Concepts

Behaviors that reduce the likelihood of predation, including vigilance and evasion tactics

Survival of organisms through winter diapause or dormancy, often related to environmental conditions during overwintering

The study of how animals search for and utilize food resources in their environment

The concept that organisms face competing demands for limited resources during development that create trade-offs between different fitness components

Vocal signals produced in response to predator detection to warn conspecifics or communicate threat information

A method used to quantify social relationships that not only quantifies the direct relationship between a focal individual and its social partners, but also describes the position of the focal individ...

The distance at which an individual initiates moving away from an approaching humans, reflecting flightiness of an animal in response to a potential predator

The proportion of phenotypic variation in a trait that is due to genetic variation, estimated using parent-offspring regression methods

Population regulation mechanism where demographic rates depend on population density through competition and resource limitation

The total number of offspring that an individual successfully produces and rears to independence over their entire lifetime

A commonly used framework to describe variation in life-history strategies across species, ranking organisms from slow to fast living based on combinations of late reproduction, low reproductive rates...

The finite time and energy budget forcing organisms to trade off between competing activities like foraging and vigilance

Method for estimating demographic parameters by marking individuals and tracking recapture histories over time

Time allocation to scanning for predators versus other activities like foraging, measured through specific postures and head orientations

The movement away from your place of birth and onto another location involving decision to depart, displacement, and settlement

Process by which animals become less responsive to repeated non-threatening stimuli over time

The selective choices made by organisms regarding where to construct nests, influenced by environmental factors that affect offspring survival and reproductive success.

Human activities that impose novel challenges on a wide range of species, which can negatively influence individuals, populations, and communities as well as ecosystems

Network statistics that quantify the importance or influence of individuals within social networks, including degree, closeness, betweenness, and eigenvector centrality

Natural selection that favors behaviors that benefit relatives, even at a cost to the individual performing the behavior

Experimental technique using recorded sounds played back to animals to test behavioral or physiological responses to acoustic stimuli

Random environmental variation that affects demographic parameters across all individuals in a population simultaneously

Social systems where individuals have flexibility in their social behaviors and group membership rather than being obligately social

tendency of an organism to stay in or habitually return to a particular area

Consistent individual differences in behaviour across time and contexts, concept known as animal personality, behavioural types, temperament or coping styles

Correlations between multiple repeatable, individually distinct behaviors that form consistent behavioral patterns across situations

Cortisol and glucocorticoids that help regulate energy balance in animals and could determine dispersal behavior under stressful conditions

The degree to which individuals can be discriminated from one another based on their vocalizations, quantified using information theory

Directed aggression toward conspecifics, increasing spatial distancing from or decreasing huddling with unfamiliar conspecifics

Reduction in reproductive output of individuals due to presence of other conspecifics, particularly older or dominant individuals

Probability of surviving the summer active season, measured by last sighting dates relative to seasonal cutoffs

Statistical approach that includes individual identity as a random effect linked to a pedigree to estimate additive genetic variance

Metabolites of stress hormones measured in fecal samples as a proxy for physiological stress levels

Behavioral observation method where a single individual is observed continuously for a fixed time period

The hypothesis that animals allocate less time to antipredator vigilance as a function of increasing numbers of animals foraging together

A method to test for phylogenetic signal by comparing empirical data variance to variance from randomly reshuffled species identities across trait data sets

Mating system where males compete with one another over access to matelines consisting of groups of related females

The distribution of individuals across different size or age classes within a population

A within-individual process caused by deterioration in molecular and physiological function resulting in a decrease in survival probability and reproductive output with age

Non-invasive wildlife monitoring technique using motion-triggered cameras to detect and photograph animals

Reduced fitness in inbred individuals compared to outbred individuals due to expression of deleterious recessive alleles

Competition where individuals attempt to take over established breeding resources from other pairs

Acoustic phenomena including subharmonics, biphonation, deterministic chaos, and warbles that occur when vocal production apparatus loses control

Social organization where related females remain together and males typically disperse

The allocation of time among different activities that determines overall energy expenditure patterns

Method to determine the spatial origin of sound sources using arrays of microphones and signal processing techniques

Positive social interactions and bonds between individuals including behaviors like grooming, playing, and proximity maintenance

Individual's reaction to being trapped and handled, measured on behavioral scale from aggressive to passive responses

Social ranking system based on agonistic interactions where some individuals consistently dominate others

Statistical measure of repeatability that tests individual consistency of a continuous variable by comparing within-subject and between-subject variation