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Trait-based sensitivity of large mammals to a catastrophic tropical cyclone
A study that tracked mammal populations before, during and after a severe storm in Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park finds that behavioural responses and survival are linked to body size, with increased mortality of small species owing to limited mobility and changes in food availability.
- Reena H. Walker
- , Matthew C. Hutchinson
- & Ryan A. Long
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Article |
Baleen whale prey consumption based on high-resolution foraging measurements
A combination of 3D whale locations and acoustic measurements of prey density is used here to show that whales’ consumption of krill is several times larger than often thought.
- Matthew S. Savoca
- , Max F. Czapanskiy
- & Jeremy A. Goldbogen
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Matters Arising |
Reply to: Methods matter in repeating ocean acidification studies
- Timothy D. Clark
- , Graham D. Raby
- & Josefin Sundin
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Article |
4-Vinylanisole is an aggregation pheromone in locusts
4-Vinylanisole, which is emitted by gregarious locusts or as a result of aggregation of solitary locusts, is identified as an aggregation pheromone that strongly attracts both solitary and gregarious locusts, acting via the olfactory receptor OR35.
- Xiaojiao Guo
- , Qiaoqiao Yu
- & Le Kang
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Article |
Ocean acidification does not impair the behaviour of coral reef fishes
In contrast to previous studies, analyses now show that ocean acidification does not perturb important behaviours—such as the avoidance of chemical cues from predators—of coral reef fishes.
- Timothy D. Clark
- , Graham D. Raby
- & Josefin Sundin
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Article |
Earliest hunting scene in prehistoric art
A rock art panel from Sulawesi—dated to at least 43.9 thousand years ago—represents the oldest currently known figurative art in the world, and provides evidence of early storytelling through narrative hunting scenes.
- Maxime Aubert
- , Rustan Lebe
- & Adam Brumm
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Letter |
Imprinting sets the stage for speciation
Tadpoles of strawberry poison frogs (Oophaga pumilio) are shown to imprint on adult coloration, affecting both male aggression biases and female preferences and setting the stage for speciation by sexual selection.
- Yusan Yang
- , Maria R. Servedio
- & Corinne L. Richards-Zawacki
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Letter |
Social parasitism as an alternative reproductive tactic in a cooperatively breeding cuckoo
Mixed-effects logistic regression modelling of a dataset of individual reproductive behaviours shows fitness pay-offs of cooperative versus mixed cooperative and parasitic reproductive strategies are approximately equal in female greater anis (Crotophaga major).
- Christina Riehl
- & Meghan J. Strong
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Letter |
Categorical perception of colour signals in a songbird
Female zebra finches exhibited categorical perception of colour signals, as they categorized colour stimuli that varied along a continuous scale and showed increased discrimination between colours from opposite sides of the category boundary compared to equally different colours from within a category.
- Eleanor M. Caves
- , Patrick A. Green
- & Stephen Nowicki
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Letter |
Altruism in a volatile world
A derivation of Hamilton’s rule that considers explicit environmental stochasticity can predict when organisms should pay a cost to influence the variance in the reproductive success of their relatives, formalizing the link between bet-hedging and altruism.
- Patrick Kennedy
- , Andrew D. Higginson
- & Seirian Sumner
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Letter |
Cognitive performance is linked to group size and affects fitness in Australian magpies
Wild Australian magpies (Cracticus tibicen dorsalis) living in large groups show increased cognitive performance, which is associated with increased reproductive success.
- Benjamin J. Ashton
- , Amanda R. Ridley
- & Alex Thornton
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Letter |
Phytoplankton can actively diversify their migration strategy in response to turbulent cues
Here, marine phytoplankton are shown to diversify their migratory strategy in response to turbulent cues through a rapid change in shape, thus challenging a fundamental paradigm in oceanography that phytoplankton are passively at the mercy of ocean turbulence.
- Anupam Sengupta
- , Francesco Carrara
- & Roman Stocker
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Letter |
Breeding site sampling across the Arctic by individual males of a polygynous shorebird
Nomadic movement across the breeding range enables male pectoral sandpipers to display and sire offspring at multiple sites within a single breeding season, with tenure depending on breeding female numbers at each site.
- Bart Kempenaers
- & Mihai Valcu
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Letter |
Unexpected diversity in socially synchronized rhythms of shorebirds
Socially synchronized rhythms in shorebirds were assessed during biparental incubation under natural circumstances and were exceptionally diverse, often not following the 24-h day, whereby risk of predation, not starvation, determined some of the variation in incubation rhythms.
- Martin Bulla
- , Mihai Valcu
- & Bart Kempenaers
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Letter |
Discovery of species-wide tool use in the Hawaiian crow
A species-wide study shows that the Hawaiian crow Corvus hawaiiensis is a highly proficient tool user, creating opportunities for comparative studies with tool-using New Caledonian crows and other corvids.
- Christian Rutz
- , Barbara C. Klump
- & Bryce M. Masuda
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Letter |
Competitive growth in a cooperative mammal
In wild Kalahari meerkats (Suricata suricatta), subordinates of both sexes respond to experimentally induced increases in the growth of same-sex rivals by raising their own growth rate and food intake.
- Elise Huchard
- , Sinead English
- & Tim Clutton-Brock
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Letter |
Neonicotinoid pesticide exposure impairs crop pollination services provided by bumblebees
Despite substantial evidence that neonicotinoid pesticides can have negative effects on bees, there have been no reports that this leads to problems with pollination; here bumblebee colonies exposed to a neonicotinoid are shown to provide reduced pollination services to apple trees, leading to a reduction in seed number.
- Dara A. Stanley
- , Michael P. D. Garratt
- & Nigel E. Raine
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Letter |
The effects of life history and sexual selection on male and female plumage colouration
By quantifying the colouration of all approximately 6,000 species of passerine birds, certain life-history traits such as large body size and tropical distribution are found to increase ornamentation in both male and female birds, whereas cooperative breeding increases it in females only, and sexual selection diminishes it in females more than it increases it in males.
- James Dale
- , Cody J. Dey
- & Mihai Valcu
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Brief Communications Arising |
Questioning evidence of group selection in spiders
- Lena Grinsted
- , Trine Bilde
- & James D. J. Gilbert
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Letter |
RETRACTED ARTICLE: Site-specific group selection drives locally adapted group compositions
Here, colonies of social spiders are used to investigate the evolution of a group-level trait, the ratio of individuals with the ‘docile’ versus ‘aggressive’ phenotype in a colony; experimental colonies were generated with varying ratios and established in the wild, revealing group-level selection.
- Jonathan N. Pruitt
- & Charles J. Goodnight
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Letter |
Amphibians acquire resistance to live and dead fungus overcoming fungal immunosuppression
The fungal pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis has been implicated in the decline of a large number of amphibian species; here it is shown that frogs can learn to avoid the pathogen, acquire resistance to it and be immunized against it using dead pathogen, findings that potentially offer a way in which resistant populations could be reintroduced into areas that have seen catastrophic declines.
- Taegan A. McMahon
- , Brittany F. Sears
- & Jason R. Rohr
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Letter |
Mating advantage for rare males in wild guppy populations
Manipulation of the frequency of naturally occurring colour patterns within replicate pools of fish at three sites shows that males with rare colour patterns have higher reproductive fitness, demonstrating negative frequency-dependent selection mediated by sexual selection.
- Kimberly A. Hughes
- , Anne E. Houde
- & F. Helen Rodd
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Letter |
The rewards of restraint in the collective regulation of foraging by harvester ant colonies
Desert harvester ant colonies regulate their foraging activity and this collective behaviour appears to be under selection; colonies that forage less when conditions are poor have greater reproductive success, and the regulation of foraging behaviour appears to be inherited from parent to offspring colonies.
- Deborah M. Gordon
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News & Views |
Personality in the wild
Behavioural traits can influence an individual animal's fitness, and trait combinations can change over its lifetime, according to a study of wild trout during a key period in their development.
- Alison M. Bell
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Research Highlights |
Protecting prey with their odours
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News |
In-law infighting boosted evolution of menopause
Conflict between generations of unrelated childbearing women affects offspring survival.
- Katharine Sanderson
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Research Highlights |
Fighters invest in body, not testes
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Books & Arts |
Behavioural ecology: Design for living
Manfred Milinski hails the long-awaited update of a classic on the optimal design of behaviour.
- Manfred Milinski
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News |
How gypsy moth is kept high to die
Virus gene found to control caterpillar behaviour.
- Lee Sweetlove
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News |
Vampire bats turn down the heat sensors to hunt
Fine-tuning an existing receptor helps bats to track down body heat of prey.
- George Wigmore
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News |
Migration tracking reveals marine Serengeti
Decade of tagging has mapped predatorial pathways in the north Pacific Ocean.
- Zoë Corbyn
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News |
Ancient marsupials played possum in packs
Fossils suggest that the solitary nature of modern marsupials is not inherited from their ancestors.
- Matt Kaplan
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News |
Chimps give birth like humans
Humans are not alone in having infants that emerge facing backwards.
- Joseph Milton
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News |
Size doesn't always matter for peacocks
Peahens don't necessarily choose the males with the biggest tails — but small tails are right out.
- Ewen Callaway
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News |
Frightened birds grow longer wings
Offspring of predator-stressed mothers grow their wings more quickly than chicks from predator-free females.
- Matt Kaplan
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Research Highlights |
Predators trigger plankton stealth
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Research Highlights |
Mussel mix boosts erosion
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Letter |
Reliability of flipper-banded penguins as indicators of climate change
Much of what we know about the behaviour of animals in the wild comes from studies in which individual animals are marked for identification purposes. But can the marking itself affect the outcome? This study shows that it does. In a ten-year study on king penguins in the Antarctic, penguins sporting identification bands on their wings had significantly lower long-term fitness than unmarked penguins. This study should give pause for thought to researchers seeking to discover the behaviour of animals in the wild.
- Claire Saraux
- , Céline Le Bohec
- & Yvon Le Maho
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Research Highlights |
Evolutionary ecology: Chasing off biters benefits others
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News |
Altruism can be explained by natural selection
Evolutionary biologists overturn long-held kin-selection theory.
- Natasha Gilbert
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News |
Attack of the ancient 'zombie' ants
Fossil leaf bears the telltale scars of insects infected by parasitic fungus.
- Kate Larkin
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News |
Lazy crows pitch in when it counts
Hard times bring out the best in idle birds.
- Janelle Weaver
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News & Views |
Ways to raise tadpoles
To reduce parental care, just add water — that's the conclusion of an intriguing investigation into the extent of the motherly and fatherly devotion that different species of frog extend to their offspring.
- Hanna Kokko
- & Michael Jennions
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Research Highlights |
Evolution: Creating cooperation
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News |
Water-dwelling dinosaur breaks the mould
Spinosaurs' semi-aquatic habits helped them coexist with tyrannosaurs.
- Matt Kaplan
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Research Highlights |
Biology: Snakes face the heat
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News & Views |
Learn to beat an identity cheat
Parent birds commonly face the problem of distinguishing their own brood from foreign chicks. Learnt chick-recognition evolves only when parents do not mistakenly learn to reject their own young.
- Rebecca Kilner