midnight sun, and initiated diel behaviour with the onset of the fall day/night cycle, with a marked increase in its intensity with the progression to equal day/night length. Occurrence of diel patterns, however, was complex; ceasing in regions with seafloor depths < 700 m, and occurring with greatest intensity when the water column was thermally homogeneous within the upper 150 m. Through empirical investigation, this study demonstrates that the onset of day/night light cycles and presumably associated prey DVM can modulate predator diel dive behaviour under certain circumstances, but highlights how the complex interaction of abiotic factors with light regime shape dynamic spatiotemporal patterns. These findings, building on a body of recent work, emphasize that the traditional view of the ubiquitous occurrence of diel behaviour tied to DVM at the base of the food web oversimplifies vertical predator-prey interactions, identifying the need for more structured investigation.

opencc-by-4.0Sep 2019View details →

Dataset for article 'How users' knowledge of advertisements influences their viewing and selection behaviour in search engines'

This study examines how users’ understanding of search-based advertising influences search results viewing behaviour the PC and the smartphone. To investigate this, we used a mix of methods consisting of interview, eye-tracking experiment and questionnaire with n=100 subjects. We show that participants with a low level of knowledge on search advertising are more likely to click on ads than subjects with a high level of knowledge. Moreover, subjects with little knowledge show less willingness to scroll down to the organic results. Regarding the device, there are significant differences in viewing behaviour. These can be attributed to the influence of the direct visibility of search results on both devices tested. We recommend, depending on the device, that advertisers ensure their ads appear in the instantly visible area ("above the fold"). Future studies should investigate the motivations of searchers when clicking on ads.