Abstract：
:Although natural selection may favour the evolution of an optimal brood size, unpredictable environmental factors can intervene to render the brood either considerably larger or smaller than this optimum. The question therefore arises as to how parents should respond to unusually large or small litters. Solutions to this problem which involve abandonment of the offspring or brood reduction, for example by infanticide, have received most theoretical and empirical attention. For small mammalian litters, however, evidence that parents employ these behavioural strategies is sparse. I suggest that, under certain conditions, an alternative to abandonment and infanticide of small litters in mammals is an increase in total parental care above that seen in larger litters. Evidence is presented which supports this possibility. This strategy may allow parents to compensate for the loss of offspring by producing a small number of high quality individuals. It is most likely to occur when opportunities for rapid rebreeding are limited, and when increases in parental care have strong effects on offspring quality. Interest in abandonment and infanticide has diverted attention away from this alternative parental response to small litters. Studies of this response are encourage, not least because they will focus attention on the poorly understood relationship between parental care and offspring quality.
journal_name
Behav Processesjournal_title
Behavioural processesauthors
Mendl Mdoi
10.1016/0376-6357(94)90013-2subject
Has Abstractpub_date
1994-04-01 00:00:00pages
285-91issue
2-3eissn
0376-6357issn
1872-8308pii
0376-6357(94)90013-2journal_volume
31pub_type
杂志文章abstract：:The behaviour of stroking the abdomen over the nest surface has previously been described in females of only a few Polistes wasp species, and was considered to be associated with pheromonal release. This study examines abdomen stroking in solitary and multiple female laboratory colonies of Polistes dominulus during th...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/0376-6357(92)90048-I
更新日期：1992-12-01 00:00:00
abstract：:In two experiments, pigeons' responding to a visual flicker-rate continuum was established by a maintained generalization procedure. For both experiments, variable-interval reinforcement was available for responses during stimuli from one half of the stimulus continuum while responses during other stimuli were extingu...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/0376-6357(88)90007-1
更新日期：1988-09-01 00:00:00
abstract：:In the fish Aidablennius sphynx, in which males continuously care for up to 7000 eggs throughout the breeding season, females prefer to mate with males that already guard eggs. The present study shows that this preference appears to be adaptive because the probability of eggs being cannibalized decreased with brood si...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/0376-6357(95)00019-4
更新日期：1996-02-01 00:00:00
abstract：:This paper examined defensive burying in Tsukuba High- and Low-Emotional rats (THE and TLE). The THE rats showed significantly more defensive burying and more immobility than the TLE rats. The TLE rats were more active and started prod-investigation faster than the THE rats. Some TLE rats bit the prod immediately afte...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/s0376-6357(97)00057-0
更新日期：1997-12-01 00:00:00
abstract：:Birds gather visual information through scanning behavior to make decisions relevant for survival (e.g., detecting predators and finding food). The goal of this study was (a) to review some visual properties involved in scanning behavior (retinal specialization for visual resolution and motion detection, visual acuity...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章,评审
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2011.10.006
更新日期：2012-02-01 00:00:00
abstract：:In this study, we present electroencephalographic (EEG) recording data obtained in correlation with timing behavior in rats trained in a 30-s peak interval (PI) procedure. The distribution of lever press responses was found to be Gaussian, peaking at approximately 30s: lever pressing behavior increased for 30s then de...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2013.09.011
更新日期：2014-01-01 00:00:00
abstract：:The present research investigated the blocking effect in three different species, rats, humans and snails in formally equivalent tasks using a within-subjects design. Experiment 1 demonstrated the blocking effect in a context-flavour aversive conditioning preparation in rats: Animals failed to associate a flavour with...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2013.07.014
更新日期：2013-11-01 00:00:00
abstract：:Emotional contagion occurs when an individual acquires the emotional state of another via social cues, and is an important component of empathy. Empathic responses seen in rodents are often explained by emotional contagion. Rats emit 50kHz ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in positive contexts, and emit 22kHz USVs in ne...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2016.08.005
更新日期：2016-11-01 00:00:00
abstract：:Behavioural variation among individuals has received a lot of attention by behavioural ecologists in the past few years. Its causes and consequences are becoming vast areas of research. The origin and maintenance of individual variation in behaviour within and among populations is affected by many facets of the biotic...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2015.11.012
更新日期：2016-01-01 00:00:00
abstract：:Object exploration is an increasingly popular experimental paradigm in behavioral sciences. We have begun a series of studies with mice specifically looking at the parameters that influence behaviors in this test. The aim of the present study was to examine the effect of object type on performance in the object explor...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2011.12.004
更新日期：2012-03-01 00:00:00
abstract：:In this preliminary study defense behaviour patterns (fear responses) are described in two closely related, behaviourally different inbred labyrinth fish subspecies and in their F1 generation. The subspecies M. opercularis (characterized briefly by "active escape") and M. opercularis concolor (characterized by "passiv...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/0376-6357(78)90038-4
更新日期：1978-07-01 00:00:00
abstract：:Numerous investigators have examined the hypothesis that males and females learn or perform differentially on various tasks. However, many of the behavioural investigations with nonhuman animals (e.g., rats) have used paradigms that do not permit the exploration of complex learning and memory between the sexes. To thi...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2019.103958
更新日期：2019-11-01 00:00:00
abstract：:Data from previous experiments on predator-prey distance estimation during ontogeny are compared to theoretical interpretations. In Ranatra the relationships between performance (maximum reactive distances), effectors (length of forelegs) and receptors (eyes) do not remain constant during nymphal development, contrary...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/0376-6357(84)90034-2
更新日期：1984-04-01 00:00:00
abstract：:Five pigeons were trained to discriminate a constant luminance difference when both reinforcer frequency and reinforcer magnitude were varied in an animal analogue of the human discrete-trial yes- no detection task. Variation of relative reinforcer frequency was more effective in biasing detection performance than var...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/0376-6357(85)90124-X
更新日期：1985-01-01 00:00:00
abstract：:When competing for mates, males typically exhibit higher rates of intrasexual aggression and courtship than females. Operational sex ratio, represented here by adult sex ratio (ASR) as a proxy, is likely the best predictor of this competition, which typically increases between members of one sex as members of the oppo...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2016.05.001
更新日期：2016-08-01 00:00:00
abstract：:Worker ants, which perform various tasks in their society (division of labour or polyethism), also demonstrate different types of antennal activity in trophallactic interactions. These differences concern the variability in successions of behavioural units performed by the worker in the course of substance transmissio...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/0376-6357(85)90007-5
更新日期：1985-11-01 00:00:00
abstract：:The debate about whether or not animals have foresight has focused on whether animals can be shown to have episodic future thinking, that is the ability to travel mentally in time and see themselves in the future. This focus has distracted from consideration of other forms of foresight that animals demonstrate. We pro...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章,评审
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2008.12.005
更新日期：2009-03-01 00:00:00
abstract：:Poor physical abilities of broilers may prevent them from performing behaviours for which they are motivated. The aim of this study was to measure the influence of physical ability and motivation on the performance of broilers in short physical tasks. We tested birds from a fast- and a slow-growing broiler strain in a...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2004.03.015
更新日期：2004-09-30 00:00:00
abstract：:This study examines the ability of Octopus vulgaris to prey on bivalve molluscs showing that octopuses exhibited the same behavioural pattern irrespective of the prey species. When the initial pulling method did not result efficient octopuses skipped to drilling accompanied by an increase in the handling time. A compl...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/S0376-6357(99)00020-0
更新日期：1999-05-03 00:00:00
abstract：:Communication systems that involve substrate vibrations are increasingly a focus of research since this communication mode - recently termed biotremology - has been found to be remarkably widespread in the animal kingdom. Vibrational signals are often used during courtship and therefore underlie both natural and sexua...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2019.103907
更新日期：2019-09-01 00:00:00
abstract：:A series of experiments investigated the role of familiarity in the development of individual recognition and social preferences in spiny mice. Pups who suckled from the same mother were able to recognize one another by common maternal labels even though these same pups were also differentially labeled by additional f...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/0376-6357(84)90044-5
更新日期：1984-04-01 00:00:00
abstract：:Background matching is an important way to camouflage and is widespread among animals. In the field, however, few studies have addressed background matching, and there has been no reported camouflage efficiency in freshwater turtles. Background matching and camouflage efficiency of the four-eyed turtle, Sacalia quadri...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2016.08.007
更新日期：2016-10-01 00:00:00
abstract：:An experiment with rats investigated forgetting of inhibition of delay in the conditioned suppression paradigm. The combined effects of contextual change and retention interval were tested. After a reliable temporal discrimination was reached, half of the rats received a test in the training context after a retention ...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/s0376-6357(96)00045-9
更新日期：1997-01-01 00:00:00
abstract：:Both the shape of the electric pulses and their rhythm of emission serve in communication in weakly-electric mormyrid fish. Because the pulses emitted by a given individual show very little variability, whereas the rhythm of emission is highly variable, the mormyrids electric emission can be considered to be the repet...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/0376-6357(86)90073-2
更新日期：1986-01-01 00:00:00
abstract：:As reinforcers are delivered for a particular response, that response increases. Other similar responses also increase, with the extent to which this increase is seen being positively related to the similarity between the responses. This process, called induction, is pronounced during initial response acquisition, and...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2015.08.010
更新日期：2015-11-01 00:00:00
abstract：:An important prediction from game theory is that the value of a resource influences the level to which male-male conflict escalates. Earlier experimental studies have shown that the seven salticid species we study here (Bavia aericeps, Euryattus sp., Hypoblemum albovittatum, Jacksonoides queenslandicus, Marpissa marin...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2007.03.004
更新日期：2007-07-01 00:00:00
abstract：:Subterranean termites live underground and build tunnel networks to obtain food and nesting space. After obtaining food, termites return to their nests to transfer it. The efficiency of termite movement through the tunnels is directly connected to their survival. Tunnels should therefore be optimized to ensure highly ...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2014.12.013
更新日期：2015-02-01 00:00:00
abstract：:Three mentally retarded humans first acquired a simple discrimination: Simultaneously displayed visual stimuli A1 and A2 functioned as S+ and S-, respectively. The subjects also acquired a conditional discrimination, learning to select visual stimuli B1 and B2 conditionally upon A1 and A2, respectively. Then, B1 and B...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/0376-6357(88)90033-2
更新日期：1988-08-01 00:00:00
abstract：:In serial feature-negative (SFN) training to a target unconditioned stimulus (US), eight rats received two types of intermingled trials: (1) trials in which a tone was followed by the delivery of a single food pellet US, and (2) trials in which the delivery of a single food pellet US was followed by three additional f...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/s0376-6357(99)00063-7
更新日期：1999-10-01 00:00:00
abstract：:Adult participants played computerised games of "Paper Scissors Rock". Participants in one group were told that they were playing against the computer, and those in the other group were told that they were playing against another participant in the adjacent room. The participant who won the most games would receive a ...
journal_title：Behavioural processes
pub_type： 杂志文章
doi：10.1016/j.beproc.2013.07.005
更新日期：2013-10-01 00:00:00
