Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

The behaviour of a male bird towards a potential mate and her clutch may depend both on his expected paternity and on the likelihood that she will produce a replacement clutch if he commits infanticide. In this study we evaluate the choices made by replacement male European starlings Sturnus vulgaris. By removing males before and during laying, we induced other males, mainly neighbours, to mate with the reproductively active females. When the original male was removed before laying, a new male adopted the subsequent clutch in 14 out of 15 cases. When ten females were widowed during their laying period, replacement males never adopted their clutches. The paternity of replacement males was a function of when they replaced the former male. When replacement occurred more than 3 days before egglaying, the new male fathered nearly all offspring; when it occurred the day before laying, the new male still fathered more than every second young. When the original male was removed during his mate’s laying period, in five out of ten cases a replacement male committed infanticide by throwing out the eggs, but this only occurred in one out of 15 cases when removal took place before laying. The evidence for infanticide actually being committed by the replacement male was circumstantial. Four out of six of the females affected by apparent infanticide produced replacement clutches in which the male presumably had higher paternity than in the original clutch. In all cases, the male adopted the replacement clutch. In five cases when the original male was removed during laying, the neighbours neither adopted the brood nor committed infanticide, although they sometimes were seen courting the widowed female and copulating with her. These cases occurred later during laying than those were males comitted infanticide. The time from infanticide to the laying of the replacement clutch tended to increase as infanticide was committed later in the laying sequence. We conclude that strategies of potential replacement males are influenced by their expected paternity in the current brood and the probability that the female will produce an early replacement clutch.

Social parasitism is widespread in many groups of social living hymenopteran species and has also evolved in the genus Bombus. Cuckoo bumblebees (subgenus Psithyrus) are obligate brood parasites in nests of other bumblebee species. After nest usurpation and the killing of the host queen, the parasite female has to control worker reproduction in order to accomplish and maintain reproductive dominance and to ensure her reproductive success. The aim of our study was to examine whether the generalist parasitic bumblebee Bombus bohemicus monopolizes and prevents worker reproduction by physical or chemical means and to identify possible odor compounds involved therein. We performed bioassays with callow workers of the host Bombus terrestris and have shown that B. bohemicus females are able to suppress host worker ovarian development, when these host workers are under the direct influence of the parasite female. Furthermore, by chemical analyses, we have demonstrated that the parasite females adjust to the odor profiles of their host queens in order to maintain the level of fertility signaling inside the host colony although the host queen is absent. We also found that host workers change their odor profile after nest usurpation by the parasite female and consequently, we suggest that the host and parasite are caught up in a chemical arms race.

A recent model in sexual selection has proposed a role for parasites in maintaining heritable fitness variation. Females are envisaged as benefitting from preferentially mating with males that show resistance to infection. The post-copulatory guarding behaviour characteristic of many species of field cricket, has been envisaged as a means by which females assess male health and vigour. This hypothesis was tested in a field cricket, G. bimaculatus, which harbours a protozoan gut parasite. In enclosed arena trials, no direct correlations between female behaviours and levels of infection in males were found. However, there were significant correlations between the intensity of male guarding and the number of parasites found in the gut; infected males guarded more intensely in order to maintain contact with the female. In a second experiment simulating open field conditions, females left heavily parasitized males sooner than mildly or uninfected individuals. These data are discussed in relation to female choice for male health and vigour.

I investigated the vigilance behavior of brown capuchin monkeys (Cebus apella) in Iguazu, Argentina to determine the relative importance of anti-predatory vigilance versus social monitoring. Predator detection has been found to be the major factor driving vigilance patterns in other populations of Cebus, and a positive relationship between vigilance and the number of nearby neighbors has been found. In the Iguazu population, social monitoring is the primary function of vigilance, as indicated by a negative relationship between vigilance and neighbor density. Even if social monitoring and predator detection are totally compatible, the time tradeoffs associated with vigilance behavior are mostly driven by social monitoring in this population. In addition to recording vigilance data in relation to the number of neighbors, several other variables were recorded in conjunction with vigilance behavior in order to control for possible confounding factors. After controlling for these factors, it was found that the number of neighbors within 10 m was still highly correlated with the percent of time spent vigilant. The average percent of time spent vigilant was found to be much lower in Iguazu, compared to another population of C. apella with higher predation pressure. The average vigilance bout was much closer in length to known social monitoring bouts than to known anti-predatory vigilance bouts. These patterns indicate that the predominate function of vigilance in this population of C. apella is social monitoring. In populations with low predation pressure, the time costs associated with social monitoring should increase with group size, and increasing neighbor density. The fitness costs of social monitoring have not been incorporated into current social models, and these results indicate that these models may not be appropriate for all study populations.

This research concerned the relative potential for signaling and priming incompatibilities to promote reproductive isolation in rodents. Signaling is defined here as involving behavioral responses, while priming involves endocrine responses. Compatibility of both types of communications was tested between two widely separated and markedly diverging populations of deermice, and between equally separated but much less divergent populations of house mice. Signaling compatibility was assessed by comparing the amount of aggression toward young females by adult males when the two sexes were of the same vs the different stock of the same species. Priming compatibility was tested by measuring the relative amounts of uterine growth induced in young females by exposure to adult males. No signaling or priming incompatibilities were detected during cross-testing of the house mouse stocks. A degree of developing reproductive isolation was observed between the two deermouse populations, however, and this isolation was reinforced by independently occurring incompatibilities of both the signaling and the priming type. The signaling incompatibility was particularly dramatic, manifesting itself in the killing of young females by adult males. The present results provide the first demonstration of a priming incompatibility supporting reproductive isolation in diverging populations of a mammal. Furthermore, our results suggest that signaling and priming systems are independently subject to evolutionary change even when both systems probably operate through the same sensory modality.

Scatter-hoarding rodents influence the population dynamics of plants by acting as seed predators and dispersers. Therefore, rodent foraging preferences for certain seed traits (species, size, condition) have been extensively studied. However, to what extent these preferences are fixed or they track the temporal changes on seed characteristics due to phenological differences has been seldom explored. We studied the temporal variability in seed preferences by wood mouse (Apodemus sylvaticus), according to phenological changes in seed characteristics of two co-occurring oaks (Quercus ilex and Quercus pubescens). The phenology of acorn abundance and the acorn predation/dispersal patterns by rodents were monitored over an entire seeding season. Results revealed temporal changes in rodent preferences for acorns of the two oaks, matching their different seeding phenology (earlier in Q. pubescens and later in Q. ilex). On the other hand, whatever the species considered, rodents preferred larger and sound acorns along the entire season, although the dispersal of infested ones increased slightly during the peaks of acorn drop. The observed influence of seeding phenology on seed choices by rodents warns about inferring definite conclusions regarding their foraging behavior when arising from short-term experiments. Indeed, this study reveals that foraging preferences may be highly dynamic and context-dependent for some seed traits (e.g., species and condition), rather than fixed behavioral patterns. Plasticity in rodent foraging choices may allow them to successfully exploit different oaks with uncoupled seeding phenologies, while potentially favoring their coexistence.

Populations of baboon (Papio sp.) at geographic and climatic extremes for the genus show a tendency to one-male organization, whereas most baboons live in multimale social groups; this effect has been attributed largely to limitation of food supply, but baboons' complex diet has hindered proper nutritional analyses. To test these optimal-diet explanations of social variation, we quantified intake and used phytochemical analysis of foods to compare the nutrition, during seasonal changes, of two groups of mountain baboons (P. ursinus) living at different altitudes of a continuous grassland habitat. The majority of plant foods were eaten uniquely by one or other group, though their altitudinal separation was only 400 m, and the time budget of feeding choices varied with age-sex class as well as season. Converting to a common currency of nutrients reveals that baboons gained the same yield from a unit time spent foraging (whether this is measured in edible dry weight, or simply protein) in both groups, despite their differing mean altitude, whereas seasonal variation was large and statistically significant. Increased feeding time at the winter “bottleneck” made no effective compensation for the poorer food yields: in late winter there was a minimum for daily nutrient gain at both altitudes. Apparently this population is already at an extreme for the time animals devote to foraging in winter, when they rely on inconspicuous and slow-to-harvest swollen shoot bases and underground plant storage organs. Since an individual's nutrient yield does not vary with altitude, we conclude that socioecological parameters are effectively optimized for feeding. Since contest competition is absent, this adjustment of foraging efficiency is largely through the effect of differential density on scramble competition. Differences in social structure are considered to be a secondray consequence of optimal foraging, mediated through altitudinal variation in either population density or in day range limits.

In Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya, some territorial male waterbuck tolerate an additional adult male on the territory, which shares in the defence of the territory and has a higher chance than an outsider to become a territory owner.