Male house mice produce ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs), which are surprisingly complex and when made audible for human ears, they sound like the 'songs' of songbirds and whales. The functions of male courtship USVs are not understood, but it is often suggested that their songs enhance female sexual receptivity. This idea was recently tested for the first time by researchers at the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology.

Male pheromones induce sexual receptivity

It has long been known that male house mice produce pheromones that induce changes in female reproductive physiology and behavior, including activating and accelerating estrous cycling. Pheromone-mediated estrous induction was discovered in domesticated laboratory mice over 60 years ago by Wesley Whitten (hence, it is often called the "Whitten effect"). Therefore, researchers aimed to confirm the Whitten effect in wild house mice for the first time, and test whether male courtship USVs similarly induce estrous and sexual receptivity.

Testing the effects of multiple male stimuli

The researchers conducted their study with wild house mice and began by recording male courtship USVs. They monitored females' estrous stage using vaginal cytology for two weeks, while keeping females isolated from males and male stimuli, and then they continued monitoring estrus for two more weeks while exposing females to different male stimuli, either (1) recordings of male USVs (which requires special loud speakers), (2) male scent, (3) both male scent and USV, or (4) control scent and sounds. This deign allowed them to test whether exposing females to a combination of both male scent and USVs has a more pronounced effect than either type of stimulus alone. Finally, the researchers paired the females with males to test whether any of these stimuli influenced females' reproduction.

Male songs not as sexy as pheromones

The researchers confirmed that male odor enhanced female estrous cycling, whereas exposure to USVs had no effect. Females exposed to both male USVs and odor went through more cycles than those exposed to male odor alone, suggesting that USVs might enhance the effect of male odor; however, the effect was not statistically significant. After pairing the mice, the researchers found that females showing male odor-induced cycling produced their first litter sooner than controls, whereas exposure to male USVs did not have such an effect.

Thus, courtship songs of male mice do not appear to influence female estrous cycling, but the researchers do not completely rule out this idea just yet. Their results raise the possibility that male USVs enhance the effect of male pheromones on female sexual receptivity. This was the first study to confirm the Whitten effect in wild house mice, and the first to show that male scent has a stronger effect on female sexual receptivity than male vocalizations. The problem now is explaining why male scent is more influentical than their songs on female sexual receptivity.

The article "Male scent but not courtship vocalizations induce estrus in wild female house mice" by Simon Wölfl, Sarah M. Zala and Dustin J. Penn was published in Physiology & Behaviour. 

Scientific article

2022-12-29

 (Talk in German)

VetmedTalk: Heute verstehen. Morgen verändern.

12 December 2022 | 5-6 p.m. | Online 

Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees: Countless details block the view of the big picture. With this VetmedTalk, the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, together with the experts from the Donauauen National Park and the Austrian Federal Forests, wants to offer a comprehensive overview of the special features of the forest habitat. For a healthy future for animals and humans, we need a healthy forest.

Austria is a densely wooded country: 3.5 billion trees cover almost 50 percent of the national area and form a diverse habitat for a wide variety of animals. Deer and rabbits, foxes and hedgehogs, but also many birds, insects, amphibians and reptiles make the forests a unique ecosystem. The VetmedTalk "Green Lungs" presents exciting research projects from veterinary medicine and examines how the health of animals and the health of humans are related through the forest habitat.

Forests are essential for us humans. They produce oxygen for our air, wood for our furniture, store our drinking water, prevent floods and protect against mudslides and avalanches. We use the "green lungs" in our free time as a place to relax, and as a huge carbon store, they are also an important instrument in climate protection. At the same time, the forest is a habitat for countless animal species, flora and fauna in the forest are essential for a healthy environment. Nevertheless, we humans have a massive impact on the life of these forest ecosystems through climate change and intensive forest use.

How can humans and animals coexist and thrive in the forest? And what can veterinary medicine contribute to climate protection and biodiversity?

In 2022, the Vetmeduni will focus on communication on "Life on land", UN Sustainable Development Goal No. 15, with a special habitat focus each quarter. It started with air, followed by fresh water and meadows , and the forest ecosystem now concludes the series. The last VetmedTalk of this year is about the status quo of our forest dwellers and how we can protect their habitat. Science communicator Bernhard Weingartner and his guests will answer questions from the online audience.

Experts

• Claudia Bieber, Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology, Vetmeduni
• Edith Klauser, Nationalpark Donauauen
• Alexandra Wieshaider, Austrian Federal Forests
• Richard Zink, Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology, Vetmeduni

Moderation

• Bernhard Weingartner, Science communicator and initiator of the Science Slam Austria

Stream

Live online stream at www.vetmeduni.ac.at/vetmedtalk-wald

2022-11-17

Banding together may pay off for subordinate males

Male spotted bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchus maculatus) build and defend a structure of sticks and straw - the bower. They decorate these nests with colourful objects to attract mates during the breeding season. Certain non-resident subordinate males are tolerated by resident males in their bowers over multiple breeding seasons. Previous research has shown that these male coalitions bring indirect benefits to subordinate males. So far, however, it has been unclear whether lower-ranking males also have direct advantages. A current study by the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology of the Vetmeduni shows for the first time that in rare cases the lower-ranking birds benefit directly from copulation opportunities.

The study documents four cases of sneaky matings or mating attempts by subordinate males. The cases were observed in the bowers of spotted bowerbirds during the 2018 breeding season. Several non-resident males disrupted ongoing copulations between the bower-owner and a receptive female, and these events were followed by vigorous aggressive interactions. "These observations shed new light on same-sex social dynamics in bowerbirds and support the hypothesis that subordinate males are sexually mature individuals who occasionally gain access to females while visiting established bowers," said study first author Giovanni Spezie of the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology at the Vetmeduni.

First observation of extremely rare events

The rarity of the events now observed is remarkable. Extensive observations have been made on spotted bowerbirds for several decades - but so far, none of the observed copulation events has been documented. Study lead author Leonida Fusani from the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology at Vetmeduni: “The fact that we were able to record at least four independent observations in different individuals strongly indicates that sneaky copulations are not an isolated and abnormal behaviour. Rather, it is a behavioural pattern or alternative reproductive strategy used by subordinate males.”

Beta profits from Alpha – male coalitions are profitable

Male-male coalitions have so far been observed particularly in birds such as manakins, grouse, peacocks, wild turkeys and bowerbirds. A common feature of most courtship coalitions is that a dominant "alpha" male accounts for all or most copulations, while subordinate "beta" males abstain from breeding and have no—or very limited—access to mates. Sacrificing reproductive potential for a male association may seem paradoxical, but it has direct and indirect benefits for the subordinate males. The animals benefit indirectly, for example, from taking over the position of the alpha male after his death or from learning behaviour that is important for successful mating from him. As it turns out, they also derive direct benefits from clandestine mating with females.

The article "Sneaky copulations by subordinate males suggest direct fitness benefits from male-male associations in spotted bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchus maculatus)“ by Giovanni Spezie and Leonida Fusani was published in „Ethology“.
 

Scientific article

2022-11-30

Do bigger heads necessarily mean bigger brains? The study of brain size (as a proxy for cognitive ability) is rather difficult in wild animals, and scientists have tried to find ways to measure brain size without harming the animals. Head size has been used in the past and seems to work for some species – but not for all. In a study on quails by Vetmeduni scientists and researchers from Poznań University of Life Sciences, Poland, researchers found that it was head height, rather than overall head volume was a better predictor of brain size, However, it turns out that every species is different and needs to be assessed separately.

At least in part, the brain’s capacity to process cognitive processes depends on the mass of neural tissue involved – the more tissue, the more information can be processed. In fact, studies often find a positive relationship between brain size and cognitive performance. However, the majority of these studies are based on comparisons between different species. A growing number of scientists is now trying to understand how more subtle differences between individuals of the same species are related to their cognitive skills, which is often a big challenge when studying animals in nature. To do so researchers require techniques that do not interrupt the natural life cycle of wild birds.

A first study of barn swallows proposed to use external head measurements, which require handling but not the sacrifice of the individual bird, as an accurate approximation for brain mass.

A team of researchers from the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology (KLIVV) of the Vetmeduni, together with researchers from Poznań University, Poland employed this method for the first time in a small Galliform, the Common Quail. They measured both the external head dimensions of the birds as well as the weight of their brains and tested how well these two measurements were related to each other.

Head height is crucial

Although the scientists found that these measurements were correlated, the correlation values were not very strong. This means that external head measurements really cannot be used reliably to predict an individual’s brain mass with high confidence. Instead, the best predictor of brain mass was not head volume per se, as was previously shown in barn swallows, but the height of the head alone.

“Our results show that the model that explained the highest proportion of variance in brain mass contained only one head measurement, the head height,” says Valeria Marasco, one of the two first authors of the study. “Nevertheless in our study species, the Common quail, this measure explained only a small proportion of the variance in brain mass of different birds. Studies on other species have found a much more significant effect of one or the other variable.”

It is likely, therefore, that other factors also explain the variation. “For example, average beak lengths in different species could influence head measurements,” says Joanna Białas, joint first author of the study. Interestingly, brain size was not at all related to body mass or length of the bird overall. Brain size has evolved from other aspects of an animal´s morphology.

The researchers recommend validating the original method of external head measurements in each avian species before making assumptions on how these measurements might be related to brain size and cognitive performance. More studies across diverse bird species are also needed to elucidate potential relationships between relative brain size, body parameters, and sex.
 

The article “Are external head measurements a reliable predictor of brain size in the Common Quail (Coturnix coturnix)?” by Joanna T. Białas, Valeria Marasco, Leonida Fusani, Gianni Pola, and Marcin Tobółka was published in the Canadian Journal of Zoology.

Scientific article

2022-11-17

Sex differences in vertebrate spatial abilities are typically interpreted under the adaptive specialization hypothesis, which posits that male reproductive success is associated with larger home ranges and better navigation skills. The androgen spillover hypothesis refutes that improved male spatial performance could be a by-product of higher androgen levels. Animal groups that include species for which females are expected to outperform males based on life history traits are key to disentangling these hypotheses.

An international team of researchers now investigated the connection between sex differences in reproductive strategies, spatial behaviour and androgen levels in three species of poison frogs. To do this, they tracked individuals in their natural environments to show that different parental roles shape sex differences in space use, with the sex performing parental responsibilities showing wider movements.

After that, they moved frogs from their home ranges and relocated them to a new area to test their navigation performance. The researchers found that the caring sex outperformed the non-caring sex in only one out of three species. In addition, males of all species displayed more exploratory behaviour than females, with androgen levels correlating with exploratory behaviour and targeting accuracy.

Overall, the researchers were able to show that reproductive strategies of poison frogs shape their movement patterns, but not necessarily their navigational performance. This research suggests that the prevailing adaptive hypotheses provide only an incomplete explanation for sex differences in spatial abilities.

The article "Contrasting parental roles shape sex differences in poison frog space use but not navigational performance" by Andrius Pašukonis, Shirley Jennifer Serrano-Rojas, Marie-Therese Fischer, Matthias-Claudio Loretto, Daniel A Shaykevich, Bibiana Rojas, Max Ringler, Alexandre B Roland, Alejandro Marcillo-Lara, Eva Ringler, Camilo Rodríguez, Luis A Coloma, and Lauren A O'Connell was published in eLife .

Scientific article

2022-11-17

A mother´s stress during pregnancy can affect physiological and behavioural individual characteristics of their offspring in many species.  However, the environment and care of offspring after birth can modulate these characteristics. There have been many studies about the effects of maternal care in mammal species, but there has been surprisingly little research into the same effect in bird species.

An international team of scientists studied the extent to which prenatal maternal stress in Japanese quails (Coturnix japonica), and the emotional response associated with it, can be modulated by the presence of an adoptive mother during the chicks´ development. For this experimental study, they observed chicks whose mothers had experienced a socially unstable environment during laying and egg production, because social instability during egg laying and brooding is known to increase the emotional reactivity of the mothers´ offspring.

To assess the effect of mothering, the researchers raised the chicks either with or without an adoptive quail mother. They found out that those chicks who were raised with a mother, were less anxious, for example in the presence of novel objects or when being separated from their mates.

These results clearly highlight the fundamental importance of a mother´s presence in modulating stressful events before and after birth, even in a precocial species (in which the young are relatively mature and mobile from the moment of birth or hatching), such as quails. It may be a key mechanism driving phenotypic plasticity (i.e. all types of environmentally induced changes) in wild populations.

The article “The presence of a mother counteracts prenatal stress in a precocial bird” by C. Houdelier, M. Charrier, O. Le Bot, N. Aigueperse, V. Marasco, and S. Lumineau was published in Animal Behaviour.

Scientific article

2022-10-27

Sight, smell or both? How birds find their way back to a feeding site was the subject of a recently published study conducted by a team of researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna. The researchers observed great tits and were able to show that olfaction is an essential tool for finding one's way, even in familiar surroundings. These findings highlight that in birds the sense of smell is indeed more important for orientation than previously thought.

The great tit (Parus major) is a common songbird with a wide distribution range. It is a welcome guest at birdfeeders in winter and therefore focus of a  recently published study. A team of scientists tested whether great tits use odours from the environment to find their way back to feeding sites. The researchers captured the birds and in some of the individuals, they briefly dampened their sense of smell by rinsing their noses with zinc sulfate. Afterwards, all birds were released - some in the immediate vicinity and another subset of the animals was let go at a distance of 1.5 km.

Great tits with unaltered olfactory capacity returned more quickly to their home range

Both, the great tits with a reduced sense of smell and those with a normal sense of smell found their way back to the feeding sites. "This result did not surprise us at first, as we deliberately released the birds within their familiar environment," explains study first author Katharina Mahr from the Vetmeduni's Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology. "It is interesting, however, that birds with a diminished sense of smell needed significantly more time to return. This effect is pronounced when the birds were released at a greater distance. Our results indicate that odours serve as an important source of information for orientation in a familiar environment, despite the existence of visual cues."

A good sense of smell helps to optimise foraging efficiency

According to the researchers, certain smells and scent cues in the familiar environment could serve as a reliable source of information for finding one's way around. “Similar results have already been obtained for migratory birds. But especially for species such as great tits, which often overwinter in breeding areas, orientation and navigation by means of smell could help to optimize foraging in times with little food supply, for example in the winter,” says last author Herbert Hoi, also from the Vetmeduni’s Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology. According to Hoi the results of the study strongly emphasise that olfaction might be of greater importance for the orientation of avian species than previously thought, thereby contributing to the understanding of the functional contexts of smell in avian life.

Chemistry in the air

Airborne chemicals function as sensory cues for many organisms, and their use in navigation may be one of the most important evolutionary mechanisms that explains the development of olfaction in animals. Despite solid evidence for the importance of olfaction in avian life – for example, in foraging or mating – the importance of chemical cues for avian orientation remains largely debated. Olfaction in songbirds is, despite their remarkable orientation skills, surprisingly understudied.

The article "Songbirds use scent cues to relocate to feeding sites after displacement: An experiment in great tits (Parus major)“ by Katharina Mahr, Linda Nowack, Felix Knauer, and Herbert Hoi was published in „Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution“.

Scientific article

2022-09-09

What effects do global environmental and climate changes have on social behaviour - this question is being investigated in a current study by the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology (KLIVV) at the Vetmeduni under the leadership of Lia Schlippe Justicia in Bibiana Rojas' research group, using poison dart frogs that live in the South American rainforests. Poison dart frogs are affected by a number of changes in their habitat. The researchers therefore expect a significant change in social behaviour, including increased levels of aggression and parental care challenges.

Human-caused environmental changes include habitat loss and fragmentation, spread of novel pathogens and diseases, pollution, and climate change. In the tropics, too, these disturbances affect a wide variety of species. The resulting interactions challenge the social and sexual behaviour of animals and their interaction with the environment.

Amphibians such as poison dart frogs (Dendrobatoidea) exhibit a wide range of social and sexual behaviours. According to the researchers, this makes them a useful model for understanding the potential adaptations of animals exposed to rapid anthropogenic environmental changes and their impacts on species.

Challenges for young and parent animals

The scientists assume that young animals and larvae are particularly threatened by environmental changes. “More irregular rainfall and higher temperatures limit the availability and diversity of larval nurseries while increasing the likelihood of desiccation. In order to compensate for these negative effects, parent animals will spend more time tending to clutches and taking tadpoles to less endangered rearing sites," says lead author Lia Schlippe Justicia from the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology (KLIVV) at the Vetmeduni.

Higher aggression and increased cannibalism

In addition, the experts expect more frequent cannibalism among young animals and generally higher rates of aggression in adults due to a limitation in resources and territories and human-caused noise. The last author of the study, Bibiana Rojas from the KLIVV says, "Changed environmental conditions resulting from small-scale deforestation or increased noise pollution can disrupt important communication processes, such as courtship or partner selection, since the call of the males is harder to hear and the recognizability of the partner therefore reduced."

Der Artikel „Poison frog social behaviour under global change: potential impacts and future challenges“ von Lia Schlippe Justicia, Chloe A. Fouilloux und Bibiana Rojas wurde in „Acta Ethologica“ in der Sonderausgabe "Impact of global change on social interactions: Auswirkungen auf Ökologie und Fitness" veröffentlicht.

Environmental changes, social behaviour and reproduction

Anthropogenic environmental changes have a major impact on the interactions of organisms with each other and with their environment. Changing behaviour is often the first reaction. The nature of this behaviour can determine how or whether organisms adapt. The survival of the offspring is of particular importance. According to the researchers, the analysis of behavioural and environmental changes through future studies will make an important contribution to better assessing the effects on different species and populations.

Scientific article

2022-09-07

In many animal species there is strong competition among males to find a willing female partner. For this reason, elaborate courtship rituals have evolved, notably in many bird species who often perform dances that show off their strength and beauty, or, as in the case of bowerbirds, even create a special “stage” to charm females. But despite strong selective pressures inherent in competition for mates, in some species males accept same-sex visitors at display arenas.

Bowerbirds perform courtship dances on elaborate display structures — known as bowers — that are built and defended by one resident male. Several reports have suggested that bower owners tolerate the presence of so-called ‘subordinate’ male visitors at their display arenas, though their role has received little attention. It has been suggested that subordinate males may learn the skills required for successful sexual signalling via prolonged social interactions at adults’ arenas, but it remains unclear whether courtship proficiency changes with experience. It may also be that subordinates actively contribute to enhancing the resident male’s mating success, yet little is known about whether this is the case.

In a study, scientists from the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology and the University of Vienna investigated male-male associations in wild spotted bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchus maculatus). They first sought to determine whether courtship behaviour differs based on bower ownership status. They then examined whether social interactions between bower owners and subordinate males may qualify as courtship coalitions.

Rudimentary courtship coalitions

Their analysis did not reveal differences between subordinate males and bower owners in specific parameters of courtship related to behavioural flexibility, but they found evidence that male-male associations in spotted bowerbirds may actually be an example of rudimentary courtship coalitions. The subordinate males may in fact be helping the bower owner, even if not by displaying cooperatively or by actively defending the arena from destruction by neighbouring marauders, by sheer strength in numbers that would discourage other males’ attempts to destroy the arenas. The magnitude of subordinate attendance correlated with owner males’ mating success (number of copulations). The researchers also found that male coalitions are stable in subsequent years. The findings point to the possibility that subordinate males in this species may not associate with bower owners as part of a form of apprenticeship, but rather may get other benefits from establishing long-term partnerships. One hypothesis is that saturation of suitable display sites may force sexually mature subordinate males to “queue” in order to gain ownership of established arenas when these become available. Moreover, the male partnerships may allow subordinate males to establish dominance hierarchies with surrounding males and gain social competence.

In the study the researchers also observed a few occurrences of subordinate males copulating or attempting to. Thus subordinate males may also obtain direct fitness benefits from such courtship coalitions — i.e. occasional access to females.

This study provides novel information about social dynamics among male bowerbirds, and further insights into the evolution of coalitionary behaviour in male displays. Further study is needed, for example to find out how these coalitions are formed, and whether subordinate males selectively choose their model, or whether bower owners tolerate some subordinate males and repel others.

The article “Male–male associations in spotted bowerbirds (Ptilonorhynchus maculatus) exhibit attributes of courtship coalitions” by Giovanni Spezie and Leonida Fusani was published in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.

Scientific paper

2022-08-29

Woodpeckers taste sweet, but wrynecks—unusual woodpeckers that specialize on ants—lost the ability to taste sugars

Many mammals have a sweet tooth, but birds lost their sweet receptor during evolution. Although hummingbirds and songbirds independently repurposed their savory receptor to sense sugars, how other birds taste sweet is unclear. Now, an international team of researchers shows that woodpeckers also regained sweet taste. Interestingly, wrynecks, specialized ant-eating woodpeckers, selectively reversed this gain through a simple and unexpected change in the receptor. These results demonstrate a novel mechanism of sensory reversion and highlight how sensory systems adapt to the dietary needs of different species.

Birds, the descendants of carnivorous dinosaurs, lack part of the sweet receptor found in mammals. This should leave them insensitive to sugars. However, recent studies have shown that both hummingbirds and songbirds have regained the ability to sense sugar by repurposing their savory receptor to now detect carbohydrates in fruits and nectar. How other birds sense sugars, and the extent to which taste receptor responses track the immense dietary diversity of birds, is unclear. To investigate this question, Julia Cramer and Maude Baldwin from the Research Group Evolution of Sensory Systems at the Max Planck for Ornithology/Max Planck for Biological Intelligence, together with colleagues from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology of the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, University of Vienna, Meiji University, and the Swedish University of Agricultural Science focused on woodpeckers. Although primarily insectivorous, this group of birds also contains multiple species that include sugar-rich sap, nectar, and fruits in their diets.

Using behavioral tests of wild birds, Baldwin’s group showed that woodpeckers clearly prefer sugar and amino-acids over water. Surprisingly, wrynecks – a member of the woodpecker group whose diet is almost exclusively composed of ants – displayed preferences for amino acids but not sugars. “Our next question was whether the observed sugar preference is mirrored by the birds’ receptors,” recaps Baldwin.

Functional analyses of taste receptors confirmed that woodpecker receptors were sensitive to sugars, whereas those of wrynecks were not. Interestingly, ancestral reconstructions indicated that the common ancestor of wrynecks and woodpeckers already possessed a modified savory receptor capable of responding to sugars. “This finding unveiled a third case of independent sugar-sensing evolution via modification of the savory receptor in birds”, says Cramer, the study’s first author. “Yet, what was even more exciting was the implication that wrynecks subsequently lost the receptor’s new function.”

Cramer’s meticulous dissection of differences between wryneck and woodpecker receptors revealed unexpectedly that changes in only a single amino acid in the wryneck receptor selectively turned off sugar-sensing: the birds kept their ability to taste savory, which is likely important for insect-specialist birds that consume a protein-rich diet.

These results trace an evolutionary history in which an early gain of sugar sensing in woodpeckers —possibly arising in an earlier ancestor and therefore older than woodpeckers themselves — was followed by its reversion when the wryneck receptor was later altered. “We were very surprised to find that this reversion is caused by changes in only one single amino acid, acting as a molecular switch to selectively regulate sugar sensitivity in wrynecks,” explains Cramer. “Unexpectedly, the result of this small change is that wrynecks are now again unable to detect sugar in their food but have retained the receptor’s ability to gather information on specific amino acid content. This makes a lot of sense when most of your diet is made up of ants.”

Further investigation will be required to describe how specific changes in taste receptors, and in other physiological and sensory systems, are related to the rich dietary diversity across birds.

The article "A single residue confers selective loss of sugar sensing in wrynecks" von Julia F. Cramer, Eliot T. Miller, Meng-Ching Ko, Qiaoyi Liang, Glenn Cockburn, Tomoya Nakagita, Massimiliano Cardinale, Leonida Fusani, Yasuka Toda, Maude W. Baldwin was published in Current Biology.

Scientific article

2022-08-18

Who likes me and who doesn't? “Eavesdropping” is defined as observing others and acquiring information for one’s own benefit, which is self-evident for humans. With dogs, this is less clear. As early as 2020, a research paper₁ from Vetmeduni casts doubt on the eavesdropping hypothesis for dogs. A study now published by the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology at Vetmeduni examined dogs and wolves further adds to the uncertainty. The scientists concluded that the process of reputation formation might be more complex for animals than previously thought.

Reputation is a key factor in social interactions of animals living in groups. It plays an important role in establishing cooperative relationships. Animals can form judgments of other individuals by interacting directly with them or observing them interacting with third parties – an ability known in behavioural science as "eavesdropping". In dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), however, the research is inconclusive. And even if they are capable of eavesdropping, it is not known whether this ability evolved during the domestication process or whether it was inherited from their ancestor, the wolf (Canis lupus).

Study of dogs and wolves casts doubt on eavesdropping hypothesis

The study presented now therefore examined whether dogs or wolves can form a judgment about a person through indirect or direct experience. Nine wolves and six dogs living in the Wolf Science Center (WSC) of the Vetmeduni participated in the experiment. In the observation phase, the animals saw how two people interacted with a dog – one acted generously and fed the dog; the other was selfish and refused to feed the dog. The animals could then choose between the two people. In the following experience phase, the animals interacted directly with the two people. After that, they could again choose between the two people.

"Overall, neither dogs nor wolves distinguished between a generous or selfish human after indirect or direct experience. However, wolves showed more attention toward the generous person during the observation phase, and some dogs and wolves did prefer the generous person when looking at indirect and direct experiences combined," said first author Hoi-Lam Jim of the Wolf Science Center at the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology at Vetmeduni. According to Jim, the study suggests that reputation formation may be more difficult for animals than previously thought, as shown in a study on Asian elephants₂ (Elephas maximus) that was published in 2021. In addition, the study emphasizes the importance of study design to further investigate the process of reputation formation in animals and gain new insights.

The article “Wolves and dogs fail to form reputations of humans after indirect and direct experience in a food-giving situation” by Hoi-Lam Jim, Marina Plohovich, Sarah Marshall-Pescini and Friederike Range was published in PLOS ONE. Link

To the scientific paper

Further information:
₁  Press release: Dog decisions: the position of the people is the key factor
₂  Press release: Elephants do not judge humans

2022-08-17

When studying the cognitive abilities of animals, researchers mostly focus on studying animals kep in captivity, as experiments are more easily conducted in such controlled settings. However, the environment in which captive animals live is generally less complex than the one that their wild counterparts face, making results generating from the labs not always generalizable to the whole species. The issue is even more complex because independently from whether living in the wild or in captivity, individuals face a unique set of daily-life experiences throughout their lives. In fact, wild populations of the same species might live in different environments, with individuals facing different socio-ecological challenges. Similarly, captive facilities might show differences in keeping conditions and individuals’ life histories might largely vary even in those that are usually considered controlled environments.

In the present review, the authors provide examples from recent research investigating different populations of dogs, corvids and primates, showing that even within the same species, the behaviour and cognitive performance of individuals are influenced by past social experiences (“past social context”, e.g. received parental care), present social conditions (“present social context”, e.g. status), as well as the way the animals are tested (“empirical context”). Based on this, the authors invite researchers to be more specific when reporting the past, present and empirical context of the animals they study, to enable valid comparisons and to test for the effects of such elements. Furthermore, the authors urge researchers to conduct comparative studies in different social settings and in different populations to positively exploit such complexity and gain knowledge about how flexible animals are in expressing their cognitive abilities.

The article "Beyond the dichotomy between field and lab — the importance of studying cognition in context" by Lisa Horn, Giulia Cimarelli, Palmyre H Boucherie, Vedrana Šlipogor, and Thomas Bugnyar was published in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences.

Zum wissenschaftlichen Artikel

2022-08-16

How voice pitch influences male perception of female age but not female attractiveness

Psychological studies in the past have examined a variety of facial and vocal characteristics and their influence on the evaluation of attractiveness, as well as on the evaluation of related traits such as masculinity/femininity, health, or age. However, few studies have examined how voice and face influence each other. We wanted to know whether a higher voice in women affects male raters' judgements of attractiveness, health, and femininity of voice, and on the other hand, whether a higher voice affects male ratings of faces.

To test this, an international team of scientists asked male participants to rate voices that were sometimes played with their natural pitch and sometimes manipulated to have a higher pitch. They were also asked to rate the faces of female speakers in videos with either the natural voice pitch or the manipulated higher pitch. Contrary to most previous study findings, the higher voices were not rated as more attractive, but as more feminine and approximately 2 years younger. In the ratings of faces, the voice then only had an effect on perceived age - the faces here were rated as about half a year younger with higher voices. Thus, voice seems to play an important role in age assessment, perhaps less so in other assessments.

Der Artikel "The Effects of Pitch Manipulation on Male Ratings of Female Speakers and Their Voices" von Christina Krumpholz, Cliodhna Quigley, Karsan Ameen, Christoph Reuter, Leonida Fusani und Helmut Leder wurde in der Zeitschrift Frontiers in Psychology veröffentlicht.

Scientific article

2022-08-02

Many birds use "waves" to move. Phases with rapid wing beats, during which the birds gain height, alternate with gliding phases. A research team led by the Vetmeduni (Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology and the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology) - in cooperation with the Austrian Waldrapp team in Mutters (Tyrol), the ETH Zurich, the University of Vienna and the Vetsuisse in Bern – has now demonstrated for the first time, using data from GPS transmitters, that northern bald ibises significantly reduce their energy requirements with this flight technique.

Birds have an exceptionally high energy requirement during their flight. A visible flight characteristic of some species is the alternation between flapping and gliding, which is said to conserve energy. So far, however, there has been no empirical evidence of an energetic benefit. To change that, the researchers equipped human-reared northern bald ibis (Geronticus eremita) with GPS data loggers for their migration movements. The scientists used it to monitor the position of the birds, the wing beats, the dynamic acceleration of the whole body and the heart rate as a measure of energy consumption.

The northern bald ibis is about the size of a goose and was once a common bird in Europe. Due to intensive hunting, however, it became extinct in Central Europe in the 17th century. As part of the European LIFE+EU project, which is supported by the WWF, among others, the northern bald ibis is to be resettled as a real migratory bird in Central Europe, Spain and Italy.

The article „Empirical Evidence for Energy Efficiency Using Intermittent Gliding Flight in Northern Bald Ibises“ by Ortal Mizrahy-Rewald, Elisa Perinot, Johannes Fritz, Alexei L. Vyssotski, Leonida Fusani, Bernhard Voelkl, and Thomas Ruf was published in „Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution“.

Scientific article

2022-07-07

A recently published study conducted by Vetmeduni’s Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology tests several common hypotheses on the evolutionary benefits of large brains. The study shows that the lifespan of fish with large brains is shorter than that of fish with small brains. Moreover, fish with smaller brains are more likely to invest in parental care than those with large brains. Both findings contrast sharply with results from studies of birds and mammals. Against the background, the researchers stress the importance of testing such hypotheses with more comprehensive datasets that are not limited to just a few animal species.

Brain size varies considerably within the animal kingdom. As the evolution of a large brain involves considerable cost, the question arises from an evolutionary perspective why some organisms invest more in their brains than others. Typically, the differences in brain size are explained through trade-offs: the benefits of a larger brain, such as enhanced cognitive abilities, are balanced against potential costs, such as increased energetic demands. Several hypotheses have been formulated in this framework, with different emphasis on ecological, behavioural or physiological aspects of trade-offs in brain size evolution. These hypotheses largely relate to mammals and birds, leaving some uncertainty as to the universal validity of the respective arguments.

In their study, which was recently published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology, the two researchers tested three of the most prominent of these hypotheses – the expensive tissue hypothesis, the social brain hypothesis and the cognitive buffer hypothesis – in fish. The analysis was based on a large dataset derived from a publicly available resource (FishBase). Consistent with predictions from the expensive tissue and social brain hypotheses, larger brains are associated with reduced fecundity and increased sociality in at least some fish groups species.

The study failed to verify other hypotheses, however, as first author Stefan Fischer from Vetmeduni’s Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology explains: “Contrary to expectations, lifespan is reduced in large-brained fishes and there is a tendency for species that perform parental care to have smaller brains.” This means that parental care in fish is indirectly proportional to brain size – a surprising finding, according to the researchers.

In summary, some potential costs (reduced fecundity) and benefits (increased sociality) of large brains appear to be almost universal for vertebrates, while others have more lineage-specific effects. According to final author Arne Jungwirth from Vetmeduni’s Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology, the research highlights the need for a taxonomically diverse approach to all fundamental questions in evolutionary biology: “Our work clearly shows that it is necessary to test even supposedly well-established hypotheses using as many different taxa, or groups as possible – life is always more diverse and fascinating than our theories give it credit for.”

The article  "The costs and benefits of larger brains in fishes“ by Stefan Fischer and Arne Jungwirth was published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology“.

Scientific article

2022-07-05

Research by Dustin Penn that was published in Biological Reviews has become one of the journal´s top 10 most downloaded papers.  The article "The Handicap Principle: How an Erroneous Hypothesis Became a Scientific Principle" by Dustin Penn from the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology, University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna and Szabolcs Számadó from the Department of Sociology and Communication, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, addresses the so-called "Handicap Principle". This idea, proposed by Amotz Zahavi in 1975, is the most widely cited explanation for the evolution of reliable signals. It proposes that signals are honest because they are costly to produce and therefore cannot be faked. Zahavi´s hypothesis assumes that signals are wasteful as well as costly, and that they evolve because wastefulness enforces honesty. Penn and Számadó explain why this idea is erroneous and how it has nevertheless become a widely accepted explanation for honest signalling.

In 1990, Alan Grafen published models that he claimed vindicated Zahavi's Handicap Principle. His conclusions were widely accepted and the Handicap Principle subsequently became the dominant paradigm for explaining the evolution of honest signalling in the biological and social sciences. Penn and Számadó now show that Grafen's models do not support the handicap hypothesis, although they do support another hypothesis that Zahavi proposed, which argues that males adjust their investment into the expression of their sexual signals according to their condition and ability to bear the costs and risks to their survival. This idea is actually very different from the handicap hypothesis, but it has been widely misinterpreted and equated to the Handicap Principle. Theoretical studies have since shown that signalling costs per se are irrelevant to selective maintance of signal honesty, and that honesty can evolve through differential benefits, as well as differential costs. There have been some previous criticisms of the Handicap Principle, but they merely focused on the limitations of Grafen's model and overlooked the fact that it is not a handicap model. According to Penn and Számadó this model is better understood within a Darwinian framework of adaptive signalling trade-offs, without the added burden and confusing logic of the Handicap Principle. There is no theoretical or empirical support for the Handicap Principle and the time is long overdue to usher this idea into an ‘honorable retirement’.

Scientific article

2022-06-20

House mice and many other animal species use ultrasonic vocalisations to communicate in various contexts including social and sexual interactions. These vocalisations are increasingly investigated in research on animal communication and for studying the genetic basis of autism and speech disorders. Researchers at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna have now developed a new and improved method for classifying ultrasonic vocalisations.

As ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) are above the range of human hearing (>20 kHz) and manual methods for analysing these vocalizations are extremely time consuming, several automated methods have been developed for USV detection and classification. In a study led by the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, in collaboration with the Acoustics Research Institute, Austrian Academy of Science, researchers have now evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of the available analysis tools.

In addtion to evaluating detection tools, the researchers developed a new method for classifying USVs, which they call "BootSnap". The lead author, Reyhaneh Abbasi from the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology at the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna explains, “To improve USV classification, we developed an ensemble machine learning algorithm, which provides better performance than a single learning algorithm alone, and it allows us to successfully classify vocalisations into twelve types.” The researchers also tested the performance of their new method, and show that it provides greater generalisability than the current state-of-the-art tool. BootSnap is available free of charge for scientific use.

The article “Capturing the songs of mice with an improved detection and classification method for ultrasonic vocalizations (BootSnap)” by Reyhaneh Abbasi, Peter Balazs, Maria Adelaide Marconi, Doris Nicolakis, Sarah M. Zala and Dustin J. Penn was published in PLoS Computational Biology.

Scientific article

2022-05-30

Innovations in wildlife monitoring were the focus of the 2nd Mallnitz Days on May 13th, which emerged in 2019 from the cooperation between the University of Veterinary Medicine Vienna, the state of Carinthia and the Hohe Tauern National Park.*

New technologies open up numerous possibilities for observing changes in ecosystems and have become indispensable in the field of nature conservation. The options in wildlife monitoring go far beyond the well-known GPS collar. Experts from Vienna and Carinthia informed the participants of the 2nd Mallnitz Days current high-tech methods for wildlife monitoring and about the practical use and effects of the technologies used.

LH Peter Kaiser: "I am pleased that high-tech innovations can add value to nature conservation in the Hohe Tauern National Park. In this way it is possible to observe animals and nature in relation to the occurring climate change in the best possible way and to react to it with the necessary measures."

Many interesting topics were presented, including a new research project on the Heiligenblut chamois, an update on the population development of owls and birds of prey in Austria, exciting information on the development of the native bird world, the topic of drones, climate change and health: future topics in the field of wildlife monitoring, as well as the role of genetics in the monitoring of wildlife populations. Equally important was information on the health monitoring of wild animals with demonstration at the show table, and the use of radio transmitters through to satellite technology: modern methods of wildlife telemetry.

Otto Doblhoff-Dier, Vice Rector for Research and International Relations at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna: "I am very pleased that the Mallnitz Days could take place again this year after a break due to corona: They are an important building block in our VetmedRegio initiative, in which we make the expertise of our university available to all interested parties throughout Austria.”

*Press release Hohe Tauern National Park, May 13, 2022

Vetmeduni press release

Even abandoned and unused, railways clearly beat roadways in environmental terms, as demonstrated by a Polish team, under the lead of Marcin Tobolka, who is now visiting scientist at Vetmeduni. The study, funded by National Science Centre (Poland) has been recently published in Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment. The study examined abandoned railway lines with regard to their quality as a habitat for birds. Unused railway tracks make an attractive habitat for birds, offering a variety of opportunities and considerable biodiversity. The abandoned infrastructure is of great relevance especially where birds are displaced from their traditional habitats due to agricultural intensification.

Over a study period of a year the two researchers compared three different habitat types – unused railway lines, dirt road verges and fields – in terms of bird abundance and species diversity. The scientists recorded a total of 9,678 individual birds from 99 bird species, counting 4,614 individuals from 80 species along unused railway lines, 3,124 individuals from 73 species along dirt roads in farming areas, and 1,940 individuals from 60 species in agricultural fields.

As these types of structures have a high potential as alternative habitats and are beneficial for nature conservation, they should be considered in landscape planning programmes. Unused railway lines may be used among several tools to mitigate biodiversity loss in farmland, which is also one of the goals of the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy, as the study authors point out.

The article "Unused railway lines as a contributor to bird abundance, species richness and diversity in intensively managed farmland“ by Łukasz Dylewski and Marcin Tobolka was published in „Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment".

Die study was supported by the National Science Center (Poland); Project 2016/21/N/NZ8/01289

Scientific article

2022-05-03

There is surprisingly little scientific information on the behaviour of birds with their young in the nest. A current international study led by Herbert Hoi from the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, now shows that the influence of the weather is a determining factor that affects aspects such as breeding performance, food supply, but also nest use.

The study used hoopoe chicks (Upupa epops) to investigate the influence of different weather conditions on breeding performance, food supply and use of nest space. Study author Herbert Hoi says: "In particular, the place where the parents hand over the food and the size of the prey can lead to different use of the nest space by the nestlings. Parental feeding strategy and prey size are, in turn, influenced by weather conditions, which are the most important determinants of nest interior use by chicks.” The study also provides important new insights into communication between parents and their offspring.

Chicks supplied with large prey were more likely to remain hidden in a more distant nest area, whatever the weather. The prey is the most important factor directly influencing the use of nest space, which indicates a crucial role of large insects for the hoopoe. In addition, it was shown that long-term effects of the weather influence the entire food supply of the chicks and thus their behaviour. It is therefore to be expected that climate changes will have consequences for the population of the hoopoe.

According to the research team, the findings are also of great relevance for nature conservation and provide new insights into the theoretical basis of habitat selection.

The article „Influence of different weather aspects on breeding performance, food supply and nest‑space use in hoopoe offspring“ by Soňa Nuhlíčková, Ján Svetlík, Manfred Eckenfellner, Felix Knauer, and Herbert Hoi was published in „Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology“.

2022-04-20

Scientific paper

Vetmeduni Press release

Sexually dimorphic expression of major urinary proteins

Males and females share most of their genomes, but the same gene can have different effects on the sexes. A gene that improves the reproductive success of males may have no effect or even reduce female success. For such genes, natural selection is expected to favor the evolution of hormonal mechanisms that enhance gene expression (protein production) in males or suppress expression in females. This 'interlocus sexual conflict' theory is suspected to explain the evolution of sexually dimorphic traits, such as size, color, and scent. 
 
To address this challenging hypothesis, Dustin Penn and his colleagues reviewed over 200 studies on the sexually dimorphic expression of a large cluster of genes in house mice, called 'major urinary proteins' or MUPs. Males excrete 3 to 4 times more MUPs than females in their urine, which function as pheromones and pheromone-carriers. MUPs bind to volatile pheromones and stabilise their release from male scent marks.  Some MUPs act as pheromones themselves, they attract females, and induce spatial learning by stimulating neural growth in the brains of females. 
 
Penn and his colleagues have shown that males regulate MUP expression according to their social status, whereas females do not. Their review shows how many other factors also influence MUP geneexpression. The brain controls sex differences in MUP gene expression in target organs by regulating the release of growth hormone from the pituitary gland. Several hormones regulate changes in MUP gene expression through complex feedback mechanisms that control chromatin accessibility and binding of transcription factors. 
 
Penn and his colleagues have also shown that increased MUP excretion is correlated with the reproductive success of males but not females. This finding explains why males produce more MUPs than females, but not how this sexual dimorphism evolved. They reviewed studies on in different species of mice, which suggest that this sexual dimorphism evolved by increasing MUP expression in males rather than reducing expression in females. 
 
The final challenge for the future, Penn suggests, is determining how MUP expression influences reproductive success in males versus females in different species. His co-author, Sarah Zala, emphasizes that their research is focused on basic scientific questions, such as why the sexes differ, with no practical aims in mind. Nevertheless, a better understanding of sex differences in gene expression is shedding light on sex differences in disease susceptibility, drug metabolism and other traits of biomedical interest. The problem is that most biomedical studies have focused on male laboratory mice, though there are increasing calls for biomedical research to include both sexes.

The article "Regulation of Sexually Dimorphic Expression of Major Urinary Proteins" by Dustin J. Penn, Sarah M Zala, and Kenneth C Luzynski was published in Frontiers in Physiology, section Integrative Physiology.

This work was funded by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF): P24711-B21 and P28141-B25. 

Scientific article

2022-03-31

In an article published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, an international team of scientists led by last author Bibiana Rojas from Vetmeduni´s Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology investigated how tadpoles respond to limited vision in their habitat. According to the researchers, amphibians offer an exciting opportunity to better understand adaptations to visually-limited environments and provide new experimental considerations and interpretations for future research.

They found that there is currently little evidence-based knowledge in this field, especially regarding the role of turbid and light-limited environments in shaping the amphibian larval visual system and the possible behavioural and phenotypic responses of larvae to such environments.

Rojas emphasises that phenotypic plasticity – the interaction of environment and genetics – is a research area of particular interest. Exploring how colours change in the face of increased turbidity, for example, would be an opportunity to understand the plasticity of colour-based signals and how these are shaped by optically challenging scenarios. Overall, according to Rojas, tadpoles provide an exciting opportunity for exploring adaptations to visually limited environments. “The comparative study of these evolutionary adaptive responses across natural evolutionary groups (clades), habitats and geography will surely challenge evolutionary ecologists for years to come,” says Chloe Fouilloux, first author and PhD student in Rojas’ group.

The article “Tadpole Responses to Environments with Limited Visibility: What We (Don’t) Know and Perspectives for a Sharper Future” by Chloe A. Fouilloux, Carola A. M. Yovanovich and Bibiana Rojas was published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

Scientific article

Vetmeduni press release

2022-03-22

On migration, most passerine birds stop over along the way to rest and refuel. A network of hormones signals metabolic fuel availability to the brain in vertebrates, including the recently discovered gut-hormone ghrelin. Here, we show that ghrelin participates in the control of migratory behaviour during spring migration in a wild migratory passerine. We administered ghrelin to yellow-rumped warblers (Setophaga coronata coronata) caught during stopover and automatically radio-tracked their movements following release. Ghrelin rapidly induced birds to move away from the release site, indicating that the ghrelin system acts centrally to mediate stopover departure. The effects of the hormone treatment declined within hours following release and did not affect the overall rate of migration. These results provide experimental evidence for a pivotal role of ghrelin in the modulation of stopover decisions during migration, and offers insights into the regulatory functions of metabolic hormones in the dialogue between gut and brain in birds.

The study was a collaboration with Christopher G. Guglielmo, Scott A. MacDougall-Shackleton, and Yolanda E. Morbey of the Advanced Facility for Avian Research, University of Western Ontario, Canada, and Hiroyuki Kaiya of the National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center Research Institute, Japan.

Funding was provided by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Global Fellowship 798739 GHRELMIGRA to Sara Lupi.

The article "Experimental ghrelin administration affects migratory behaviour in a songbird" by Sara Lupi, Yolanda E. Morbey, Scott A. MacDougall-Shackleton, Hiroyuki Kaiya, Leonida Fusani, Christopher G. Guglielmo wurde in der Zeitschrift Hormones and Behavior veröffentlicht.

Scientific article
 

2022-03-21

Although early-life adversity (such as nutritional and challenging social experiences) has been associated with negative consequences during adulthood, growing evidence shows that such adversity can also lead to subsequent stress resilience and positive fitness outcomes. Telomere dynamics are relevant in this context because of the link with developmental conditions and longevity. However, few studies have assessed whether the effects of early-life adversity on developmental telomere dynamics may relate to adult telomere dynamics. 

Earlier studies in humans highlight that different forms of early-life stress, are typically associated with impaired cognition and higher propensity for psychological/mood, cardiovascular and metabolic disorders into adulthood. The clinical findings in this context greatly contributed to the foundation of the “Developmental Origins of Health and Disease hypothesis”.

However, more recent studies have found that there may also be positive outcomes for individuals and that organisms that are stressed in early development may later be able to cope better with adversities.

Telomeres, the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes, may mediate the impact of early-life adversity on adult performance. Telomeres play a key role in genome stability and integrity as they act as “protective caps” shielding genes from loss of coding sequences during cell division and preventing end-to-end fusion of chromosomes. Parts of the telomeric DNA sequences are lost at each cell division and can also be affected by a number of external factors, such as oxidative damage. On the other hand, there are also mechanisms that can maintain or restore telomere length, including the enzyme telomerase. In adults, there is often a large inter-individual variability in telomere dynamics and this variability has been linked with the occurrences of environmental challenges.

A knowledge gap remains, however, in explaining the consequences of early life adversity on adult telomere dynamics.  In our opinion manuscript we proposed  three hypotheses that might explain such a link: the Constraint, Resilience, and Pace of Life Hypotheses. So, for example, given that very severe /  chronic stressors likely impair brain development, the Constraint hypothesis and, at least to some extent, the Pace of Life hypothesis probably provide the most fitting models to predict scenarios through which developmental adversity may be linked to adult telomere dynamics. On the other hand, for different stressors, we would expect that the Resilience hypothesis may provide a better framework to explain why certain forms of mild adversities  can have long-lasting positive effects and to predict the role of telomere maintenance and repair processes in the evolution of stress coping mechanisms and stress resilience. It is also important to note the large inter-individual variability in organismic responses to early-life adversity. This is even more the case when you compare species. Different types of early-life adversity may not entail the same costs, and therefore, the same phenotypic responses for all species.

Further research is needed that combines experimental studies in laboratory models and epidemiological studies in wild vertebrates and humans to properly test these hypotheses.

The article "How does early-life adversity shape telomere dynamics during adulthood? Problems and paradigms." by Marasco, V., Smith, S., & Angelier, F. was published in BioEssays.

Scientific article  

2022-03-10

Valeria Marasco of the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology, jointly with David Costantini, has edited a new book on the theme Development Strategies and Biodiversity. The book focuses on the impact of early life experience on the adult phenotype, from its functions to its evolutionary meaning. It is multi-species and inter-disciplinary to enable the reader to assess the topic from multiple perspectives and includes novel ideas and approaches to understand the evolution of development strategies.

David Costantini is Professor at Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris. His research combines studies of mechanisms and functions to understand the causes and consequences of phenotypic variation in animals. He authored 152 publications, including two books as author. He was the recipient of the International Prize for a scholar of Organism Evolutionary Zoology issued from the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei in 2013. He has been included in the list of top 1% of the most-cited scientists across all scientific fields created by the University of Stanford in 2019.

Valeria Marasco's research focuses on proximate factors underlying the effects of changing environmental conditions on phenotypic flexibility and life-history strategies with an emphasis on early life effects. Since 2017, she works at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Comparative Behavioural Research (Vetmeduni Vienna, Austria) as a Post-Doctoral Fellow. She was initially funded by a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship (2017-2019) and currently by a Lise Meitner FWF Fellowship.

The book "Development Strategies and Biodiversity. Darwinian Fitness and Evolution in the Anthropocene" appeared as a part of the series Fascinating Life Sciences in Springer. ISBN: 978-3-030-90131-8

To the book

2022-02-22

Dogs generally do not show any increased socio-cognitive abilities and are no less aggressive than wolves - this is the finding of a review study by Friederike Range and Sarah Marshall-Pescini from the Domestication Lab at the Konrad Lorenz Institute of Ethology that has just been published in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences. Thus, the differences observed in dogs versus wolves reflect both human selection and changes in the animals' natural habitat. With the newly gained insights, the "self-domestication process" of humans is presented in a new light.

Based on the assumption that dogs are less aggressive and have more sophisticated socio-cognitive abilities than wolves, dog domestication has been used to support the idea that humans have gone through a similar "self-domestication process". In their scientific review of studies on the differences between wolves and dogs, the two scientists at Vetmeduni come to the conclusion that the scientific findings do not support such claims. The results of the study suggest that dog domestication is best understood as an adaptation to a new human-dominated niche, accompanied by specific selective human pressures for certain traits.According to the two researchers the domestication of dogs can nevertheless be a good model, for example to improve our understanding of those factors that influence the dynamics vis-a-vis non-group members and the increased tendency to observe rules and social norms. 

The article „Comparing wolves and dogs: current status and implications for human ‘self-domestication’“ by Friederike Range and Sarah Marshall-Pescini was published in Trends in Cognitive Sciences.

Scientific paper

2022-02-21