Animal Behavior and Cognition

Learning is a fundamental source of individuality

1. Riddha Manna
2. Johanni Brea
3. Gonçalo Vasconcelos Braga
4. Alireza Modirshanechi
5. Ivan Tomić
6. Ana Marija Jakšić

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This is a fundamental study of individual variation and the contribution of learning to behavioural individuality. The experimental design of massively parallel behavioural phenotypes is outstanding and the conclusions are supported by a compelling and rigorous analysis across a large number of experiments in thousands of individuals across genotypes and conditions. The dataset further represents an advance in studying visual associative learning thanks to the ability to make longitudinal measurements of many behavioural decisions within the same animals. These results are a major contribution to the understanding of the sources of behavioural individuality.

Reviewed by eLife

Specific Sensitivity to Rare and Extreme Events: Quasi-Complete Black Swan Avoidance vs Partial Jackpot Seeking in Rat Decision-Making

1. Mickaël Degoulet
2. Louis-Matis Willem
3. Christelle Baunez
4. Stéphane Luchini
5. Patrick A Pintus

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study represents an important contribution to the study of decision-making under risk, bringing an interdisciplinary approach spanning economic theory, behavioral neuroscience, and computational modeling to test how choice preference is influenced by rare and extreme events. The authors aim to test whether rats are indeed sensitive to these rare and extreme events despite their infrequent occurrence, and to isolate behavioral evidence for avoidance of "Black Swans" - rare and extreme losses. The evidence for specific sensitivity to rare and extreme events however remains incomplete, owing in part to the difficulty of isolating the effect of these events beyond that arising from risk preferences more generally in both task design and in the computational modeling of the choice behavior. Despite this, and given the approach here brings a relatively novel and highly interdisciplinary perspective, this paper will be of broad interest to those seeking to understand animal behavior through the lens of economic choice and decision theory.

Reviewed by eLife

Do monkeys see the way we do? Qualitative similarities and differences between monkey and human perception

1. Thomas Cherian
2. Georgin Jacob
3. SP Arun

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study presents a comprehensive comparison of human and macaque monkey behavior across a range of visual perceptual phenomena. The use of a unified oddball visual search paradigm enables direct cross-species comparison while minimizing task-related confounds. It provides solid evidence that visual perception is largely similar between these two species, with some interesting exceptions. These insights into qualitative and quantitative differences between species are relevant for evaluating macaques as a model organism for understanding human vision.

Reviewed by eLife

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. Rémy 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 DB
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