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Sex differences in early‐life survival can drive skewed adult sex ratios (ASR), which play an important role in mating tactics and parental sex roles. Among birds, cuckoos exhibit the largest diversity in mating systems and thus represent an interesting system to study sex‐specific demography.
Here we investigate the early‐life survival pathways shaping ASR using long‐term field data and sex‐...
In species with separate sexes, females and males often differ in their morphology, physiology and behaviour. Such sex‐specific traits are functionally linked to variation in reproductive competition, mate choice and parental care, which have all been linked to sex roles. At the 150th anniversary of Darwin's theory on sexual selection, the question of why patterns of sex roles vary within and across...
Biomedical and social scientists are increasingly calling the biological sex into question, arguing that sex is a graded spectrum rather than a binary trait. Leading science journals have been adopting this relativist view, thereby opposing fundamental biological facts. While we fully endorse efforts to create a more inclusive environment for gender‐diverse people, this does not require denying biological...
Personality, or repeatable variation in behavior, may impact an animal's survival or reproduction. Parental aggression is one such personality trait with potentially direct implications for fitness, as it can improve offspring survival during vulnerable early life stages. We took advantage of a long‐term nest box and fledgling survival monitoring project to explore the potential fitness consequences...
Lispe (Diptera: Muscidae) is a cosmopolitan genus of predatory flies that inhabit the muddy and sandy surrounds of water bodies. There are more than 163 described species worldwide, many of which are known to exhibit cursorial courtship displays which involve complex visual and vibratory signals. Despite the widespread distribution of these flies and their remarkable courtship displays, the biology...
Arthropods inhabiting floodplains have to cope with regular cycles of wet and dry conditions. Allocosa senex and Allocosa marindia are two sympatric and synchronic sand‐dwelling wolf spiders that construct burrows along South American coasts and are subject to periodic floods. Our objective was to study tolerance to immersion and describe the behavioral responses to that event in A. senex and A. marindia...
In many group living animal species, individuals use aggression to gain and maintain social dominance to secure access to ecological resources and potential mates. While social dominance has many fitness benefits, there are also potential costs associated with frequent agonistic interactions and status display. One potential cost of social dominance is oxidative stress, the imbalance of reactive oxygen...
It is well known that fishing is size‐selective, but harvest may also inadvertently target certain behavioral types or personalities. Changes in the abundance of behavioral types within a population have implications for fisheries management, including affecting catch rates, individual growth, and food web dynamics. Using streamside behavioral assays, we quantified the repeatability of behaviors in...
Host preference is an important behaviour in parasitoid females as they must choose suitable hosts for their offspring. Preference includes location, recognition and acceptance of hosts. Both genetic and environmental factors can affect all those stages. Here, we focus on two factors (rearing history and experience) affecting host preference in the parasitoid wasp genus Nasonia (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea:...
Loud calls play an important function in regulating the use of space and structuring social groups and mating systems in a wide range of taxa. In pair‐living territorial animals, where encounters with neighbors and solitary conspecifics are common, these calls are mainly associated with resource defense or mate guarding behaviors. Owl monkeys (Aotus azarae) live in groups of one pair of reproducing...
Territorial defence is a relatively common behaviour in reef fish. Aggression typically occurs between individuals of the same sex, given that members of the opposite sex may represent potential breeding partners. Seahorses are cryptic reef fish with typical sedentary behaviour, especially during the male pregnancy. In this context, we investigated the agonistic behaviour of pregnant seahorses, Hippocampus reidi...
Social organisation in species with fluctuating population sizes can change with density. Therefore, information on (future) density obtained during early life stages may be associated with social behaviour. Olfactory cues may carry important social information. We investigated whether early life experience of different experimental densities was subsequently associated with differences in attraction...
Animals in urban areas that experience frequent exposure to humans often behave differently than those in less urban areas, such as exhibiting less vigilance or anti‐predator behavior. These behavioral shifts may be an adaptive response to urbanization, but it may be costly if animals in urban areas also exhibit reduced anti‐predator behavior in the presence of natural predators. In trials with only...
Brood parasites lay their eggs in the nests of other females, thereby shifting the costs of offspring care onto others. Given that care is costly, potential hosts should evolve mechanisms to avoid brood parasitism. Meanwhile, brood parasites should evolve mechanisms to circumvent host defences. Here we investigate whether hosts or intraspecific brood parasites adjust their egg laying behaviour as...
Phylogenetically controlled studies across multiple species correct for taxonomic confounds in physiological performance traits. Therefore, they are preferred over comparisons of two or few closely‐related species. Funding bodies, referees and journal editors nowadays often even reject to consider detailed comparisons of two or few closely related species. Here, we plea for a less dogmatic stance...
Social rank in a hierarchy determines which individuals have access to important resources such as food, shelter, and mates. In the African cichlid fish Astatotilapia burtoni, rank is under social control, such that larger males are more likely than smaller males to be dominant in rank. Although it is well known that the relative size of A. burtoni males is critical in controlling social rank, the...
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