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At least 433 records · Page 24Linked to original sources
PubMed1996

Cocaine transiently impairs maternal behavior in the rat.

This paradigm distinguished between two hypotheses not previously directly addressed. Do repeated exposures to cocaine at critical times during pregnancy, when the neural mechanisms that support maternal behavior are being read, alter some fundamental neural underpinning of maternal behavior in rats? Alternatively, does cocaine alter maternal behavior only when circulating? During the 4 hr after cocaine injection (20 or 40 mg/kg), there were significant deficits in maternal behavior. In contrast, 16 hr after cocaine injection, drug-injected females, in which plasma cocaine had fallen to nondetectable levels, showed the normal maternal behavior of saline-injected controls. This pattern of impaired maternal behavior after cocaine injection, followed by normal behavior as blood levels returned to zero, was replicated over 8 days. It was concluded that cocaine impairs maternal behavior only when circulating and does not have a residual effect in the transiently drug-free, chronically drug-treated dam.

Aggression↗
PubMed2004

Seasonal sexual segregation in two Thalassarche albatross species: competitive exclusion, reproductive role specialization or foraging niche divergence?

Sexual segregation by micro- or macrohabitat is common in birds, and usually attributed to size-mediated dominance and exclusion of females by larger males, trophic niche divergence or reproductive role specialization. Our study of black-browed albatrosses, Thalassarche melanophrys, and grey-headed albatrosses, T. chrysostoma, revealed an exceptional degree of sexual segregation during incubation, with largely mutually exclusive core foraging ranges for each sex in both species. Spatial segregation was not apparent during brood-guard or post-guard chick rearing, when adults are constrained to feed close to colonies, providing no evidence for dominance-related competitive exclusion at the macrohabitat level. A comprehensive morphometric comparison indicated considerable species and sexual dimorphism in wing area and wing loading that corresponded, both within and between species, to broad-scale habitat preferences relating to wind strength. We suggest that seasonal sexual segregation in these two species is attributable to niche divergence mediated by differences in flight performance. Such sexual segregation may also have implications for conservation in relation to sex-specific overlap with commercial fisheries.

Animals↗
PubMed1975

The behavioural final common path.

In this paper it is argued that any model of the motivational (i.e. reversible) processes governing the behaviour of an animal can be represented by means of isoclines in a multidimensional 'causal-factor space'. The argument is axiomatic, based upon the two prime assumptions: that (1) it is always possible to classify the behavioural repertoire of a species in such a way that the classes are mutually exclusive in the sense that the members of different classes cannot occur simultaneously, and (2) these incompatible actions are uniquely determined by a particular set of causal factors. The isoclines join all points in the space which present a given 'degree of competitiveness' of a particular 'candidate' for overt behavioural expression. The competition between candidates is an inevitable consequence of the fact that animals cannot 'do more than one thing at a time', and is envisaged as taking place in the behavioural final common path. An empirical method of determining the motivational state (i.e. point in causal-factor space) is outlined. This is a 'relative' method, independent of the arbitrary calibration of the axes of the causal-factor space. It is shown that an arbitrary scale of measurement along any two axes of the causal-factor space is all that is necessary for empirical determination of the shape of a motivational isocline. Experiments in which this method has been applied to the measurement of hunger and thirst in doves are outlined, and the results are discussed in terms of their implications for motivation theory in general.

Animals↗
PubMed1969

Brood care in halictine bees.

Four species of the halictine bee genus Evylaeus keep their brood cells open during most or part of the development of the larvae. In the colonial summer phase, house bees care for the young and keep brood cells clean from feces and exuviae. Progressive feeding of nector is present at least in Evylaeus malachurus, whose fully fed larvae are, on an average, 60 percent heavier than the egg-and-pollen stage. Interactions between the two generations of social Halictinae are of general occurrence, and their intensity corresponds to the level of social behavior attained.

Animals↗
PubMed1976

Sleeping behavior and associations in a group of captive chimpanzees.

The present study investigated the sleeping behavior and preferences of a group of six adolescent chimpanzees at the Delta Regional Primate Research Center in Louisiana, USA. The study sought to relate sleeping partner preferences to other aspects of social relationships. Comparative observations between those chimpanzee behaviors seen in the wild and in this group are noted.

Animals↗
PubMed2001

Learning and navigation of hornets: role of the various light perceiving organs.

The present study reports on experiments carried out on workers of Vespa orientalis (Hymenoptera, Vespinae). The experiments involved: learning of the workers upon their breeding box, evaluation of their ability to navigate back to the breeding box from ever increasing distances, and the effect which masking the various light perceiving organs has on the homing flight of hornets. The test hornets were removed from their breeding box to which they became accustomed and then released at gradually increasing distances from it (100 to 1000 meters) so as to assess their ability to return home. The group of hornets returning from a given distance was on the next day released at a greater distance, and so forth, and their homing capability was then compared between regular control groups and hornets that were coated with masking paint in various light-perceiving regions such as the clypeus, frons, ocelli and ommatidia on the head or segments 3 or 4 of the gaster, the whole gaster or various combinations of the two (head and gaster). It was found that in all the groups combined (test + various controls) only about 44% of hornets released at a distance of 100 meters from the breeding box, found their way home. The percentage of homing hornets diminished with increasing distance from home and generally they responded in accordance with the formula: S(d)=exp(dp/beta), where d=distance; S(d)=the proportion of hornets expected to return from d; P=the shape parameter of the distribution: beta=the 'scale' parameter of the distribution. Percentage of successfully homing hornets was significantly larger in control hornets than in treated ones only at a release distance of 1000 meters.

Animals↗
PubMed2005

Mortality costs of sexual selection and parental care in natural populations of birds.

Is the cost of reproduction different between males and females? On the one hand, males typically compete intensely for mates, thus sexual selection theory predicts higher cost of reproduction for males in species with intense male-male competition. On the other hand, care provisioning such as incubating the eggs and raising young may also be costly, thus parental care theory predicts higher mortality for the care-giving sex, which is often the female. We tested both hypotheses of reproductive costs using phylogenetic comparative analyses of sex-specific adult mortality rates of 194 bird species across 41 families. First, we show that evolutionary increases in male-male competition were associated with male-biased mortalities. This relationship is consistent between two measures of mating competition: social mating system and testis size. Second, as predicted by the parental cost hypothesis, females have significantly higher adult mortalities (mean +/- SE, 0.364 +/- 0.01) than males (0.328 +/- 0.01). However, the mortality cost of parental care was only detectable in males, when the influence of mating competition was statistically controlled. Taken together, our results challenge the traditional explanation of female-biased avian mortalities, because evolutionary changes in female care were unrelated to changes in mortality bias. The interspecific variation in avian mortality bias, as we show here, is driven by males, specifically via the costs of both mating competition and parental care. We also discuss alternative hypotheses for why most birds exhibit female-biased mortalities, whereas in mammals male-biased mortalities predominate.

Animals↗
PubMed1976

[Behavior and sociology of the muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus L.)].

This description of the behaviour of the muskrat is the result of observations made in open-air pens and during the rearing of young animals in direct contact with man. The approximately 100 muskrats observed came from southern Lower Saxony (population immigrated down the river Elbe). As the same facilities of observation had been used to study brown rats, it was possible to compare the behaviour of both species which showed fundamental differences.

Activity Cycles↗
PubMed1991

Nonnestmate kin recognition in the ant Leptothorax lichtensteini: evidence that genetic factors regulate colony recognition.

Young monogynous colonies of Leptothorax lichtensteini showed completely unaggressive behavior toward unfamiliar kin-related workers which were experimentally introduced into their nest, whereas they were much more hostile toward nonrelated workers (42% of which were rejected). During the first 30 min of observation, related intruders received significantly more licking and participated in a significantly greater number of trophallactic exchanges than nonrelated ones. These experiments show clearly that genetically determined chemical cues are involved in colony recognition. The mechanisms whereby these factors contribute to kin recognition are discussed, and it is concluded that phenotype matching may be the main process involved.

Animal Communication↗