Search results for "Predator"

Data from: Ecological conditions alter cooperative behaviour and its costs in a chemically defended sawfly

2018

The evolution of cooperation and social behaviour is often studied in isolation from the ecology of organisms. Yet, the selective environment under which individuals evolve is much more complex in nature, consisting of ecological and abiotic interactions in addition to social ones. Here we measured the life-history costs of cooperative chemical defence in a gregarious social herbivore, Diprion pini pine sawfly larvae, and how these costs vary under different ecological conditions. We ran a rearing experiment where we manipulated diet (resin content) and attack intensity by repeatedly harassing larvae to produce a chemical defence. We show that forcing individuals to allocate more to coopera…

Data from: An aposematic colour-polymorphic moth seen through the eyes of conspecifics and predators - sensitivity and colour discrimination in a tig…

2019

1. Although predation is commonly thought to exert the strongest selective pressure on colouration in aposematic species, sexual selection may also influence colouration. Specifically, polymorphism in aposematic species cannot be explained by natural selection alone. 2. Males of the aposematic wood tiger moth (Arctia plantaginis) are polymorphic for hindwing colouration throughout most of their range. In Scandinavia, they display either white or yellow hindwings. Female hindwing colouration varies continuously from bright orange to red. Redder females and yellow males suffer least from bird predation. 3. White males often have higher mating success than yellow males. Therefore, we ask wheth…

Inclusion of predatory journals in Scopus is inflating scholars’ metrics and advancing careers

2019

Postnatal predator exposure reduces fear and anxiety behaviors in adult mice

2010

Poster; Predator cues are very efficient to induce fear in rodents but most studies use adult subjects and not pups. Nevertheless, a perinatal stress can have a significant effect on behavior and on physiology at adulthood. An early stress (foot shock, restraint, mother separation) is able to modulate behaviors later and the aim of this study was to examine if the synthetic predator odor 2,3,5-trimethylthiazoline (TMT) presented to neonates modifies fear and anxiety-related behaviors in adult female mice.

The effect of prey resources on evolutionary and ecological dynamics of prey (Serratia marcescens) and predator (Tetrahymena thermophila)

2006

Profiles, motives and experiences of authors publishing in predatory journals: OMICS as a case study

2023

International audience; The paper aims to understand the context and drivers of researchers' decision to submit a manuscript to a predatory journal. Using OMICS as a case study and asking authors for their views, the paper presents their profile, motivations and publishing experiences. The methodology is based on a questionnaire sent by email to all authors of articles published in OMICS (+2200). The authors were asked about 1/ the factors that influenced their decision to submit their article, 2/ their publishing predatory journal. At the same time, it reveals some of the strategies used by OMICS to persuade authors to submit their papers. The findings will help to inform institutional pol…

Unfair play? Video games as exploitative monetized services: An examination of game patents from a consumer protection perspective

2019

Video games as a consumer product have changed significantly with the advent of in-game purchasing systems (e.g., microtransactions, ‘loot boxes’). This review examines consumer protections related to in-game purchasing by anticipating some of the potential design strategies that might contribute to higher risk consumer behavior. Attention was directed towards the analysis of patents for potential in-game purchasing systems, with 13 identified on Google Patents. The design features were analysed in relation to the consumer rights and guarantees described in the terms of use agreements of the patent assignees. The analysis revealed that some in-game purchasing systems could be characterized …

Hard to catch: Experimental evidence supports evasive mimicry

2021

Most research on aposematism has focused on chemically defended prey, but the signalling difficulty of capture remains poorly explored. Similar to classical Batesian and Müllerian mimicry related to distastefulness, such ‘evasive aposematism' may also lead to convergence in warning colours, known as evasive mimicry. A prime candidate group for evasive mimicry areAdelphabutterflies, which are agile insects and show remarkable colour pattern convergence. We tested the ability of naive blue tits to learn to avoid and generalizeAdelphawing patterns associated with the difficulty of capture and compared their response to that of birds that learned to associate the same wing patterns with distast…

Olfactory cues and the value of information : Voles interpret cues differently based on recent predator encounters

2018

Prey strategically respond to the risk of predation by varying their behavior while balancing the tradeoffs of food and safety. We present here an experiment that tests the way the same indirect cues of predation risk are interpreted by bank voles, Myodes glareolus, as the game changes through exposure to a caged weasel. Using optimal patch use, we asked wild-caught voles to rank the risk they perceived. We measured their response to olfactory cues in the form of weasel bedding, a sham control in the form of rabbit bedding, and an odor-free control. We repeated the interviews in a chronological order to test the change in response, i.e., the changes in the value of the information. We found…

The evolution and ecology of multiple antipredator defences

2023

Prey seldom rely on a single type of antipredator defence, often using multiple defences to avoid predation. In many cases, selection in different contexts may favour the evolution of multiple defences in a prey. However, a prey may use multiple defences to protect itself during a single predator encounter. Such “defence portfolios” that defend prey against a single instance of predation are distributed across and within successive stages of the predation sequence (encounter, detection, identification, approach (attack), subjugation and consumption). We contend that at present, our understanding of defence portfolio evolution is incomplete, and seen from the fragmentary perspective of speci…