Leveraging social media and other online data to study animal behavior.

The widespread sharing of information on the Internet has given rise to ecological studies that use data from digital sources including digitized museum records and social media posts. Most of these studies have focused on understanding species occurrences and distributions. In this essay, we argue that data from digital sources also offer many opportunities to study animal behavior including long-term and large-scale comparisons within and between species. Following Nikko Tinbergen's classical roadmap for behavioral investigation, we show how using videos, photos, text, and audio posted on social media and other digital platforms can shed new light on known behaviors, particularly in a changing world, and lead to the discovery of new ones.

Leveraging AI to improve evidence synthesis in conservation.

Systematic evidence syntheses (systematic reviews and maps) summarize knowledge and are used to support decisions and policies in a variety of applied fields, from medicine and public health to biodiversity conservation. However, conducting these exercises in conservation is often expensive and slow, which can impede their use and hamper progress in addressing the current biodiversity crisis. With the explosive growth of large language models (LLMs) and other forms of artificial intelligence (AI), we discuss here the promise and perils associated with their use. We conclude that, when judiciously used, AI has the potential to speed up and hopefully improve the process of evidence synthesis, which can be particularly useful for underfunded applied fields, such as conservation science.

Effects of wind turbine noise on songbird behavior during nonbreeding season.

Anthropogenic noise is one of the fastest growing, globally widespread pollutants, affecting countless species worldwide. Despite accumulating evidence of the negative impacts of wind turbines on wildlife, little is known about how the noise they generate affects ecological systems. Songbirds may be susceptible to noise pollution due to their reliance on vocal communication and thus, in this field study, we examined how songbirds are affected by wind turbine noise. We broadcasted noise produced by one wind turbine in a migratory stopover site during the nonbreeding season. Throughout the study, we repeatedly monitored the acoustic environment and songbird community before, during, and after the noise treatments with passive acoustic monitoring and mist netting. We employed generalized linear mixed effects models to assess the impact of experimental noise treatment on birds behavior and likelihood ratio tests to compare models with variables of interest with null models. The daily number of birds in the presence of wind turbine noise decreased by approximately 30% compared with the before and after phases. This reduction had a significant spatial pattern; the largest decrease was closer to the speaker and on its downwind side, fitting measured sound propagation. Although we found no impact on species diversity, two out of three most common species showed clear avoidance behavior: 45% and 36% decrease in abundance for the lesser whitethroat (Sylvia curruca) and Sardinian warbler (Sylvia melanocephala momus), respectively. In the after phase, there were lingering effects on the lesser whitethroat. The age structure of the lesser whitethroat population was affected because only juvenile birds showed avoidance behavior. No difference in avoidance extent was found between migratory and nonmigratory species, but the impacts of displacement on migrants during stopover are especially troubling from a conservation perspective. Our results stress the need to address the impacts of noise pollution on wildlife when planning noise-generating infrastructures, such as wind turbines, to allow for sustainable development without threatening already declining songbird populations.

El ruido antropogénico es uno de los contaminantes con mayor crecimiento y distribución a nivel mundial, por lo que afecta a incontables especies en todo el mundo. A pesar de acumular evidencia sobre el impacto negativo que tienen las turbinas eólicas sobre la fauna, se sabe muy poco sobre cómo el ruido que generan afecta a los sistemas ecológicos. Las aves canoras pueden ser susceptibles a la contaminación sonora ya que dependen de la comunicación vocal y, por lo tanto, en este estudio de campo, analizamos cómo les afecta el sonido producido por las turbinas eólicas. Transmitimos ruido producido por una turbina en un punto de parada migratorio durante la temporada no reproductiva. Durante el estudio, monitoreamos repetidas veces el entorno acústico y la comunidad de aves canoras antes, durante y después de los tratamientos de ruido con monitoreo acústico pasivo y redes de niebla. Empleamos modelos de efectos lineales mixtos generalizados para evaluar el impacto del ruido experimental sobre el comportamiento de las aves y pruebas de probabilidad de proporción para comparar los modelos con variables de interés con los modelos nulos. El número diario de aves en la presencia del ruido de turbinas eólicas disminuyó aproximadamente un 30% en comparación con las fases de antes y después. Esta reducción tuvo un patrón espacial significativo: la mayor disminución ocurrió más cerca a la bocina y en el lado de sotavento, lo que se ajusta a la medida de la propagación del sonido. Aunque no encontramos impacto alguno sobre la diversidad de especies, dos de tres de las especies más comunes mostraron un comportamiento de evasión evidente: 45% y 36% de disminución en la abundancia de Sylvia curruca y Sylvia melanocephala momus, respectivamente. Durante la fase posterior al ruido, observamos efectos prolongados en S. curruca. La composición de edades de la población de S. curruca se vio afectada porque sólo los individuos juveniles mostraron un comportamiento de evasión. No encontramos una diferencia en el grado de evasión entre las especies migratorias y no migratorias, pero el impacto del traslado sobre las migrantes durante el punto de parada es de preocupación especial desde una perspectiva de conservación. Nuestros resultados acentúan la necesidad de abordar el impacto de la contaminación sonora sobre la fauna cuando se planean estructuras que producen ruido, como las turbinas eólicas, para permitir el desarrollo sustentable sin amenazar a las poblaciones de aves canoras que ya están en declive. Efectos del ruido de turbinas eólicas sobre el comportamiento de las aves canoras durante la temporada no reproductiva.

Early and accumulated experience shape migration and flight in Egyptian vultures.

Two types of experience affect animals' behavioral proficiencies and, accordingly, their fitness: early-life experience, an animal's environment during its early development, and acquired experience, the repeated practice of a specific task.1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 Yet, how these two experience types and their interactions affect different proficiencies is still an open question. Here, we study the interactions between these two types of experience during migration, a critical and challenging period.9,10 We do so by comparing migratory proficiencies between birds with different early-life experiences and explain these differences by testing fine-scale flight mechanisms. We used data collected by GPS transmitters during 127 autumn migrations of 65 individuals to study the flight proficiencies of two groups of Egyptian vultures (Neophron percnopterus), a long-distance, soaring raptor.11,12 The two groups differed greatly in their early-life experience, one group being captive bred and the other wild hatched.13 Both groups improved their migratory performance with acquired experience, exhibiting shorter migration times, longer daily progress, and improved flight skills, specifically more efficient soaring-gliding behavior. The observed improvements were mostly apparent for captive-bred vultures, which were the least efficient during their first migration but were able to catch up in their migratory performance already in the second migration. Thus, we show how the strong negative effects of early-life experience were offset by acquired experience. Our findings uncover how the interaction between early-life and acquired experiences may shape animals' proficiencies and shed new light on the ontogeny of animal migration, suggesting possible effects of sensitive periods of learning on the acquisition of migratory skills.

Thermal conditions determine lizards' response to oil contamination in a desert habitat.

A unique, hyper-arid habitat in southern Israel was polluted by crude oil in 2014. Surveys following the event found that some species of local lizards avoid the oil, while other species were found more frequently in polluted plots. These results raised the question: why do species react differently to oil-polluted soil? We evaluated how soil type, thermal conditions, and food availability interacted to shape habitat preferences of three lizard species. Generally, thermal conditions determined habitat selection and preferences for contaminated or clean soils, while the effects of food availability were weak. The diurnal Acanthodactylus opheodurus avoided artificial heating sources, perhaps to avoid hot soil during warm hours. Both nocturnal Stenodactylus species showed a preference for higher temperature treatments. While crude oil is considered harmful, ectotherms may not recognize it as a danger and may be attracted to it due to its thermal properties, which may create an ecological trap.

The ethics of intervening in animal behaviour for conservation.

Conservation behaviour is a growing field that applies insights from the study of animal behaviour to address challenges in wildlife conservation and management. Conservation behaviour interventions often aim to manage specific behaviours of a species to solve conservation challenges. The field is often viewed as offering approaches that are less intrusive or harmful to animals than, for example, managing the impact of a problematic species by reducing its population size (frequently through lethal control). However, intervening in animal behaviour, even for conservation purposes, may still raise important ethical considerations. We discuss these issues and develop a framework and a decision support tool, to aid managers and researchers in evaluating the ethical considerations of conservation behaviour interventions against other options.

Time constraints may pace the ontogeny of movement behaviour.

During early development, juvenile animals need to acquire a diverse behavioural repertoire to interact with their environment. The ontogeny of animal behaviour, is paced by the motivation to improve, e.g. internal clocks, and limited by external constraints, e.g. weather conditions. We here evaluate how naive Egyptian vultures (Neophron percnopterus) improve in locomotor performance, measured as daily maximum displacement, prior to their first migration under three different time constraint regimes: we compared wild hatched vultures, migrating one month after fledging, with captive-hatched vultures, released in spring four months or in winter nine months before migration. We found that the time until migration paced the development of movement behaviour: wild birds rapidly increased displacement distances within the first two weeks after fledging, while spring and winter released vultures delayed movement increases by two and four months, respectively. Under relaxed time constraints captive-hatched vultures displayed diverse functional forms of performance enhancements and therefore great variability in individual ontogeny of movement behaviour. While weather conditions in winter could limit flight movements, some birds indeed moved immediately after their release, indicating that weather may not be limiting. Our findings promote the idea that relaxed ecological constraints could uncover hidden phenotypic flexibility in ontogeny, which could present a greater potential for adaptability under environmental change than currently expected.

A review of constraints and solutions for collecting raptor samples and contextual data for a European Raptor Biomonitoring Facility.

The COST Action 'European Raptor Biomonitoring Facility' (ERBFacility) aims to develop pan-European raptor biomonitoring in support of better chemicals management in Europe, using raptors as sentinel species. This presents a significant challenge involving a range of constraints that must be identified and addressed. The aims of this study were to: (1) carry out a comprehensive review of the constraints that may limit the gathering in the field of raptor samples and contextual data, and assess their relative importance across Europe; and (2) identify and discuss possible solutions to the key constraints that were identified. We applied a participatory approach to identify constraints and to discuss feasible solutions. Thirty-one constraints were identified, which were divided into four categories: legal, methodological, spatial coverage, and skills constraints. To assess the importance of the constraints and their possible solutions, we collected information through scientific workshops and by distributing a questionnaire to stakeholders in all the countries involved in ERBFacility. We obtained 74 answers to the questionnaire, from 24 of the 39 COST participating countries. The most important constraints identified were related to the collection of complex contextual data about sources of contamination, and the low number of existing raptor population national/regional monitoring schemes and ecological studies that could provide raptor samples. Legal constraints, such as permits to allow the collection of invasive samples, and skills constraints, such as the lack of expertise to practice necropsies, were also highlighted. Here, we present solutions for all the constraints identified, thus suggesting the feasibility of establishing a long-term European Raptor Sampling Programme as a key element of the planned European Raptor Biomonitoring Facility.

Differential survival throughout the full annual cycle of a migratory bird presents a life-history trade-off.

Long-distance migrations are among the most physically demanding feats animals perform. Understanding the potential costs and benefits of such behaviour is a fundamental question in ecology and evolution. A hypothetical cost of migration should be outweighed by higher productivity and/or higher annual survival, but few studies on migratory species have been able to directly quantify patterns of survival throughout the full annual cycle and across the majority of a species' range. Here, we use telemetry data from 220 migratory Egyptian vultures Neophron percnopterus, tracked for 3,186 bird months and across approximately 70% of the species' global distribution, to test for differences in survival throughout the annual cycle. We estimated monthly survival probability relative to migration and latitude using a multi-event capture-recapture model in a Bayesian framework that accounted for age, origin, subpopulation and the uncertainty of classifying fates from tracking data. We found lower survival during migration compared to stationary periods (ß = -0.816; 95% credible interval: -1.290 to -0.318) and higher survival on non-breeding grounds at southern latitudes (<25°N; ß = 0.664; 0.076-1.319) compared to on breeding grounds. Survival was also higher for individuals originating from Western Europe (ß = 0.664; 0.110-1.330) as compared to further east in Europe and Asia, and improved with age (ß = 0.030; 0.020-0.042). Anthropogenic mortalities accounted for half of the mortalities with a known cause and occurred mainly in northern latitudes. Many juveniles drowned in the Mediterranean Sea on their first autumn migration while there were few confirmed mortalities in the Sahara Desert, indicating that migration barriers are likely species-specific. Our study advances the understanding of important fitness trade-offs associated with long-distance migration. We conclude that there is lower survival associated with migration, but that this may be offset by higher non-breeding survival at lower latitudes. We found more human-caused mortality farther north, and suggest that increasing anthropogenic mortality could disrupt the delicate migration trade-off balance. Research to investigate further potential benefits of migration (e.g. differential productivity across latitudes) could clarify how migration evolved and how migrants may persist in a rapidly changing world.

iNaturalist insights illuminate COVID-19 effects on large mammals in urban centers.

Restricted human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic raised global attention to the presence of wildlife in cities. Here, we analyzed iNaturalist observations of prominent wildlife species around North-American urban centers, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. We suggest that the popular notion of 'wildlife reclaiming cities' may have been exaggerated. We found that while pumas ventured deeper into urban habitats during the COVID-19 pandemic, bears, bobcats, coyotes, and moose did not. Species differential behavioral responses may highlight their evolutionary history cohabiting human habitats. Nevertheless, our results highlight the importance of urban nature for people during the pandemic. Our insights could help manage urban wildlife, better plan greenspaces, and promote positive nature engagements.

Evolutionary dynamics in the Anthropocene: Life history and intensity of human contact shape antipredator responses.

Humans profoundly impact landscapes, ecosystems, and animal behavior. In many cases, animals living near humans become tolerant of them and reduce antipredator responses. Yet, we still lack an understanding of the underlying evolutionary dynamics behind these shifts in traits that affect animal survival. Here, we used a phylogenetic meta-analysis to determine how the mean and variability in antipredator responses change as a function of the number of generations spent in contact with humans under 3 different contexts: urbanization, captivity, and domestication. We found that any contact with humans leads to a rapid reduction in mean antipredator responses as expected. Notably, the variance among individuals over time observed a short-term increase followed by a gradual decrease, significant for domesticated animals. This implies that intense human contact immediately releases animals from predation pressure and then imposes strong anthropogenic selection on traits. In addition, our results reveal that the loss of antipredator traits due to urbanization is similar to that of domestication but occurs 3 times more slowly. Furthermore, the rapid disappearance of antipredator traits was associated with 2 main life-history traits: foraging guild and whether the species was solitary or gregarious (i.e., group-living). For domesticated animals, this decrease in antipredator behavior was stronger for herbivores than for omnivores or carnivores and for solitary than for gregarious species. By contrast, the decrease in antipredator traits was stronger for gregarious, urbanized species, although this result is based mostly on birds. Our study offers 2 major insights on evolution in the Anthropocene: (1) changes in traits occur rapidly even under unintentional human "interventions" (i.e., urbanization) and (2) there are similarities between the selection pressures exerted by domestication and by urbanization. In all, such changes could affect animal survival in a predator-rich world, but through understanding evolutionary dynamics, we can better predict when and how exposure to humans modify these fitness-related traits.

Are both necessity and opportunity the mothers of innovations?

Baumard's perspective asserts that "opportunity is the mother of innovation," in contrast to the adage ascribing this role to necessity. Drawing on behavioral ecology and cognition, we propose that both extremes - affluence and scarcity - can drive innovation. We suggest that the types of innovations at these two extremes differ and that both rely on mechanisms operating on different time scales.

Invisible barriers: anthropogenic impacts on inter- and intra-specific interactions as drivers of landscape-independent fragmentation.

Anthropogenically induced fragmentation constitutes a major threat to biodiversity. Presently, conservation research and actions focus predominantly on fragmentation caused directly by physical transformation of the landscape (e.g. deforestation, agriculture, urbanization, roads, etc.). While there is no doubt that landscape features play a key role in fragmenting populations or enhancing connectivity, fragmentation may also come about by processes other than the transformation of the landscape and which may not be readily visible. Such landscape-independent fragmentation (LIF) usually comes about when anthropogenic disturbance alters the inter- and intra-specific interactions among and within species. LIF and its drivers have received little attention in the scientific literature and in the management of wildlife populations. We discuss three major classes of LIF processes and their relevance for the conservation and management of species and habitats: (i) interspecific dispersal dependency, in which populations of species that rely on other species for transport and propagation become fragmented as the transporting species declines; (ii) interspecific avoidance induction, where species are excluded from habitats and corridors owing to interspecific interactions resulting from anthropogenically induced changes in community structure (e.g. exclusions by increased predation pressure); and (iii) intraspecific behavioural divergence, where populations become segregated owing to anthropogenically induced behavioural differentiation among them. This article is part of the theme issue 'Linking behaviour to dynamics of populations and communities: application of novel approaches in behavioural ecology to conservation'.

Using machine learning to disentangle homonyms in large text corpora.

Systematic reviews are an increasingly popular decision-making tool that provides an unbiased summary of evidence to support conservation action. These reviews bridge the gap between researchers and managers by presenting a comprehensive overview of all studies relating to a particular topic and identify specifically where and under which conditions an effect is present. However, several technical challenges can severely hinder the feasibility and applicability of systematic reviews, for example, homonyms (terms that share spelling but differ in meaning). Homonyms add noise to search results and cannot be easily identified or removed. We developed a semiautomated approach that can aid in the classification of homonyms among narratives. We used a combination of automated content analysis and artificial neural networks to quickly and accurately sift through large corpora of academic texts and classify them to distinct topics. As an example, we explored the use of the word reintroduction in academic texts. Reintroduction is used within the conservation context to indicate the release of organisms to their former native habitat; however, a Web of Science search for this word returned thousands of publications in which the term has other meanings and contexts. Using our method, we automatically classified a sample of 3000 of these publications with over 99% accuracy, relative to a manual classification. Our approach can be used easily with other homonyms and can greatly facilitate systematic reviews or similar work in which homonyms hinder the harnessing of large text corpora. Beyond homonyms we see great promise in combining automated content analysis and machine-learning methods to handle and screen big data for relevant information in conservation science.

Research Priorities from Animal Behaviour for Maximising Conservation Progress.

Poor communication between academic researchers and wildlife managers limits conservation progress and innovation. As a result, input from overlapping fields, such as animal behaviour, is underused in conservation management despite its demonstrated utility as a conservation tool and countless papers advocating its use. Communication and collaboration across these two disciplines are unlikely to improve without clearly identified management needs and demonstrable impacts of behavioural-based conservation management. To facilitate this process, a team of wildlife managers and animal behaviour researchers conducted a research prioritisation exercise, identifying 50 key questions that have great potential to resolve critical conservation and management problems. The resulting agenda highlights the diversity and extent of advances that both fields could achieve through collaboration.

A systematic survey of the integration of animal behavior into conservation.

The role of behavioral ecology in improving wildlife conservation and management has been the subject of much recent debate. We sought to answer 2 foundational questions about the current use of behavioral knowledge in conservation: To what extent is behavioral knowledge used in wildlife conservation and management, and how does the use of animal behavior differ among conservation fields in both frequency and types of use? We searched the literature for intersections between key fields of animal behavior and conservation and created a systematic heat map (i.e., graphical representation of data where values are represented as colors) to visualize relative efforts. Some behaviors, such as dispersal and foraging, were commonly considered (mean [SE] of 1147.38 [353.11] and 439.44 [108.85] papers per cell, respectively). In contrast, other behaviors, such as learning, social, and antipredatory behaviors were rarely considered (mean [SE] of 33.88 [7.62], 44.81 [10.65], and 22.69 [6.37] papers per cell, respectively). In many cases, awareness of the importance of behavior did not translate into applicable management tools. Our results challenge previous suggestions that there is little association between the fields of behavioral ecology and conservation and reveals tremendous variation in the use of different behaviors in conservation. We recommend that researchers focus on examining underutilized intersections of behavior and conservation themes for which preliminary work shows a potential for improving conservation and management, translating behavioral theory into applicable and testable predictions, and creating systematic reviews to summarize the behavioral evidence within the behavior-conservation intersections for which many studies exist.

Everybody loses: intraspecific competition induces tragedy of the commons in Allenby's gerbils.

Interference competition may lead to a tragedy of the commons in which individuals driven by self-interest reduce the fitness of the entire group. We investigated this hypothesis in Allenby's gerbils, Gerbillus andersoni allenbyi, by comparing foraging behaviors of single vs. pairs of gerbils. We recorded strong interference competition within the foraging pairs. Competition reduced the amount of time the gerbils spent foraging, as well as foraging efficiency since part of the foragers' attention was directed toward detecting competitors (apparent predation risk). Single gerbils harvested significantly more food than the combined efforts of two gerbils foraging together. Competition reduced the success of both individuals within a pair by more than 50%, making this a case of the tragedy of the commons where each individual's investment in competition reduces the success of all individuals within the group, including its own. Despite their great costs, competitive behaviors will be selected for as long as one individual achieves higher fitness than the other. In nature, interspecific interactions, such as predation risk, may act to reduce and regulate the deleterious effects of intraspecific competition.