For desert species, human development may buffer against resource scarcity by providing reliable resources in an otherwise stark environment. We used high-throughput tracking technology to explore the movement patterns of a social desert passerine bird (the Arabian babbler—Argya quadriceps, Leiothrichidae) in a mosaic of human-modified and semi-natural habitats. From late summer to early winter, as natural food and water resources increase, we tracked 21 individuals representing 10 groups. Toward winter, groups spent less time within villages, had smaller home ranges, and were less territorial. In general, birds showed a preference for spending time in the vegetated semi-natural habitat. We further found that even a small section of uncultivated agricultural land (~2 km stretch of mostly bare dirt) can act as a movement barrier for babblers. Altogether, we highlight how the complex interaction between resource availability and anthropogenic changes to habitats, can shape animals’ responses to our changing planet.

Conservation biology's purported remit is conserving nature by protecting species, habitats, and ecosystems. Because of this the field has historically given short shrift to the wellbeing of individual animals themselves and their role in nature protection. This approach ignores substantial scientific and ethical evidence showing that many animals are sentient, sapient and social beings who have intrinsic value and individual wellbeing. Compassionate conservation (CC) is an emergent paradigm of conservation arising to redress this absolute or relative dismissal of wild lives. Noting that the practice of CC is not well characterized, we used a modified Delphi method to explore the meaning and significance of such practices. Contrary to the stereotypes of critics, CC is not a “do nothing” but a “do better and do right” approach to working in the field. Recognizing that all science is value-laden, CC is self-consciously guided by a bounded pluralism of ethical values that inform its practice. We characterize these values as a commitment to the intrinsic moral value of people, animals and nature, and an ethics of care for their wellbeing. CC emphasizes the alignment of values and practice, coexistence as an overall goal, cooperation in the sense of working with and not against nature, honesty about the competing demands of individuals and groups in ecological and social communities, humility about the extent of our knowledge, restraint in undertaking interventions that lack efficacy, and strict scrutiny of both the ethical and scientific justifications for actions affecting animal wellbeing.

Grey wolf (Canis lupus) populations are beginning to increase globally after centuries of decline. While protective legislations and policy implementations have been driving this increase, evidence suggests that these work because of a general rise in public acceptance of wolves. As people have become more knowledgeable of the important ecological roles played by wolves, protection has gained increasing community support, with human-wolf coexistence now being achieved in some areas. However, this is not universal, and some subspecies remain endangered. This is the case for the little-known Arabian wolf (Canis lupus arabs), which inhabits arid regions of the southern Levant and Arabian Peninsula: a geopolitically diverse region crossing multiple jurisdictions with disparate cultures, legislations, and attitudes towards wildlife and conservation. Here we review global efforts within the wolf conservation sphere to explore potential opportunities and challenges in the Middle East, acknowledging and accounting for the unique geopolitical complexity of this region. We bring together what is known about this wolf's taxonomic status, distribution, ecology, and conservation across eleven countries in which it resides, collating decades of legislation, governmental, and non-governmental conservation efforts, and summarising literature pertinent to the Arabian wolf. Cross-border collaborations remain challenging in the Middle East, but we identify practical and culturally-based solutions that may improve coexistence and conservation goals, building upon areas where coexistence already occurs. We write this review in the hope that it will highlight the synergies, opportunities, and obstacles that require more serious deliberation and collaboration to conserve one of the region's remaining apex predators.

Anthropogenic habitat modification can indirectly effect reproduction and survival in social species by changing the group structure and social interactions. We assessed the impact of habitat modification on the fitness and life history traits of a cooperative breeder, the Arabian babbler (Argya squamiceps). We collected spatial, reproductive and social data on 572 individuals belonging to 21 social groups over 6 years and combined it with remote sensing to characterize group territories in an arid landscape. In modified resource-rich habitats, groups bred more and had greater productivity, but individuals lived shorter lives than in natural habitats. Habitat modification favoured a faster pace-of-life with lower dispersal and dominance acquisition ages, which might be driven by higher mortality providing opportunities for the dominant breeding positions. Thus, habitat modification might indirectly impact fitness through changes in social structures. This study shows that trade-offs in novel anthropogenic opportunities might offset survival costs by increased productivity.

Cognition is a powerful adaptation, enabling animals to utilise resources that are unavailable without manipulation. Tool use and food processing are examples of using cognition to overcome the protective mechanisms of food resources. Here, we describe and examine the flexibility of proto-tool use (defined as the alteration of an object through object-substrate manipulation) for food processing in a cooperatively breeding bird, the Arabian babbler (Argya squamiceps). Field observations demonstrate that the birds transport different caterpillar species to different substrate types depending on the processing method needed to prepare the caterpillar for eating. Species with toxic setae (e.g. Casama innotata) are transported to be rubbed on rough substrates (e.g. sand) before consumption, while other species (e.g. Hyles livornica) are transported to be pounded against hard substrates until their inner organs are removed and only their external body part is consumed. These results are among the few to describe flexible proto-tool use for food processing in wild animals. They thereby contribute to the taxonomic mapping of proto-tool use and food processing in non-human species, which is a fundamental step to advance comparative studies on the evolution of these behaviours and their underlying cognitive mechanisms.

When studying bird intra-and inter-specific interactions it is crucial to accurately track which individual emits which vocalization. However, locating sounds of free moving birds (and other animals) in nature can be challenging, especially in situations when many individuals call in spatial and temporal vicinity. In this paper, we will introduce the use of a hand-held acoustic camera which allows solving this problem. The system comprises of 64 microphones each sampling a wide angle at a rate of 200kHz. The system can localize up to dozens of nearby callers and it displays them on a visual image. We applied the system to localize and record vocalizations of Arabian babblers (Argya squamiceps) during snake-mobbing behavior.As the recorded babblers are ringed and therefore identifiable, we could use the calling order to analyse the vocalizing mob and to reconstruct a vocal social network depicting which individuals call after which individuals. Vocal networks in wild animals have so-far received limited research attention due to technological constraints. Acoustic analysis revealed that Arabian babblers call in a periodic pattern and with age specific pause lengths between different individuals. Mobbing events with young babblers display a lower vocal network density compared to only adult groups. Our approach demonstrates how this novel technology can be applied to reveal new insight about vocal events in group living wild animals. The approach can be elaborated to study intra-and inter-specific animal vocalizations.

Introduced predators are thought to be responsible for the decline and extinction of their native prey. The prey naivety hypothesis provides a mechanism for these declines, suggesting that native prey are vulnerable to introduced predators as their coevolutionary history is insufficiently long for antipredator behaviours to fully develop. The prey naivety hypothesis thus predicts that prey will be less responsive to introduced predators than to native predators. Australia's endemic small mammals are thought to be vulnerable to predation by red foxes because they are less responsive to – or naive of – a predator with whom they have only co-occurred since the 19th century. To test whether nativeness determines antipredator behaviours we compared small mammal behavioural responses to fox scent outside (Australia) and inside the foxes' native range (North America and Israel). We conducted giving-up density experiments in the deserts of these three regions and evaluated small mammal antipredator responses to fox scent. To place these results in a broader context, we then integrated our results into a global meta-analysis of studies assessing prey responsiveness to fox scent. All small mammals similarly increased their vigilance in response to fox scent, regardless of their coevolutionary history with foxes. Australian small mammals responded with greater wariness to fox scent, by decreasing time at food patches in response to fox scent more than Israeli and American small mammals did. However, we found no evidence that this behaviour influenced foraging as nut consumption was unaffected. Our meta-analysis revealed that globally, small mammals respond with similar wariness to fox scent regardless of whether foxes are their native predator. We found no evidence that Australian small mammals respond in a maladaptive manner, compared to the foxes' native prey. Our results suggest that animals can develop antipredator behaviours to introduced predators to the same magnitude as native prey.

Here, we present a protocol for collecting data on multiple interaction types in small, stable groups of Arabian babblers (Argya squamiceps). We describe the procedure of habituation, the recording of social interactions, and how to classify the interaction types. Additionally, we provide code for testing, comparing, and visualizing data. The high-resolution data collection is time demanding and requires several data tests before forming the final protocol. The collected data can then be used for multiplex social network analysis.

The grey wolf (Canis lupus) is recovering globally due to increasing human acceptance, which can drive trophic cascades. An endangered subspecies, the Arabian wolf (Canis lupus arabs), inhabits arid regions of the southern Levant and Arabian Peninsula where it remains widely persecuted, and little is known about its ecology. Most of the Arabian wolf’s range is dominated by pastoralism, where tolerance of wolves is low. We assessed how acceptance of Arabian wolves, relative to human land-use and density, has cascading effects on other canids by comparing spatial and temporal interactions, and relative abundance of canids across a hyper-arid desert crossing the Israel-Jordan border. Canids responded by adjusting their spatial and temporal activity patterns in relation to human activity. Wolves were recorded significantly less in pastoralist landscapes, leading to cascading effects. We found that jackals (Canis aureus) and foxes (Vulpes spp.) are both suppressed by larger canids. Wolves and jackals both suppressed foxes, but wolves also facilitated foxes by reducing pressure from jackals. Representing the first documentation of the role of an apex predator in the Middle East, our findings highlight the strong ecological effects that Arabian wolves have on desert ecosystems. Conservation efforts should focus on increasing tolerance and working towards coexistence in pastoralist landscapes.

The social environment of individuals affects various evolutionary and ecological processes. Their social environment is affected by individual and environmental traits. We assessed the effects of these traits on nodes and dyads in six layers of networks of Arabian babblers, representing different interaction types. Additionally, we tested how traits affect social niches in the multilayer networks using the t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (tSNE) dimensionality reduction algorithm. The effect of group size and season was similar across network layers, but individual traits had different effects on different layers. Additionally, we documented assortativity with respect to individual traits in the dominance display and allopreening networks. The joint analysis of all six layers revealed that most traits did not affect individuals' social niches. However, older individuals occupied fewer social niches than younger ones. Our results suggest that multilayer social networks are an important tool for understanding the complex social systems of cooperative breeders and intragroup interactions.