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.

Compassionate 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; and conservation should prioritize compassion to humans. We used argument analysis to clarify the values and logics underlying the debate around compassionate conservation. We found that objections to compassionate conservation are expressions of human exceptionalism, the view that humans are of a categorically separate and higher moral status than all other species. In contrast, compassionate conservationists believe that conservation should expand its moral community by recognizing all sentient beings as persons. Personhood, in an ethical sense, implies the individual is owed respect and should not be treated merely as a means to other ends. On scientific and ethical grounds, there are good reasons to extend personhood to sentient animals, particularly in conservation. The moral exclusion or subordination of members of other species legitimates the ongoing manipulation and exploitation of the living worlds, the very reason conservation was needed in the first place. Embracing compassion can help dismantle human exceptionalism, recognize nonhuman personhood, and navigate a more expansive moral space.

In 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 being part of a large group. As a consequence, larger groups have greater performance than small groups, known as the group Allee effect. Although small populations of cooperative breeders may be prone to all levels of Allee effects, empirical evidence for the existence of a demographic Allee effects is scarce. To determine the extent to which Allee effects are present in a cooperatively breeding species, we used a comprehensive 35-year life history database for cooperatively breeding Arabian babblers (Turdoides squamiceps). Firstly, we confirmed the existence of a component Allee effect by showing that breeding individuals in large groups receive greater benefits than those in small groups; second, we confirmed the existence of group Allee effect by showing that larger groups survive longer. And thirdly, we identified a demographic Allee effect by showing that per capita population growth rate is positively affected by population density. Finally, we found that emigration and immigration rates, although dependent on group size, do not buffer against component and group-level Allee effects becoming a demographic Allee effect. Our finding of the existence of all three levels of Allee effects in a cooperative breeder may have important implications for future research and conservation decisions.

Learning 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 individuals were usually the first to learn to remove black rubber lids from a foraging grid, here we show that dominant individuals were the first to succeed in shifting from these black rubber lids to newly introduced white rubber lids. We also found that in all groups where one forager learned to shift to the white lids, the rest of the foragers also learned to do so, suggesting that this behaviour may be transmitted among group members. Although dominant individuals were almost always the first to remove white lids, once starting to remove white lids, dominants and subordinates learned equally well to prefer white over black lids based on differential reinforcement (food was provided only under white lids). Together with our previous study, our results suggest that differences in learning between dominants and subordinates may be task-specific, which may represent different cognitive strategies: subordinates may explore a more diverse range of foraging opportunities, while dominants may be better at generalizing from familiar tasks to similar ones.

Social 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 studied 1) social foraging strategies and 2) the acquisition of a novel foraging skill in 16 groups of wild, cooperatively breeding Arabian babblers ( Turdoides squamiceps ). In Experiment 1, we provided a foraging grid of 96 feeding wells to each group, allowing them either to search for food individually (producer) or to join other birds (scrounger). Subordinates scrounged significantly more than dominant individuals, spent longer on the foraging grid, and had a higher proportion of their foraging steps rewarded (due to the effect of successful scrounging). However, scrounging was not related to poor learning ability because almost all the individuals that learned the novel foraging skill in Experiment 2 (removing a rubber lid to reach food) were scroungers. These findings suggest that group members differ in their foraging strategies and learning abilities according to their rank and that subordinate group members may be more opportunistic and flexible in their behavior than dominants, making use of both scrounging and novel foraging opportunities.

The Southern Grey Shrike (Lanius meridionalis) is a common resident along the rift valley. During 2007–2008 we studied the impaling behavior of Southern Grey Shrikes at the Shezaf nature reserve by food supplementation. Our findings indicate seasonal shifts in impaling behavior. During the winter, there was no difference between the sexes and shrikes impaled house mice (Mus musculus) close to their territorial boundaries with neighboring conspecifics. All impaled mice disappeared from the tree within a few hours of impalement. During the mating season, males impaled the whole prey and let females eat it, and prey was impaled by both sexes only in order to dismember and feed the nestlings. Shrikes impaled and cached meal worms only after they were satiated. The number of meal worms taken to be hoarded increased during the non-breeding season, but during the breeding season male shrikes preferred to feed the females. During the entire research period we did not find any specific cache sites or trees and no prey remained impaled for extended periods of time. In conclusion, impaling prey changed temporally and between sexes: from being a signal for conspecifics to pair bonding.

We studied the breeding ecology of the Southern Grey Shrike (Lanius meridionalis) at the Shezaf Nature Reserve, Arava Valley, Israel, an extremely arid desert with mean annual rainfall of 30 mm. We color-banded 128 shrikes during 2007–2009. The breeding season lasted from late February until late June. We found 34 nests and a correlation between years with amount of precipitation and number of breeding pairs. Second broods after successful broods were found only in 2007 and were all unsuccessful. Most nests were in Acacia trees; pairs that nested in dry trees, lacking foliage, were more likely to fail. The average clutch size was 3.44; average number of nestlings was 1.95; and average number of nestlings that fledged was 1.24. These results are lower than other studies of the species, probably a result of the scarcity of food in the arid environment. Nest survival rate was higher during incubation than during rearing of nestlings (0.71vs. 0.62), and total nest survival was 44.5%. The arid Arava V...