Animal Behavior and Cognition

Two neuropeptides that promote blood feeding in Anopheles stephensi mosquitoes

1. Prashali Bansal
2. Roshni Pillai
3. Pooja D Babu
4. Sonia Q Sen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This is a valuable study that integrates behavioral and molecular approaches to identify neuromodulators influencing blood-feeding behavior in the disease vector Anopheles stephensi. Through gene expression analyses across blood-seeking life stages and RNA interference experiments, the authors present solid evidence that co-knockdown of the neuromodulators short Neuropeptide F and RYamide affects blood-seeking states in A. stephensi. However, evidence demonstrating that these neuropeptides are sufficient to promote host-seeking is lacking.

Reviewed by eLife

Context-dependent oviposition reveals strong association between acceptance and preference in the Mediterranean fruit fly

1. Benoît Facon
2. Madeline Chauve
3. Virginie Ravigné
4. Bruno Serrate
5. Myriam Robejean
6. Antoine Fraimout
7. Julien Foucaud

Reviewed by Peer Community In Zoology

Endogenous Precision of the Number Sense

1. Arthur Prat-Carrabin
2. Michael Woodford

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important research investigates the precision of numerosity perception in two types of tasks and concludes that human performance aligns with an efficient coding model optimized for current environmental statistics and task goals. The proposed model receives compelling evidence from two numerosity perception experiments and a reanalysis of an existing dataset of risky decision-making. These findings have theoretical implications for our understanding of numerosity perception and decision-making as well as the ongoing debate on different efficient coding models.

Reviewed by eLife

Geomagnetic and visual cues guide seasonal migratory orientation in the nocturnal fall armyworm, the world’s most invasive insect

1. Yi-Bo Ma
2. Gui-Jun Wan
3. Yi Ji
4. Hui Chen
5. Bo-Ya Gao
6. Dai-Hong Yu
7. Eric J Warrant
8. Yan Wu
9. Jason W Chapman
10. Gao Hu

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This fundamental study presents experimental evidence on how geomagnetic and visual cues are integrated in a nocturnally migrating insect. The evidence supporting the conclusions is compelling. The work will be of broad interest to researchers studying animal migration and navigation.

Reviewed by eLife

Scanning and active sampling behaviours emerge from conserved insect neural circuits

1. Cody A Freas
2. Antoine Wystrach

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This modeling study proposes important new insights into the circuit mechanisms underlying navigational control in insects. High-speed video recordings of ants are compared to detailed predictions from a new computational model, whose description is incomplete. If the model is sound, the similarities between the model and behavioral data suggest how complex behavioral motifs can emerge from a simple neural circuit. These results will be of interest to scientists studying the neural circuit basis of behavior, particularly in insects.

Reviewed by eLife

New idtracker.ai: rethinking multi-animal tracking as a representation learning problem to increase accuracy and reduce tracking times

1. Jordi Torrents
2. Tiago Costa
3. Gonzalo G de Polavieja

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study introduces an advance in multi-animal tracking by reframing identity assignment as a self-supervised contrastive representation learning problem. It eliminates the need for segments of video where all animals are simultaneously visible and individually identifiable, and significantly improves tracking speed, accuracy, and robustness with respect to occlusion. This innovation, which is supported through compelling evidence, has implications beyond animal tracking, potentially connecting with advances in behavioral analysis and computer vision.

Reviewed by eLife

Dynamic modulation of social gaze by sex and familiarity in marmoset dyads

1. Feng Xing
2. Alec G Sheffield
3. Monika P Jadi
4. Steve WC Chang
5. Anirvan S Nandy

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study establishes a methodology (machine vision and gaze pose estimation) and behavioral apparatus for examining social interactions between pairs of marmoset monkeys. It has been difficult to study social interactions using artificial stimuli rather than genuine interactions between unrestrained animals. This study makes a fundamental contribution to social neuroscience research in a laboratory setting. Their results are convincing showing that the study of unrestrained social interactions is possible with detailed quantification of position and gaze. The methodology presented here is relevant to research in social neuroscience, neuroethology, and primatology.

Reviewed by eLife

Audiovisual cues must be predictable and win-paired to drive risky choice

1. Brett A Hathaway
2. Dexter R Kim
3. Salwa BA Malhas
4. Kelly M Hrelja
5. Lauren Kerker
6. Tristan J Hynes
7. Celyn Harris
8. Angela J Langdon
9. Catharine A Winstanley

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study provides a nuanced analysis of the impact of cues on cost/benefit decision-making deficits in male rats that could have translational relevance to many addictive disorders. The main findings are that cues paired with rewarded outcomes increase the proportion of risky outcomes, whereas risky choice is reduced when cues are paired with reward loss. The experimental data are compelling, whereas the computational analysis based on the optimisation of different Q-learning models is solid. The findings will be of interest to behavioural neuroscientists and clinicians with an interest in risk, decision making, and gambling disorders.

Reviewed by eLife

Fitness drivers of division of labor in vertebrates

1. Irene García-Ruiz
2. Dustin Rubenstein

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This useful study develops an individual-based model to investigate the evolution of division of labor in vertebrates, comparing the contributions of group augmentation and kin selection. The findings are solid in showing that, within the specific structure of the model and the parameter space explored, group augmentation can robustly favor the evolution of differentiated helper roles, particularly when age-dependent task switching and dominance dynamics are allowed to evolve. However, the evidence only partially supports the authors' broader claim that group augmentation is the primary driver of vertebrate division of labor. Several modelling assumptions, including the limited scope for synergistic task benefits, the restriction of helper effects to group-size-mediated benefits, and the relatively narrow exploration of cost and benefit parameters, constrain the potential for kin selection to generate division of labor and limit the generality of the conclusions.

Reviewed by eLife

Infanticide in a colonial cooperative bird is not associated with direct reproductive benefits

1. Rita Covas
2. Liliana R. Silva
3. André C. Ferreira
4. Pietro B. D’Amelio
5. Rita Fortuna
6. Delphine Duval
7. Matthieu Paquet
8. Claire Doutrelant

Reviewed by Peer Community in Ecology