A5080148912- Animal Behavior and Reproduction
- Primate Behavior and Ecology
- Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
- Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
- Animal Vocal Communication and Behavior
- Animal Behavior and Welfare Studies
- Evolutionary Game Theory and Cooperation
- Human-Animal Interaction Studies
- Species Distribution and Climate Change
- Plant and animal studies
- Neuroendocrine regulation and behavior
- Insect and Arachnid Ecology and Behavior
- Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies
- Environmental DNA in Biodiversity Studies
- Evolution and Genetic Dynamics
- Fish Ecology and Management Studies
- History of Medical Practice
- Birth, Development, and Health
- Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Marine animal studies overview
- Health and Medical Research Impacts
- Fire effects on ecosystems
- Child Nutrition and Water Access
- Avian ecology and behavior
- Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence
University of Roehampton
2017-2025
Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
2023-2025
University of Exeter
2014-2023
Zoological Society of London
2010-2015
Imperial College London
2012-2015
University of Cambridge
1930
University College London
1930
University of Michigan
1930
American Medical Association
1930
Individual foraging specialisation has important ecological implications, but its causes in group-living species are unclear. One of the major consequences group living is increased intragroup competition for resources. Foraging theory predicts that with competition, individuals should add new prey items to their diet, widening niche ('optimal hypothesis'). However, classic suggests opposite: leads partitioning and greater individual ('niche We tested these opposing predictions wild, banded...
Resource competition is one potential behavioral mechanism by which invasive species can impact native species, but detecting this be difficult due to the interactions that variable environmental conditions have on behavior. This particularly case in urban habitats where disturbed environment alter natural behavior from undisturbed habitats. The rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula krameri), an increasingly common predominantly associated with large centers. Using experimental approach, we...
Social learning can play a critical role in the reproduction and survival of social animals. Individual differences propensity for are therefore likely to have important fitness consequences. We asked whether personality might underpin such individual variation wild population chacma baboons (Papio ursinus). used two field experiments which individuals had opportunity learn how solve task from an experienced conspecific demonstrator: exploitation novel food hidden item known food....
Conflict between groups is a notable feature of many animal societies. Recent theoretical models suggest that violent intergroup conflict can shape patterns within-group cooperation. However, despite its prevalence in social species, the adaptive significance has been little explored outside humans and chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes. A barrier to current understanding role evolution behaviour lack information on causes consequences aggression groups. Here, we examined fitness banded mongoose,...
The evolution of paternal care is rare in promiscuous mammals, where it hampered by low paternity confidence. However, recent evidence indicates that juveniles whose fathers are present experience accelerated maturation baboon societies. mechanisms mediating these effects remain unclear. Here, we investigated whether father–offspring associations might facilitate offspring access to resources wild desert baboons ( Papio ursinus ). We combined analyses and behavioral observations had started...
Abstract Early‐life ecological conditions have major effects on survival and reproduction. Numerous studies in wild systems show fitness benefits of good quality early‐life (“silver‐spoon” effects). Recently, however, some reported that poor‐quality are associated with later‐life advantages the effect can be sex‐specific. Furthermore, few investigated variability fitness. Here, we test how mean affect longevity reproduction males females using 14 years data banded mongooses ( Mungos mungo )....
Significance Kin selection theory predicts that animals will direct altruism toward closer genetic relatives and aggression more distantly related individuals. Our 18-y study of wild banded mongooses reveals that, unusually, dominant individuals target females who are closely to them for violent eviction from the group. This puzzling result can be explained by unrelated resist submit easily. In support this idea, we show kin targeted only when capable resisting. results suggest where...
Abstract Rawls argued that fairness in human societies can be achieved if decisions about the distribution of societal rewards are made from behind a veil ignorance, which obscures personal gains result. Whether ignorance promotes animal societies, is, resources to reduce inequality, is unknown. Here we show experimentally cooperatively breeding banded mongooses, acting over kinship, allocate postnatal care way reduces inequality among offspring, manner predicted by Rawlsian model...
Although the number of studies discerning impact climate change on ecological systems continues to increase, there has been relatively little sharing lessons learnt when accumulating this evidence. At a recent workshop entitled ‘Using data in research’ held at UK Met Office, ecologists and scientists came together discuss robust analysis ecology. The discussions identified three common pitfalls encountered by ecologists: 1) selection inappropriate spatial resolutions for analysis; 2)...
A forager's optimal patch-departure time can be predicted by the prescient marginal value theorem (pMVT), which assumes they have perfect knowledge of environment, or approaches such as Bayesian updating and learning rules, avoid this assumption allowing foragers to use recent experiences inform their decisions. In understanding predicting broader scale ecological patterns, individual-level mechanisms, decisions, need fully elucidated. Unfortunately, there are few empirical studies that...
Individuals' access to social information can depend on their network. Homophily-a preference associate with similar phenotypes-may cause assortment within networks that could preclude transfer from individuals who generate those would benefit acquiring it. Thus, understanding phenotypic may lead a greater of the factors limit between individuals. We tested whether there was in wild baboon (Papio ursinus) networks, using data collected two troops over 6 years for six traits-boldness, age,...
Hette-Tronquart (2019, Ecol. Lett.) raises three concerns about our interpretation of stable isotope data in Sheppard et al. (2018, Lett., 21, 665). We feel that these are based on comparisons unreasonable or ignore the ecological context from which were collected. Stable ratios provide a quantitative indication of, rather than being exactly equivalent to, trophic niche.
Oxidative damage has been proposed as a potential mechanism underlying life history tradeoff between survival and reproduction. However, evidence that reproduction is associated with increased oxidative equivocal, some studies have found breeding females exhibit reduced, rather than elevated, levels of compared to equivalent non-breeders. Recently it was hypothesised could negative impacts on developing offspring, mothers might down-regulate during shield their offspring from such damage. We...
In many vertebrate societies, forced eviction of group members is an important determinant population structure, but little known about what triggers eviction. Three main explanations are: (i) the reproductive competition hypothesis, (ii) coercion cooperation and (iii) adaptive dispersal hypothesis. The last hypothesis proposes that dominant individuals use as strategy to propagate copies their alleles through a highly structured population. We tested these hypotheses for in cooperatively...
Ecological conditions are expected to have an important influence on individuals' investment in cooperative care. However, the nature of their effects is unclear: both favorable and unfavorable been found promote helping behavior. Recent studies provide a possible explanation for these conflicting results by suggesting that increased ecological variability, rather than changes mean conditions, no study has tested whether variability promotes individual-level behavior or mechanisms involved....
Highlights•Young banded mongooses inherit their foraging niche from cultural role models•Cultural inheritance occurs in the first few months of life, but lasts a lifetime•One-to-one can maintain behavioral diversity within groupsSummaryCultural inheritance, transmission socially learned information across generations, is non-genetic, "second system" capable shaping phenotypic variation humans and many non-human animals [1–3]. Studies wild show that conformity [4, 5] biases toward copying...
Recognition plays a key role in the social lives of gregarious species, enabling animals to distinguish among partners and tailor their behaviour accordingly. As domesticated regularly interact with humans, as well members own we might expect mechanisms used discriminate between conspecifics also apply humans. Given that goats can combine visual vocal cues recognise one another, investigated whether this cross-modal recognition extends discriminating familiar We presented 26 (17 males nine...