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Aggression. --- Fear. --- Intruder. --- Predator. --- Rat.

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Syrphidae --- Feeding habits --- Foraging --- Chemotaxis --- Predator prey relations

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The strength of an animal's behavioural response to human presence has often been used as an index of an animal's susceptibility to disturbance. However, if behavioural responsiveness is positively related to the animal's condition, this may be an inappropriate index, as individuals showing little or no response may in fact be those with most to lose from changing their behaviour. We tested the link between individual state and responsiveness by manipulating condition via the provision of supplementary food for turnstones, Arenaria interpres, on rocky shores. Birds at one site were fed 450 g of mealworms at low tide every day for 3 days while birds at another site acted as a control. On the fourth day, using a standardized disturbance protocol, we recorded flush distances, flight lengths and the amount of time between predator scans for birds in both flocks. After a break of 3 days, the treatments were then swapped between sites and the procedure repeated for a total of six trials. Birds whose condition had been enhanced showed greater responsiveness to standardized human disturbance, flying away at greater distances from the observer, scanning more frequently for predators and flying further when flushed. These findings suggest that our current management of the impact of human disturbance may be based on inaccurate assessments of vulnerability, and we discuss the implications of this for refuge provision

Animal. --- Assessment. --- Behaviour. --- Bird. --- Choice. --- Control. --- Distance. --- Food. --- Human. --- Management. --- Predator. --- Provision. --- Refuge. --- Response. --- Responses. --- Strength. --- Susceptibility. --- Time. --- Treatment.

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The cost of vocal behaviour is usually expressed in energetic terms; however, many animals may pay additional costs when predators or potential prey eavesdrop on their vocal communication. The northeastern Pacific is home to two distinct ecotypes of killer whales, Orcinus orca, called residents and transients. Resident killer whales feed on fish, a prey with poor hearing abilities, whereas transient killer whales hunt marine mammals, which have sensitive underwater hearing within the frequency range of killer whale vocal communication. In this study, we investigated how the superior hearing ability of mammalian prey has shaped the vocal behaviour of the transient killer whale ecotype. We recorded pulsed calls and the associated behavioural context of groups of transient and resident killer whales in British Columbia and southeastern Alaska. Transient killer whales produced pulsed calls significantly less frequently than residents. Transient killer whales only showed significant amounts of vocal behaviour after a marine mammal kill or when the whales were displaying surface-active behaviour. Vocal activity of transients increased after a successful attack on a marine mammal. Since marine mammals are able to detect killer whale pulsed calls and respond with antipredator behaviour, the reduced vocal activity of transients is probably due to a greater cost for calling in this ecotype resulting from eavesdropping by potential prey. The increase in vocal behaviour after a successful attack may represent food calling (informing other animals in the area about the presence of food), but is more likely to reflect an increase in social interactions during feeding and/or the fact that the cost for vocal behaviour is comparatively low after a successful attack

Ability. --- Activity. --- Animal. --- Animals. --- Area. --- Behaviour. --- Communication. --- Cost. --- Costs. --- Feeding. --- Fish. --- Food. --- Frequency. --- Group. --- Hearing. --- Increase. --- Interaction. --- Interactions. --- Mammals. --- Predator. --- Prey. --- Social interaction. --- Social interactions. --- Social-interaction. --- Social.

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Because of the pathogenic effects of chronic stress exposure, it is important to identify factors, such as effective coping strategies, that mitigate stress-induced pathology. Of interest in the present study was the consistency of behavioral responses across a diverse array of stressors. Sixteen male and 16 female Long-Evans rats were assigned to either a stress or control group. The stressed animals were subsequently exposed to a battery of ecologically relevant stressors (e.g., predator odor, novel stimuli, and immunological challenge) to determine trends in coping strategies. Blood was collected for corticosterone (CORT) assay and brains were harvested for assessment of fos immunoreactivity in the paraventricular hypothalamus (PVH) and central amygdala (CEA) following exposure to the final stressor of fox urine. A correlational analysis indicated that certain response strategies (e.g., latency to respond in different stress tests such as the open-field and novel item tests) persist across several behavioral tests, especially those tests involving exploratory components. A subsequent principal component factor analysis revealed the following four components: initiative to explore, low reactivity, variable reactivity, and high reactivity. Females exhibited higher recovery CORT levels than males; however, sex only affected one behavioral response measure (i.e., females demonstrated more attempts to climb the wall in the forced-swim test than their male counterparts). In conclusion, these results support the importance and prevalence of initiative to explore as a common factor in many stress tests; additionally, the principal component analysis indicated that physiological correlates of stress are more closely associated with more challenging environments and stimuli such as forced swimming, immunological challenges, and exposure to predator odors.

Amygdala. --- Analysis. --- Animal. --- Animals. --- Assessment. --- Behavioral test. --- Behavioral-responses. --- Blood. --- Brain. --- Central amygdala. --- Chronic stress. --- Control. --- Coping strategies. --- Coping strategy. --- Coping. --- Corticosterone. --- Environment. --- Environments. --- Exposure. --- Female rats. --- Female. --- Females. --- Fox. --- Group. --- Hypothalamus. --- Immunoreactivity. --- Level. --- Long-evans rats. --- Male. --- Males. --- Odor. --- Odors. --- Open field. --- Open-field. --- Paraventricular hypothalamus. --- Physiological. --- Predator odor. --- Predator. --- Prevalence. --- Principal component analysis. --- Rat. --- Rats. --- Reactivity. --- Recovery. --- Response. --- Responses. --- Sex. --- Sexes. --- Stimuli. --- Strategies. --- Strategy. --- Stress response. --- Stress. --- Stressor. --- Stressors. --- Swimming. --- Test. --- Tests. --- Urine.