摘要: Locomotion is thermally sensitive in ectotherms and therefore it is typically expressed differently among thermally heterogenous environments. Locomotion is a complex function, and whereas physiological and behavioral traits that influence locomotor performance may respond to thermal variation throughout life, other contributing traits, like body shape, may have more restricted responses. How morphology affects locomotor performance under variable temperature conditions is unknown. Here, we investigated 3 genetically distinct strains of zebrafish, Danio rerio (AB, WIK, and Tu) with a shared multi-generational history at 28 degrees C. After rearing fish at 28 degrees C, we measured prolonged swimming speed (Ucrit) at each of 6 temperatures (between 16 degrees C and 34 degrees C). Speed was strongly positively correlated among temperatures, resulting in most among individual variation being temperature-independent (i.e., fish were relatively fast or slow across all temperatures). However, we also detected significant variation along 2 axes reflecting temperature-dependent variation. Although strains differed in mean swimming performance, within strain (among-individual) patterns of speed variation were markedly consistent. Body shape and size explained significant variation among individuals in both temperature-independent and temperature-dependent axes of swimming speed variation. Notably, morphological traits that were most strongly associated with temperature-independent performance variation (i.e., faster-slower) differed from those associated with temperature-dependent (i.e., hotter-colder) variation. Further, there were significant differences among strains in both the direction and strength of association for specific morphological traits. Our results suggest that thermally heterogenous environments could have complex effects on the evolution of traits that contribute to whole organism performance traits.

摘要: Infant-care behavior, a range of caring behaviors by parental or alloparental individuals towards infants unable to live independently, plays a significant role in the survival of infants and the continuation of the species in non-human primates. During a behavioral ecological study of Taihangshan macaques, we observed 2 cases of infant adoptions by unrelated adult females. In case 1, a multiparous female adopted a lost infant from a neighboring group, with the infant being snatched back by her biological mother 35 days after the adoption. This is the first report of cross-group adoption in Macaca. In case 2, a nulliparous adult female, who had been once adopted by her elder sister, adopted an orphan from her group for 36 days. We describe the details of adoptions in Taihangshan macaques and explore possible reasons for adoptions to contribute to understanding the evolution of infant-care behavior and altruistic behavior of adoption in primates.

摘要: Noise pollution has been shown to affect wild animals in various ways, but little is known about its consequences at the community level. Investigating animals' overall vocal responses to noise across multiple sympatric species can reveal the complex nature of noise impacts but is challenging. In this study, we employed social network analysis (SNA) to evaluate how anuran communities and populations vary their calling behaviors in response to aircraft noise. SNA of anuran communities revealed that conspecific individuals increase the aggregation of their spectral (i.e., minimum frequency, maximum frequency, and dominant frequency), temporal (call duration, call rate, and call effort), and overall spectral-temporal features as an airplane passes through. SNA of populations also revealed that anurans could increase the interindividual similarity of multiple call characteristics in response to airplane noise. Furthermore, our network analysis of multiple species and multiple call traits revealed an effect of noise in species whose calling behavior did not change in previous separate analyses of each species and single traits. This study suggests that noise pollution may change the pattern of combined acoustic properties at the community level. Our findings highlight the importance of integrated methods and theories for understanding the ecological consequences of noise pollution in future studies.

摘要: Mounting evidence suggests that male sperm may be gradually depleted after consecutive matings, resulting in the decline of female reproductive output in insect species. It is predicted that females may employ adaptive strategies to avoid the sperm-depleted males, such as mating multiply with different males and/or discriminating against previously mated males (MMs). Similarly, males may exhibit adaptive behaviors toward females varying in mating status. However, in spiders with males lacking primary copulatory organs and their pedipalps modified to transfer sperm, there are few studies on male mating potential and previous mating experience on their subsequent mate choice. In this study, we used a polyandrous crab spider, Ebrechtella tricuspidata, a sit-and-wait predator with female-biased sex ratio as a model system to ascertain whether 1) male mating experiences influence female reproductive fitness; 2) females respond differently to males varying in mating status; and 3) males respond differently to females varying in mating status. Our results showed that female fecundity was independent of male mating experiences, but female fertility markedly declined with the increase of male previous mating experiences in the first eggsac. Counter to our predictions, females preferred to choose and mate with the larger males, regardless of their mating status. In contrast, male mating status influenced their mating preference toward females. Virgin males did not show any preference between virgin and mated females; however, MMs were more likely to prefer the virgin females over the mated ones. Overall, our results indicated that female choice depended primarily on male relative size rather than male mating status, whereas male choice depended on female mating status. Depending on the investigation of reproductive dynamics and mate choice in E. tricuspidata, the study will provide valuable insights into the adaptive behaviors of both males and females exhibiting toward mates varying in mating status.

摘要: Acoustic communication signals are important for species recognition and mate attraction across numerous taxa. For instance, most of the thousands of species of frogs have a species-specific advertisement call that females use to localize and discriminate among potential mates. Thus, the acoustic structure of the advertisement call is critical for reproductive success. The acoustic structure of calls will generally diverge over evolutionary time and can be influenced by the calls of sympatric species. While many studies have shown the influence of geography on contemporary call variation in populations of frogs, no study has compared the acoustic structure of frog calls across many species to ask whether we can detect an influence of divergence time and overall geographic overlap on the differences in acoustic structure of species-typical calls that we observe now. To this end, we compared acoustic features of the calls of 225 species of frogs within 4 families. Furthermore, we used a behavioral assay from 1 species of frog to determine which acoustic features to prioritize in our large-scale analyses. We found evidence that both phylogeny (time) and geography (place) relate to advertisement call acoustics albeit with large variation in these relationships across the 4 families in the analysis. Overall, these results suggest that, despite the many ecological and evolutionary forces that influence call structure, the broad forces of time and place can shape aspects of advertisement call acoustics.