Veille Scientifique

Publication date: November 2022Source: Animal Behaviour, Volume 193Author(s): Miyako H. Warrington, Sienna Beaulieu, Sjoerd Vos, Riley Jellicoe, Nigel C. Bennett, Jane M. Waterman

Abstract The capacity to follow human cues provides animals with information about the environment and can hence offer obvious adaptive benefits. Most studies carried out so far, however, have been on captive animals with previous experience with humans. Further comparative investigation is needed to properly assess the factors driving the emergence of this capacity under natural conditions, especially in species that do not have longstanding interactions with humans. Wild brown skuas (Catharacta antarctica ssp. lonnbergi) are non-neophobic seabirds that live in human-free habitats. In test 1, we assessed this species’ capacity to use human behavioural cues (i.e., pecking at the

Abstract In this theme issue, our multidisciplinary contributors highlight the cognitive adaptations of marine mammals. The cognitive processes of this group are highly informative regarding how animals cope with specifics of and changes in the environment, because, not only did modern marine mammals evolve from numerous, non-related terrestrial animals to adapt to an aquatic lifestyle, but some of these species regularly move between two worlds, land and sea. Here, we bring together scientists from different fields and take the reader on a journey that begins with the ways in which modern marine mammals (whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions and manatees)

Ethology, EarlyView.

Abstract Alarm signals and cues are crucial to animal survival and vary greatly across species. Eavesdropping on heterospecific alarm signals and cues can provide eavesdroppers with information about potential threats. In addition to acoustic alarm signals, evidence has accumulated that chemical alarm cues and disturbance cues can also play a role in alerting conspecifics to potential danger in adult anurans (frogs and toads). However, there is very little known about whether disturbance cues are exploited by heterospecifics. In the present study, we conducted a binary choice experiment and a prey chemical discrimination experiment, respectively, to test the responses of a

Publication date: November 2022Source: Animal Behaviour, Volume 193Author(s): G.L. Vale, L. Williams, S. Neal Webb, S.J. Schapiro, S.F. Brosnan

Ethology, EarlyView.

Abstract Thinking flexibly is a skill that enables animals to adapt to changing environments, which enhances survival. Killer whales, Orcinus orca, as the ocean apex predator display a number of complex cognitive abilities, especially flexible thinking or creativity when it comes to foraging. In human care, smaller dolphins and other marine mammals have been trained to think creatively while under stimulus control. The results of these previous studies have demonstrated that bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus, can create original behaviors in response to an innovative cue. We trained and tested a total of nine killer whales from two different facilities on

Abstract Decision making is known to be liable to several context effects. In particular, adding a seemingly irrelevant alternative (decoy) to a set of options can modify preferences: typically, by increasing choices towards whatever option clearly dominates the decoy (attraction effect), but occasionally also decreasing its appeal and generating a shift in the opposite direction (repulsion effect). Both types of decoy effects violate rational choice theory axioms and suggest dynamic processes of preference-formation, in which the value of each alternative is not determined a priori, but it is instead constructed by comparing options during the decision process. These effects are

Publication date: November 2022Source: Animal Behaviour, Volume 193Author(s): Ciara E. Kernan, Jessica S. Jones, Tony Robillard, Stefan Schöneich, Hannah M. ter Hofstede