Concepts

A method to partition variance in population growth rate into contributions arising from temporal covariances of demographic parameters at different time lags

Individuals in more tightly connected social groups perceive greater security from predators and allocate less time to antipredator vigilance while foraging

Variation in behavioral expression within individuals across time or contexts

Ratio of neutrophil to lymphocyte white blood cell counts used as a measure of immune response activity

Scaled measure of how population growth rate responds to changes in environmental drivers

The average number of offspring produced by a typical individual during its life, calculated as the product of offspring number and survival probability

The likelihood that an individual survives from one time period to the next

The age at which females first reproduce, an important component of vertebrate life histories with effects on individual fitness and population dynamics

Ability of organisms to compensate for poor early-life conditions through increased feeding or altered resource allocation later in life

Fitness benefits that include both direct fitness (individual's own reproductive success) and indirect fitness (fitness gained by helping relatives reproduce), weighted by coefficient of relatedness

Hypothesis that highly aroused animals produce nonlinear vocalizations because they lose control of their larynx over vocal fold production apparatus

The degree to which an individual is integrated in their group based on the number of independent links to others in the group

Plasticity that occurs across generations where parental environmental effects influence offspring phenotype or fitness

A statistic derived from information theory that quantifies individuality by calculating inter-individual variation relative to intra-individual variation

Communication through sound production that requires receivers to detect and discern between distinct acoustic signals

Individual's reaction to a non-novel, risky situation

Nature-based tourism activities that can provide conservation benefits but may also impact wildlife behavior through human presence

Signals that meet criteria of stimulus-class specificity and contextual independence, where alarm calls are said to be functionally referential when there is tight association between predator type an...

Winter survival strategy of some small mammals that may affect their vulnerability to avalanche disturbance depending on burrow depth and emergence timing

Ecological research projects that follow individuals or systems over extended periods, often spanning decades

Morton's theory that physical behaviors and acoustic signals are associated, with aggressive behaviors linked to noisy, low-frequency sounds and submissive behaviors to higher-frequency pure tones

An aversion to novel stimuli, measured as latency to touch the puzzle box from stepping onto the platform

Number of nests per unit area, calculated by dividing number of nests in each habitat by total area

Behavioral and physiological mechanisms whereby group-living animals share body heat to reduce thermoregulatory costs

Attenuation and degradation of sound over distance due to atmospheric absorption, ground attenuation, signal scattering, and deflection by layered surfaces

Hypothesis that nonlinear phenomena are more variable or more abrupt and therefore more unpredictable, making animals less likely to habituate to them and causing prolonged responses

A method for calculating dominance based on an individual's relative number of wins or losses that is tolerant of missing pair-wise interactions and weights wins highly

Explains how acoustic signal structure is shaped by habitat-driven selection that enhances the propagation of relatively undegraded vocalizations

Measure of how noisy or random a sound is, with pure tones having entropy values approaching negative infinity

The distance between the anus and the genital papilla, used as a non-invasive measure of prenatal exposure to sex steroid hormones

Internal biological timing system that maintains rhythmicity in a wide range of behavioral, physiological, and metabolic processes

Hypothesis that populations may be buffered from adverse climatic effects when vital rates with high impacts on population growth exhibit the least temporal variability

Statistical technique used to classify observations into predefined groups based on multiple variables

The concept that predator-prey interactions extend beyond direct predation and can influence prey behavior and habitat use through perceived predation risk

Physiological and behavioral adaptations to minimize energy expenditure

Improvement in population fitness through the introduction of new genetic material

Changes in social behavior and group dynamics that result from variation in the number of individuals in a social group

Physiological responses of the immune system to pathogens, trauma, stress and inflammation

Measure of the level of inbreeding within a population, with values close to 1.0 indicating high levels of inbreeding

The proportion of male versus female offspring in a litter affecting prenatal hormone exposure

Maximum running speed of an individual measured during chase trials

Pattern where male mammals tend to travel farther than females in exploratory excursions and disperse more than females

Proportional increase in body mass during the active growing season, calculated as August 15 body mass divided by June 1 body mass

Assumes that antipredator adaptations evolve together and thus prey may respond to extinct predators as long as they have experience with other predators.

An individual's development from egg to adult

The proportion of variance in a trait that is explained by individual identity, indicating consistency of individual differences over time and across situations

Distributed network of environmental sensors measuring diverse phenomena across watershed for understanding and predicting watershed behavior

The hypothesis that the more an individual interacts with others, the less likely they are to disperse

Quantitative measure of acoustic similarity between sounds, ranging from 0 to 1.0 with higher correlations indicating more similar sounds