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24 Apr 2024 • Journal Article • Animal Cognition
Proto-tool use for food processing in wild Arabian babblers: matching processing methods, substrates and prey types
AbstractCognition 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
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Mar 2024 • Journal Article • Frontiers in Bird Science
Using acoustic cameras to study Vocal mobbing reveals the importance of learning in juvenile Arabian babblers
AbstractWhen 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
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24 Jan 2024 • Journal Article • Ecography
Prey responses to foxes are not determined by nativeness
AbstractIntroduced 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
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16 Dec 2022 • Journal Article • STAR Protocols
Protocol to record multiple interaction types in small social groups of birds
AbstractHere, 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
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Aug 2022 • Journal Article • Global Ecology and Conservation
Tolerance of wolves shapes desert canid communities in the Middle East
AbstractThe 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
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19 Nov 2021 • Journal Article • iScience
Multilayer social networks reveal the social complexity of a cooperatively breeding bird
AbstractThe 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
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Oct 2020 • Journal Article • Conservation Biology
Recognizing animal personhood in compassionate conservation
AbstractCompassionate conservation is based on the ethical position that actions taken to protect biodiversity should be guided by compassion for all sentient beings. Critics argue that there are 3 core reasons harming animals is acceptable in conservation programs: the primary purpose of conservation is biodiversity protection; conservation is already compassionate to animals;
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Sep 2016 • Journal Article • Oecologia
Component, group and demographic Allee effects in a cooperatively breeding bird species, the Arabian babbler (Turdoides squamiceps)
AbstractIn population dynamics, inverse density dependence can be manifested by individual fitness traits (component Allee effects), and population-level traits (demographic Allee effects). Cooperatively breeding species are an excellent model for investigating the relative importance of Allee effects, because there is a disproportionately larger benefit to an individual of
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May 2016 • Journal Article • Ethology
Task-Dependent Differences in Learning by Subordinate and Dominant Wild Arabian Babblers
AbstractLearning and innovation abilities have been studied extensively in flocking birds, but their importance and relevance in cooperatively breeding birds have been relatively unexplored. We studied the acquisition of novel foraging skills in 14 groups of wild, cooperatively breeding Arabian babblers (Turdoides squamiceps). While in a previous study we found that subordinate
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Jan 2015 • Journal Article • Behavioral Ecology
Social foraging strategies and acquisition of novel foraging skills in cooperatively breeding Arabian babblers
AbstractSocial foraging strategies and their association with learning and innovation abilities have been studied extensively in flocking birds, but their importance for cooperatively breeding birds has remained relatively unexplored. The high degree of sociality typical of cooperative societies may indicate an important role of social foraging for learning and innovation. We
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