We explored the role of group living and cooperation in resource use in a spider community where 4 congeneric species of similar body size, but with behaviors ranging from near-solitary to fully social, co-occur. We found that the range of insect sizes captured by each species reflected their...

Sexual selection is responsible for the evolution of costly elaborate male traits. When male displays are dynamic, display strategy is sensitive to contextual cues that alter the relative costs and benefits of producing each signal in a male's repertoire. Because females often prefer more...

To increase their chances of survival and reproduction, animals must detect changes in food quality and then decide if, and how quickly, to adjust their behavior. How quickly an animal responds to change will depend on the information available (cognitive, sensory, or physiological) and how it...

Many organisms show adaptive phenotypic plasticity in response to environmental variation. Some environmental factors may, however, impose constraints on the ability of organisms to respond to other factors. The neotropical treefrog Dendropsophus ebraccatus lays eggs both above water on leaves...

Risk assessment is a fundamental component of any decision-making process, including mate choice. For males, one element of risk that is rarely considered is that a female mate may not survive to offspring independence, resulting in total reproductive failure. This element of risk could be...

In migratory geese, the extended association of parents and offspring is thought to play a crucial role in culturally transmitting the migration strategy to the next generation. Goslings migrate with their parents and associate closely with them almost until the next breeding season. Families do...

Resources invested by prey to acquire information on predator behavior from inside the refuge are crucial to minimize the risk of suffering a future fatal attack. However, most studies have only analyzed situations where information on the predator behavior is unavailable for hiding preys. Also,...

The evolution of learning has long been hypothesized to be limited by fitness trade-offs such as delays in reproduction. We explored the relationship between host learning and reproduction in the cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae. The cabbage white female is innately biased to search for...

In species with both male--male competition and male mate choice, inferior males may make different mate choice decisions from superior males. Males of the intertidal hermit crab, Pagurus middendorffii, are known to conduct precopulatory guarding and to adjust the threshold for guarding...