New papers on Animal behavior
35 new papers on animal behavior in the last 7 days, within Ecology & evolution. These are the 35 Pipette rates most worth reading, with the main result in the authors' own words.
The best of the week
Increased Demographic Turnover and Isolation Precede Social Fragmentation in Asian Elephants
Following accumulated demographic turnover, networks fractured into smaller and more isolated social communities.
PreprintClaims a big stepEasy to readUncertainty-Guided Decision-Making in Bumble Bees
Here we demonstrate that bumble bees engage in uncertainty-guided decision-making.
PreprintBold claims, read criticallyBroad interestSingle-nucleus profiling of social behaviour in a mutualistic reef fish
Here, we present the first single-nucleus transcriptome atlas of the telencephalon in the cleaner wrasse Labroides dimidiatus, a remarkable model for advanced social cognition.
PreprintClaims a big stepSelf-guided search in immersive VR reveals active hierarchical planning
Consistent with our hypotheses, we found that self-guided search engaged a hierarchical information-seeking policy characterized at each stage by recurring plan-and-execute cycles paired with subgoal-specific attentional priorities.
PreprintA Vision-Language Model as a Teacher for Bird Vocalization Detection
We find that the student generally exceeds both the teacher and supervised models trained on human annotations and performs strongly on held-out datasets for both time-frequency and onset-offset localization.
PreprintReal-world useVariability of Head Motion Reveals Development of Spatial Attention
Thus, movements unrelated to the attention goal do not reflect noise but signify attentional control across development.
PreprintEasy to readDevelopmental cold exposure increases the ability to maintain body temperature during future cold challenges in a free-living altricial bird
These results are, to our knowledge, the first to show that developmental cold exposure increases the capacity to maintain body temperature during future cold challenges in a songbird.
PreprintAirborne Sound Detection in Manduca sexta Caterpillars
Together, these findings provide direct experimental evidence that the behavioural responses of M. sexta caterpillars to acoustic stimulation cannot be explained by sound-induced substrate vibration and instead support direct detection of airborne sound.
PreprintXenon improves autism-like behaviors in mice through potentiation of PVT-CeA glutamatergic neurotransmission
These findings demonstrate that Xe ameliorates ASD-like phenotypes in mouse models by modulating the PVT Glu-CeA circuit, supporting Xe as a novel potential therapy for ASD.
PreprintReal-world useReliability-guided meta-control in intuitive physics
Our results suggest that efficient physical reasoning can emerge from an interaction between learned abstractions, estimates of how reliable these abstractions are, and selective engagement of detailed simulation based on reliability estimates.
PreprintBeyond harm: synthesising meta-analytical and mechanistic evidence on animal responses to microplastics
By reframing microplastics as context-dependent challenges rather than universally toxic agents, we provide a conceptual framework for understanding animal responses under realistic ecological conditions and identifying the biological and environmental contexts in which microplastic exposure is most likely to result in harm.
PreprintModeling one-shot interceptions in fruit-catching fish
In a minimal setting, where launch velocity and actuated control are constants, we show that the optimal wait time is attenuated by noise in both the target measurement and control actuation, as well as agent energy conservation.
PreprintBroad interestOro-manual assessment of food preservability in a wild rodent
Together, these findings provide a mechanistic account of preservability assessment in a wild rodent, revealing how information-seeking behaviors support long-term value optimization in natural environments.
PreprintScrub Data: A Framework for Reproducible Data Curation with AI Coding Agents
To address these issues, we introduce Scrub Data, a framework that enables the use of AI agents in data curation workflows while transparently maintaining both reproducibility and verifiability.
PreprintCode availableHow 8 years of social and individual learning interact to shape ecological competence in orangutans
Our findings advance the science of cultural evolution by showing how multiyear social and individual learning interact to shape great apes' broad ecological competence.
Peer-reviewed journalEasy to readAMADEUS: Annotation-free multi-animal direction estimation using self-supervised learning
Across benchmark videos of 10 mice, 10 fish, 32 beetles, 32 ants with one cricket, 60 flies, and 368 ants, AMADEUS outperformed state-of-the-art methods in identity tracking and keypoint localization.
PreprintMixed signals: heat stress alters chemical profiles and increases same-sex sexual behaviour in an insect
Overall, our findings provide evidence for a causal effect of heat on same-sex sexual behaviour, which may be partly explained by changes in cuticular lipids.
PreprintFrom daylight to darkness: a nonlocal model of circadian activity cycles
Here, we develop a general mathematical framework to study these interactions using partial differential equations, incorporating activity cycles and daylight-dependent perception into existing models of animal movement.
PreprintBeyond the glass: testing visitor effects on the behavior of captive teleost fish in public aquaria
Our multivariate analysis reveals that visitor density and visitor-induced disturbances are significant drivers of behavioral change, with species identity acting as the primary source of variance.
Preprint4-Dimensional Chess: Acoustic Localisation Reveals Nested Spatio-temporal Strategies in an Arboreal Communication Network
These findings demonstrate that behavioural strategies emerge across nested spatial and temporal scales and that long-term spatial positioning, short-term movement decisions, and moment-to-moment signalling interactions are tightly linked within natural communication networks.
PreprintPerceptual constraints of motion shape animal movement strategies
Using agent-based simulations based on empirical models of visual perception, we demonstrate that when visual perception degrades non-linearly with speed, the strategy that maximizes prey detection is 'saltatory' locomotion, involving stationary pauses interspersed with movements.
PreprintWild great tits show social resilience in response to partner loss
Hence, we show that birds are robust to the loss of key social relationships and that great tits show a flexible ability to return to social equilibrium.
PreprintEasy to readFixed Players, Fluid Moves: Refining Strategy While Preserving Identity in Free-Ranging Dogs
Our results collectively demonstrated that repeated aversive exposure selectively modified a few critical decision points rather than the entire behavioural repertoire.
PreprintDaily locomotor rhythms and ecdysial stage-dependent behaviors in the tardigrade Hypsibius exemplaris
These findings provide evidence consistent with an endogenous, circadian-like timing system in tardigrades that integrates daily activity with molting cycles and establish H. exemplaris as a promising model for studying ecdysozoan chronobiology.
PreprintTemporal dynamics of grooming reciprocity in crested macaques: do social bonds affect exchange?
Short-term reciprocation occurred rarely (29% of events in one group and 5% in the other); most reciprocation occurred over longer timescales than previous research commonly assumes.
PreprintCan't win, don't try: handling time costs affect foraging choices and vigilance in wild vervet monkeys (Chlorocebus pygerythrus)
We found that differences in competitive ability had a large impact on access to long-handling time resources and willingness to invest time in costly problem-solving when social interference was possible.
PreprintModelling pairwise and coalitional contests with reinforcement learning
We find that notable costs of border conflicts between neighbours, together with substantial advantages for coalitions, favour intervention.
PreprintPhenotype-dependent schooling behaviour across hierarchical levels in three-spined sticklebacks
Thus, individuals did not modulate their schooling behaviour to the group social composition and phenotype-dependent schooling patterns were disrupted in migrants when mixed.
PreprintRISC-Bound Small RNA Sequencing Provides Insights into Guide Strand Selection and siRNA Trimming and Tailing Following Insecticidal dsRNA Delivery
These observations are consistent with sequence-dependent contributions from both guide-strand selection and differential post-RISC-loading siRNA retention, although a causal link remains to be established.
PreprintReal-world useA comparison of female competitive traits: Female aggression peaks at nest building but female song spans multiple contexts in a temperate songbird
This study provides evidence for context and mode-specific female signaling in a temperate songbird and highlights that females strategically use aggression, calls, and song to mediate social conflict across breeding contexts.
PreprintDesigning spatial capture recapture surveys for multiple populations
Our results show that multi-group SCR surveys can perform well even when focal groups differ greatly in movement scale and encounter rate, provided that some simple guidelines are followed.
PreprintGhrelin inhibits courtship ultrasonic vocalization in male mice
Our results show that while males initially vocally court females at a high rate regardless of treatment, ghrelin reduces overall USV production by increasing the rate of decline of vocalization.
PreprintPostnatal maternal separation alters caregiving patterns but fails to promote anxiety- and depressive-like behaviour in C57BL/6N mouse dams
These findings suggest that C57BL/6 mouse dams may be less sensitive to the actions of MS on behaviour and on brain and intestinal markers of inflammation and barrier permeability, at least when examined shortly after weaning.
PreprintEvaluating home-cage-activity metrics for detecting postprocedural pain in a plantar incision mouse model
Under these conditions, home cage activity measures did not reliably discriminate pain-related behavioural changes in the model, despite the model showing local mechanical hypersensitivity in the von Frey test.
PreprintObservation and exploration widen the menu
Orangutans expand their foraging skills by combining observation with trial-and-error learning.
Peer-reviewed journalBroad interestEasy to read