scholarly journals Lionfish predators use flared fin displays to initiate cooperative hunting

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 20140281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oona M. Lönnstedt ◽  
Maud C. O. Ferrari ◽  
Douglas P. Chivers
Keyword(s):  
Success Rate ◽  
Cooperative Communication ◽  
Test Chamber ◽  
Pectoral Fins ◽  
Communication Signal ◽  
Cooperative Hunting ◽  
Hunting Success ◽  
Dendrochirus Zebra ◽  
Per Capita ◽  
Group Hunting

Despite considerable study, mystery surrounds the use of signals that initiate cooperative hunting in animals. Using a labyrinth test chamber, we examined whether a lionfish, Dendrochirus zebra , would initiate cooperative hunts with piscine partners. We found that D. zebra uses a stereotyped flared fin display to alert conspecific and heterospecific lionfish species Pterois antennata to the presence of prey. Per capita success rate was significantly higher for cooperative hunters when compared with solitary ones, with hunt responders assisting hunt initiators in cornering the prey using their large extended pectoral fins. The initiators would most often take the first strike at the group of prey, but both hunters would then alternate striking at the remaining prey. Results suggest that the cooperative communication signal may be characteristic to the lionfish family, as interspecific hunters were equally coordinated and successful as intraspecific hunters. Our findings emphasize the complexity of collaborative foraging behaviours in lionfish; the turn-taking in strikes suggests that individuals do not solely try to maximize their own hunting success: instead they equally share the resources between themselves. Communicative group hunting has enabled Pteroine fish to function as highly efficient predators.

scholarly journals The correlation between gross domestic product per capita and the success rate of assisted reproductive technologies worldwide

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jie Dong ◽  
Song Yan ◽  
Chenxi Qian ◽  
Xiaohong Wang
Keyword(s):  
Gross Domestic Product ◽  
Success Rate ◽  
Assisted Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Domestic Product ◽  
Us States ◽  
National Wealth ◽  
Pregnancy And Delivery ◽  
Per Capita

Abstract Background Although there has been increased utilization of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) in the world, there is no conclusive definition of the relationship between the success rate of ART and national wealth. Methods In this study, using the data from the International Committee for Monitoring Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ICMART), we sought to determine whether there is a correlation between the success rate of ART (represented by pregnancy/delivery rates) and national wealth (represented by gross domestic product per capita (GDP)). Moreover, to further understand the effect of GDP on ART effectiveness, we analyzed the association between ART success rate and GDP in 50 US states. Results Our data showed that the number of ART treatment cycles increased with an increase in GDP. However, we found a negative correlation between ART success rate and GDP in ICMART countries, but no correlation was seen in the US states. Using rough estimation, we derived that the success rate of ART was not related to GDP in the ICMART countries with GDP per capita more than thirteen thousand dollars. Conclusions In this study, for the first time, we show that when the GDP of an economic body reaches (or exceeds) thirteen thousand dollars, its ART pregnancy and delivery rates cannot be associated with GDP, and the ART success rate remains stable.

scholarly journals Differences in persistence between dogs and wolves in an unsolvable task in the absence of humans

PeerJ ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. e5944 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akshay Rao ◽  
Lara Bernasconi ◽  
Martina Lazzaroni ◽  
Sarah Marshall-Pescini ◽  
Friederike Range
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Success Rate ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Motivational Factors ◽  
Ecological Niches ◽  
Testing Situation ◽  
Hunting Success ◽  
Unsolvable Task ◽  
Species Ecology

Despite being closely related, dogs perform worse than wolves in independent problem-solving tasks. These differences in problem-solving performance have been attributed to dogs’ greater reliance on humans, who are usually present when problem-solving tasks are presented. However, more fundamental motivational factors or behavioural traits such as persistence, motor diversity and neophobia may also be responsible for differences in task performance. Hence, to better understand what drives the differences between dogs’ and wolves’ problem-solving performance, it is essential to test them in the absence of humans. Here, we tested equally raised and kept dogs and wolves with two unsolvable tasks, a commonly used paradigm to study problem-solving behaviour in these species. Differently from previous studies, we ensured no humans were present in the testing situation. We also ensured that the task was unsolvable from the start, which eliminated the possibility that specific manipulative behaviours were reinforced. This allowed us to measure both persistence and motor diversity more accurately. In line with previous studies, we found wolves to be more persistent than dogs. We also found motor diversity to be linked to persistence and persistence to be linked to contact latency. Finally, subjects were consistent in their performance between the two tasks. These results suggest that fundamental differences in motivation to interact with objects drive the differences in the performance of dogs and wolves in problem-solving tasks. Since correlates of problem-solving success, that is persistence, neophobia, and motor diversity are influenced by a species’ ecology, our results support the socioecological hypothesis, which postulates that the different ecological niches of the two species (dogs have evolved to primarily be scavengers and thrive on and around human refuse, while wolves have evolved to primarily be group hunters and have a low hunting success rate) have, at least partly, shaped their behaviours.

scholarly journals Proto-cooperation: group hunting sailfish improve hunting success by alternating attacks on grouping prey

2016 ◽  
Vol 283 (1842) ◽  
pp. 20161671 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Herbert-Read ◽  
Pawel Romanczuk ◽  
Stefan Krause ◽  
Daniel Strömbom ◽  
Pierre Couillaud ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prey Capture ◽  
Waiting Times ◽  
Spatial Coordination ◽  
Present Evidence ◽  
Istiophorus Platypterus ◽  
Hunting Strategies ◽  
Hunting Success ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Group Hunting ◽  
The Cost

We present evidence of a novel form of group hunting. Individual sailfish ( Istiophorus platypterus ) alternate attacks with other group members on their schooling prey ( Sardinella aurita ). While only 24% of attacks result in prey capture, multiple prey are injured in 95% of attacks, resulting in an increase of injured fish in the school with the number of attacks. How quickly prey are captured is positively correlated with the level of injury of the school, suggesting that hunters can benefit from other conspecifics' attacks on the prey. To explore this, we built a mathematical model capturing the dynamics of the hunt. We show that group hunting provides major efficiency gains (prey caught per unit time) for individuals in groups of up to 70 members. We also demonstrate that a free riding strategy, where some individuals wait until the prey are sufficiently injured before attacking, is only beneficial if the cost of attacking is high, and only then when waiting times are short. Our findings provide evidence that cooperative benefits can be realized through the facilitative effects of individuals' hunting actions without spatial coordination of attacks. Such ‘proto-cooperation’ may be the pre-cursor to more complex group-hunting strategies.

Group hunting in harbour porpoises

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Torres Ortiz ◽  
Johanna Stedt ◽  
Henrik Skov Midtiby ◽  
Henrik Dyrberg Egemose ◽  
Magnus Wahlberg
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Harbour Porpoise ◽  
Previous Knowledge ◽  
Phocoena Phocoena ◽  
Fish School ◽  
Social Species ◽  
Cooperative Hunting ◽  
Group Hunting ◽  
Role Specialization ◽  
Hunting Strategy

Cooperative hunting involves individual predators relating in time and space to each other’s actions to more efficiently track down and catch prey. The evolution of advanced cognitive abilities and sociality in animals are strongly associated with cooperative hunting abilities, as has been shown in lions, chimpanzees and dolphins. Much less is known about cooperative hunting in seemingly unsocial animals, such as the harbour porpoise (Phocoena phocoena Linnaeus, 1758). Using drones, we were able to record 159 hunting sequences of porpoises, out of which 95 sequences involved more than one porpoise. To better understand if the harbour porpoises were individually attracted by the fish school or formed an organized hunting strategy, the behaviour of each individual porpoise in relation to the targeted fish school was analysed. The results indicate role specialization, which is considered the most sophisticated form of collaborative hunting and only rarely seen in animals. Our study challenges previous knowledge about harbour porpoises and opens up for the possibility of other seemingly non-social species employing sophisticated collaborative hunting methods.

Underwater non-cooperative communication signal recognition with deep learning

2017 ◽  
Vol 142 (4) ◽  
pp. 2732-2732 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheng LI ◽  
Qiming Zhou ◽  
Xiao Han ◽  
Jingwei Yin ◽  
Mengqi Shao
Keyword(s):  
Deep Learning ◽  
Cooperative Communication ◽  
Signal Recognition ◽  
Communication Signal

scholarly journals Differences in persistence between dogs and wolves in an unsolvable task in the absence of humans

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akshay Rao ◽  
Lara Bernasconi ◽  
Martina Lazzaroni ◽  
Sarah Marshall-Pescini ◽  
Friederike Range
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Success Rate ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Ecological Niches ◽  
Behavioural Flexibility ◽  
Testing Situation ◽  
Hunting Success ◽  
The Social ◽  
Unsolvable Task ◽  
Species Ecology

Despite being closely related, dogs consistently perform worse than wolves in independent problem-solving tasks. These differences in problem-solving performance have been attributed to dogs’ greater reliance on humans, who are usually present when problem-solving tasks are presented. However, more fundamental motivational factors or behavioural traits such as persistence, behavioural variety and neophobia may also be responsible for differences in task performance. Hence, to better understand what drives dogs’ and wolves’ different problem-solving performance, it is essential to test them in the absence of humans. Here, we tested equally raised and kept dogs and wolves with two unsolvable tasks, a commonly used paradigm to study problem-solving behaviour in these species. Differently from previous studies, we ensured no humans were present in the testing situation. We also ensured that the task was unsolvable from the start which eliminated the possibility that specific manipulative behaviours was reinforced. This allowed us to measure both persistence and behavioural flexibility more accurately. In line with previous studies, we found wolves to be more persistent than dogs. We also found behavioural variety to be linked to persistence and persistence to be linked to contact latency. Finally, subjects were consistent in their performance between the two tasks. These results suggest that fundamental differences in motivation to interact with objects drive the performance of wolves and dogs in problem solving tasks. Since correlates of problem-solving success i.e. persistence, neophobia, and behavioural variety are influenced by species’ ecology, our results support the social ecology hypothesis which postulates that the different ecological niches of the two subspecies (dogs have evolved to primarily be scavengers and thrive on and around human refuse, while wolves have evolved to primarily be group hunters and have a low hunting success rate) at least partly shaped their behaviours.

scholarly journals Differences in persistence between dogs and wolves in an unsolvable task in the absence of humans

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akshay Rao ◽  
Lara Bernasconi ◽  
Martina Lazzaroni ◽  
Sarah Marshall-Pescini ◽  
Friederike Range
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Success Rate ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Ecological Niches ◽  
Behavioural Flexibility ◽  
Testing Situation ◽  
Hunting Success ◽  
The Social ◽  
Unsolvable Task ◽  
Species Ecology

Despite being closely related, dogs consistently perform worse than wolves in independent problem-solving tasks. These differences in problem-solving performance have been attributed to dogs’ greater reliance on humans, who are usually present when problem-solving tasks are presented. However, more fundamental motivational factors or behavioural traits such as persistence, behavioural variety and neophobia may also be responsible for differences in task performance. Hence, to better understand what drives dogs’ and wolves’ different problem-solving performance, it is essential to test them in the absence of humans. Here, we tested equally raised and kept dogs and wolves with two unsolvable tasks, a commonly used paradigm to study problem-solving behaviour in these species. Differently from previous studies, we ensured no humans were present in the testing situation. We also ensured that the task was unsolvable from the start which eliminated the possibility that specific manipulative behaviours was reinforced. This allowed us to measure both persistence and behavioural flexibility more accurately. In line with previous studies, we found wolves to be more persistent than dogs. We also found behavioural variety to be linked to persistence and persistence to be linked to contact latency. Finally, subjects were consistent in their performance between the two tasks. These results suggest that fundamental differences in motivation to interact with objects drive the performance of wolves and dogs in problem solving tasks. Since correlates of problem-solving success i.e. persistence, neophobia, and behavioural variety are influenced by species’ ecology, our results support the social ecology hypothesis which postulates that the different ecological niches of the two subspecies (dogs have evolved to primarily be scavengers and thrive on and around human refuse, while wolves have evolved to primarily be group hunters and have a low hunting success rate) at least partly shaped their behaviours.

scholarly journals Differences in persistence between dogs and wolves in an unsolvable task in the absence of humans

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akshay Rao ◽  
Lara Bernasconi ◽  
Martina Lazzaroni ◽  
Sarah Marshall-Pescini ◽  
Friederike Range
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Success Rate ◽  
Task Performance ◽  
Ecological Niches ◽  
Behavioural Flexibility ◽  
Testing Situation ◽  
Hunting Success ◽  
The Social ◽  
Unsolvable Task ◽  
Species Ecology

Despite being closely related, dogs consistently perform worse than wolves in independent problem-solving tasks. These differences in problem-solving performance have been attributed to dogs’ greater reliance on humans, who are usually present when problem-solving tasks are presented. However, more fundamental motivational factors or behavioural traits such as persistence, behavioural variety and neophobia may also be responsible for differences in task performance. Hence, to better understand what drives dogs’ and wolves’ different problem-solving performance, it is essential to test them in the absence of humans. Here, we tested equally raised and kept dogs and wolves with two unsolvable tasks, a commonly used paradigm to study problem-solving behaviour in these species. Differently from previous studies, we ensured no humans were present in the testing situation. We also ensured that the task was unsolvable from the start which eliminated the possibility that specific manipulative behaviours was reinforced. This allowed us to measure both persistence and behavioural flexibility more accurately. In line with previous studies, we found wolves to be more persistent than dogs. We also found behavioural variety to be linked to persistence and persistence to be linked to contact latency. Finally, subjects were consistent in their performance between the two tasks. These results suggest that fundamental differences in motivation to interact with objects drive the performance of wolves and dogs in problem solving tasks. Since correlates of problem-solving success i.e. persistence, neophobia, and behavioural variety are influenced by species’ ecology, our results support the social ecology hypothesis which postulates that the different ecological niches of the two subspecies (dogs have evolved to primarily be scavengers and thrive on and around human refuse, while wolves have evolved to primarily be group hunters and have a low hunting success rate) at least partly shaped their behaviours.

scholarly journals In-group defense, out-group aggression, and coordination failures in intergroup conflict

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (38) ◽  
pp. 10524-10529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carsten K. W. De Dreu ◽  
Jörg Gross ◽  
Zsombor Méder ◽  
Michael Giffin ◽  
Eliska Prochazkova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Success Rate ◽  
Intergroup Conflict ◽  
Success Rates ◽  
Hostile Takeovers ◽  
Coordination Failures ◽  
Interstate Conflicts ◽  
Group Defense ◽  
Group Hunting ◽  
Cultural Pressures

Intergroup conflict persists when and because individuals make costly contributions to their group’s fighting capacity, but how groups organize contributions into effective collective action remains poorly understood. Here we distinguish between contributions aimed at subordinating out-groups (out-group aggression) from those aimed at defending the in-group against possible out-group aggression (in-group defense). We conducted two experiments in which three-person aggressor groups confronted three-person defender groups in a multiround contest game (n = 276; 92 aggressor–defender contests). Individuals received an endowment from which they could contribute to their group’s fighting capacity. Contributions were always wasted, but when the aggressor group’s fighting capacity exceeded that of the defender group, the aggressor group acquired the defender group’s remaining resources (otherwise, individuals on both sides were left with the remainders of their endowment). In-group defense appeared stronger and better coordinated than out-group aggression, and defender groups survived roughly 70% of the attacks. This low success rate for aggressor groups mirrored that of group-hunting predators such as wolves and chimpanzees (n = 1,382 cases), hostile takeovers in industry (n = 1,637 cases), and interstate conflicts (n = 2,586). Furthermore, whereas peer punishment increased out-group aggression more than in-group defense without affecting success rates (Exp. 1), sequential (vs. simultaneous) decision-making increased coordination of collective action for out-group aggression, doubling the aggressor’s success rate (Exp. 2). The relatively high success rate of in-group defense suggests evolutionary and cultural pressures may have favored capacities for cooperation and coordination when the group goal is to defend, rather than to expand, dominate, and exploit.

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