Animal Behavior and Cognition

A tale of two birds: cognitive simplicity drives collective route improvements in homing pigeons

1. Shoubhik Chandan Banerjee
2. Fritz A Francisco
3. Albert B Kao

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study addresses an important question and shows how social navigation in homing pigeons can be explained by simple averaging, without requiring any complex cognitive abilities. The evidence, based on a rigorous and systematic comparison of seven models and data on how social routes can be generated from solitary routes, is compelling. The authors should be commended for their willingness to critically re-examine established interpretations.

Reviewed by eLife

Machine learning of honey bee olfactory behavior identifies repellent odorants in free flying bees in the field

1. Joel Kowalewski
2. Barbara Baer-Imhoof
3. Tom Guda
4. Matthew Luy
5. Payton DePalma
6. Boris Baer
7. Anandasankar Ray

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important manuscript reports a very interesting view of how pesticides can be toxic to beneficial insects like the honeybee. The study uses machine learning for the discovery of new honeybee-repellent odorants. The solid evidence predicts compounds that were validated in the lab and in the field. This work will be of great interest to researchers in ecology, pest control and sensory biology.

Reviewed by eLife

Separation slang – Laboratory mice use low-frequency call repertoire during physical separation

1. Daniel Breslav
2. Michal Wojcik
3. Ursula Koch
4. Thorsten Becker

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study represents a useful finding on the social modulation of the complex repertoire of vocalizations made across a variety of strains of lab mice. The evidence supporting the claims is, at present, incomplete, as numerous concerns regarding the appropriate categorization of vocalizations, the averaging of data points with disparate levels of occurrence, the interpretation of the function of noisy calls, and a general lack of adequate analyses of experimental data were raised. With these issues addressed, the work will be of importance to scientists studying rodent vocal communication.

Reviewed by eLife

Revisiting the habitat selection of the Eurasian Woodcock in winter: insights from the Mediterranean region

1. Camille Beaumelle
2. Jessica Barbet
3. Aurélie Cuby
4. Marc Chautan
5. Fabrice Etienne
6. Michel Martel
7. Alix Du Roure
8. Remy Chabanne
9. Estelle Lauer
10. Kévin Le Rest

Reviewed by Peer Community In Zoology

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. Guijun Wan
3. Yi Ji
4. Hui Chen
5. Bo-Ya Gao
6. Dai-Hong Yu
7. Eric 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 rethinks multi-animal tracking as a representation learning problem to increase accuracy and reduce tracking time

1. Jordi Torrents
2. Tiago Costa
3. Gonzalo 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