Bonded by nature: humans form equally strong and reciprocated bonds with similar raised dogs and wolves

Introduction: To explore human-canid relationships, we tested similarly socialized and raised dogs (Canis familiaris) and wolves (Canis lupus) and their trainers in a wildlife park. The aims of our study were twofold: first, we aimed to test which factors influenced the relationships that the trainers formed with the dogs or wolves and second, we investigated if the animals reacted to the trainers in accordance with the trainers’ perceptions of their relationship. Methods: To achieve these goals, we assessed the relationships using a human-animal bonds survey, which the trainers used to rate the bonds between themselves and their peers with the canids, and by observing dyadic trainer-canid social interactions. Results: Our preliminary results given the small sample size and the set-up of the research center, demonstrate that our survey was a valid way to measure these bonds since trainers seem to perceive and agree on the strength of their bonds with the animals and that of their fellow trainers. Moreover, the strength of the bond as perceived by the trainers was mainly predicted by whether or not the trainer was a hand-raiser of the specific animal, but not by whether or not the animal was a wolf or a dog. In the interaction test, we found that male animals and animals the trainers felt more bonded to, spent more time in proximity of and in contact with the trainers; there was no difference based on species. Discussion: These results support the hypothesis that wolves, similarly to dogs, can form close relationships with familiar humans when highly socialized (Canine Cooperation Hypothesis). Moreover, as in other studies, dogs showed more submissive behaviors than wolves and did so more with experienced than less experienced trainers. Our study suggests that humans and canines form differentiated bonds with each other that, if close, are independent of whether the animal is a wolf or dog

Do Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) Make Counterproductive Choices Because They Are Sensitive to Human Ostensive Cues?

Dogs appear to be sensitive to human ostensive communicative cues in a variety of situations, however there is still a measure of controversy as to the way in which these cues influence human-dog interactions. There is evidence for instance that dogs can be led into making evaluation errors in a quantity discrimination task, for example losing their preference for a larger food quantity if a human shows a preference for a smaller one, yet there is, so far, no explanation for this phenomenon. Using a modified version of this task, in the current study we investigated whether non-social, social or communicative cues (alone or in combination) cause dogs to go against their preference for the larger food quantity. Results show that dogs' evaluation errors are indeed caused by a social bias, but, somewhat contrary to previous studies, they highlight the potent effect of stimulus enhancement (handling the target) in influencing the dogs' response. A mild influence on the dog's behaviour was found only when different ostensive cues (and no handling of the target) were used in combination, suggesting their cumulative effect. The discussion addresses possible motives for discrepancies with previous studies suggesting that both the intentionality and the directionality of the action may be important in causing dogs' social biases

Ectopic hbox12 Expression Evoked by Histone Deacetylase Inhibition Disrupts Axial Specification of the Sea Urchin Embryo

Dorsal/ventral patterning of the sea urchin embryo depends upon the establishment of a Nodal-expressing ventral organizer. Recently, we showed that spatial positioning of this organizer relies on the dorsal-specific transcription of the Hbox12 repressor. Building on these findings, we determined the influence of the epigenetic milieu on the expression of hbox12 and nodal genes. We find that Trichostatin-A, a potent and selective histone-deacetylases inhibitor, induces histone hyperacetylation in hbox12 chromatin, evoking broad ectopic expression of the gene. Transcription of nodal concomitantly drops, prejudicing dorsal/ventral polarity of the resulting larvae. Remarkably, impairing hbox12 function, either in a spatially-restricted sector or in the whole embryo, specifically rescues nodal transcription in Trichostatin-A-treated larvae. Beyond strengthen the notion that nodal expression is not allowed in the presence of functional Hbox12 in the same cells, these results highlight a critical role of histone deacetylases in regulating the spatial expression of hbox12

Does Presentation Format Influence Visual Size Discrimination in Tufted Capuchin Monkeys (Sapajus spp.)?

Most experimental paradigms to study visual cognition in humans and non-human species are based on discrimination tasks involving the choice between two or more visual stimuli. To this end, different types of stimuli and procedures for stimuli presentation are used, which highlights the necessity to compare data obtained with different methods. The present study assessed whether, and to what extent, capuchin monkeys\u27 ability to solve a size discrimination problem is influenced by the type of procedure used to present the problem. Capuchins\u27 ability to generalise knowledge across different tasks was also evaluated. We trained eight adult tufted capuchin monkeys to select the larger of two stimuli of the same shape and different sizes by using pairs of food items (Experiment 1), computer images (Experiment 1) and objects (Experiment 2). Our results indicated that monkeys achieved the learning criterion faster with food stimuli compared to both images and objects. They also required consistently fewer trials with objects than with images. Moreover, female capuchins had higher levels of acquisition accuracy with food stimuli than with images. Finally, capuchins did not immediately transfer the solution of the problem acquired in one task condition to the other conditions. Overall, these findings suggest that - even in relatively simple visual discrimination problems where a single perceptual dimension (i.e., size) has to be judged - learning speed strongly depends on the mode of presentation

ALLEVAMENTO DI BESTIAME BOVINO IN ITALIA

The research reported in this paper was partly funded by project grants PSI2011-29016-C02-01, PSI2014-51890-C2-1-P (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Spain) http://www.mineco.gob.es/ and UCM-BSCH GR3/14-940813 (Universidad Complutense de Madrid y Banco Santander Central Hispano) to F. C. A post-doctoral scholarship from Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico / FONDECYT Nº 3140580 awarded to J.ZA. funded his salary. http://www.conicyt.cl/fondecyt. European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) / ERC grant SOMICS agreement n° 609819. Dr. Josep Call.Cetaceans are remarkable for exhibiting group-specific behavioral traditions or cultures in several behavioral domains (e.g., calls, behavioral tactics), and the question of whether they can be acquired socially, for example through imitative processes, remains open. Here we used a “Do as other does” paradigm to experimentally study the ability of a beluga to imitate familiar intransitive (body-oriented) actions demonstrated by a conspecific. The participant was first trained to copy three familiar behaviors on command (training phase) and then was tested for her ability to generalize the learned “Do as the other does” command to a different set of three familiar behaviors (testing phase). We found that the beluga (1) was capable of learning the copy command signal “Do what-the-other-does”; (2) exhibited high matching accuracy for trained behaviors (mean = 84% of correct performance) after making the first successful copy on command; (3) copied successfully the new set of three familiar generalization behaviors that were untrained to the copy command (range of first copy = 12 to 35 trials); and (4) deployed a high level of matching accuracy (mean = 83%) after making the first copy of an untrained behavior on command. This is the first evidence of contextual imitation of intransitive (body-oriented) movements in the beluga and adds to the reported findings on production imitation of sounds in this species and production imitation of sounds and motor actions in several cetaceans, especially dolphins and killer whales. Collectively these findings highlight the notion that cetaceans have a natural propensity at skillfully and proficiently matching the sounds and body movements demonstrated by conspecifics, a fitness-enhancing propensity in the context of cooperative hunting and anti-predatory defense tactics, and of alliance formation strategies that have been documented in these species’ natural habitats. Future work should determine if the beluga can also imitate novel motor actions.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe