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In response to the COVID‐19 crisis, numerous academic conferences and seminars were moved online. Some remote (online) seminars have the aim to be maintained permanently after the pandemic, offering weekly opportunities for scientists, postdocs, and students to learn about research and to improve global networking. Remote seminars are a good option to promote inclusion and diversity, allowing students...
The most well‐known use of silk among spiders is the formation of webs to capture flying prey. However, spiders have evolved many different foraging strategies involving silk, including the capture and subsequent manipulate of prey prior to consumption. Herein, I report on the use of silk lines by a long‐jawed spider from the Tetragnatha genus to move a large prey item vertically through the air....
Effective coordination of group actions underlies the success of group‐living organisms. Making decisions collectively is a crucial step in executing behaviours affecting the whole group. In social insects, decision‐making is typically achieved in a self‐organised manner and incorporates a quorum process, which can improve decision accuracy and be tailored to different conditions. Studies of the nest‐selection...
A contentious aspect in dendrobatoid frog behaviour is the recognition of the predominant factor—if any—driving male mating success. This is probably related to an extensive correlation among different male quality predictors. Here, we investigated the diurnal and territorial nurse frog Allobates subfolionidificans by means of a field study during one entire breeding season in Brazilian Amazonia....
During foraging, organisms need to assess the costs and benefits related to resources wanted. An energy‐efficient way of locating and deciding among new food sources is to use cues left by other organisms in the environment (i.e., social information). In the present study, manipulative bioassays were conducted to evaluate the role of intra‐ and interspecific chemical cues in the selection of food...
Male mate choice likely occurs when costs are associated with courtship or mating. For example, when males produce continuous vibrational signals, provide nutritious nuptial gifts, or are likely killed during mating, they should assess female developmental and reproductive state. Substrate‐borne vibratory courtship signals are very common in spiders serving species recognition, suppressing the female's...
Mating and reproduction not only provide benefits but can also incur substantial costs. An increasing number of recent studies have indicated that mate searching, mating, and ejaculate production requires large amount of energy which can result in high cost to males. Here, we examine the effect of number of matings of males and mating duration on mating and reproductive success in Menochilus sexmaculatus...
Most behavioural traits show plastic responses to changes in internal or external conditions. Similarly, animal personality is not necessarily fixed during an individual's lifetime, leading to age‐related changes. Both individual plasticity (i.e., within‐individual effect) and non‐random selective (dis)appearance of behavioural types (i.e., between‐individual effect) may contribute to age‐related...
Optimal escape theory predicts that animals should flee at an optimal distance from the approaching predator (flight initiation distance, FID). However, FID usually increases with increasing alert distance (AD) or starting distance (SD). As an explanation for this pattern, the “flush early and avoid the rush” (FEAR) hypothesis states that prey should escape soon after detecting an approaching predator...
Prey species must constantly acquire information on predator identity, abundance and dangerousness from the environment. In aquatic habitats, this information is mainly propagated by water‐borne chemical signals, either predator‐specific odours or prey alarm cues. Anuran larvae innately respond to conspecific alarm cues and are able to associate them to predator cues during their lifetime. In this...
Vigilance is important for anti‐predation, and different animals adopt different vigilance strategies. Instantaneous and sequential randomness in vigilance behavior are two main principles for the classic Pulliam model (1973). Given this context, we studied the vigilance behaviors in two wild cloven‐hoofed animals, the Tibetan antelope (Pantholops hodgsonii) and the Tibetan gazelle (Procapra picticaudata...
While population foraging behaviour of herbivores has been extensively studied, individual choice is still poorly understood. Very few studies have focused on the individual consistency of foraging behaviour in marine herbivores. Because marine ectotherms are strongly influenced by their environment and because a mixed diet is appropriate for herbivores, we hypothesized that Haliotis tuberculata,...
The effects of predators on prey populations may significantly alter many aspects of prey biology, including spatial distribution, foraging activities, and social interactions. In aquatic habitats, chemosensation is an important mode of communication and has been shown for many taxa, including crayfish, to be used in detection of predator and/or conspecific alarm cues. Here, we report on an experiment...
Females should adjust their mating preferences when the costs of being selective vary. Here, we focus on the cost of laying unfertilized eggs. Oviparous species lose their fertilizable oocytes if remain virgin for too long. Thus, females who are at a high risk of laying infertile eggs should be selected against rejecting a mating opportunity under such circumstances. We test this prediction using...
In many animals, females prefer large males to small males, which allow large males to be choosier than small males when selecting a mate. We investigated the courtship intensity of small‐ and large‐sized male fiddler crabs (Austruca perplexa) by examining their claw‐waving rates (waves/min) towards small‐ and large‐sized females. We found that large males showed a greater preference for large females...
To understand the prevalence and conditional use of aggression among animals, one has to know its costs and benefits. The obvious cost of aggression in animals that possess teeth, claws or other specialized weaponry is injury. Many species, however, do not have such body parts and thus cannot readily injure others. The cost of aggression in these animals is not well studied. We tested whether aggression...
Sexual selection theory indicates that ornament expression in males is in close relation to their condition. This “honesty” relationship serves as the basis for female choice: Females would mate with healthy males over sick males after assessing male ornament signal expression and derive benefits for their progeny. Here, we investigated female mate choice for infected and non‐infected males, male...
After mating, females may experience a decline in sexual receptivity and attractiveness that may be associated with changes in the production and emission of sex pheromones. In some cases, these changes are produced by chemical substances or structures (e.g., mating plugs) produced by males as a strategy to avoid or reduce sperm competition. In scorpions, sex pheromones may be involved in finding...
To determine the impact of losing health insurance coverage on perceived need for and access to mental health care in women screened for postpartum depression (PPD) in primary care settings.The study sample included 2343 women enrolled in a 12-month, multisite, randomized trial that compared clinical outcomes of a comprehensive PPD screening and management program with usual care (March 1, 2006, through...
To compare asthma control assessment using the Asthma APGAR system, a tool developed by primary care clinicians, in a multicenter primary care sample with the Asthma Control Test (ACT™)/Childhood Asthma Control Test (CACT™), a tool developed by asthma specialists.This is a substudy of a multicenter, randomized, controlled pragmatic trial that tests the effectiveness of the Asthma APGAR system in primary...
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