New paper of what we learnt from #AnimBehav2023
◾ Online conferences remain key to improving accessibility and inclusivity of academic meetings
◾ Twitter is no longer the best platform for this
◾ We provide some recommendations for future conferences
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Timeline of conference organisation and Twitter take over (there's a lot of overlap)
4/5 Although there was still enthusiasm for online conferences, our biggest challenge was Twitter/X.
We started organising #AnimBehav2023 before Musk took over, and the resulting changes impacted the suitability of X as a conference platform
Average number of engagements on a conference Twitter post. Views 85, Likes 75, Retweets 46, Comments and questions 31, Shared 22, Used 4
3/5 However, #AnimBehav2023 saw a drop in tweets and a decrease in reach compared to #AnimBehav2021
Despite fewer interactions, the impact of presenting on Twitter allowed for much more engagement than seen at some in-person conferences #AcademicTwitter
#AnimBehav2023 in numbers: 2 days, 4 plenaries, 100 Twitter talks, Multiple Time zones
1/5 In 2023 we hosted the second Global Animal Behaviour Twitter conference #AnimBehav2023
We were curious if there was still an appetite for online conferences when in-person conferences were returning.
However, we also had to contend with a changing social media landscape.
Last week was the Animal Behavior Society's Twitter Conference #AnimBehav2023. I'm proud of the 6 presentations from our team on behaviour of sparrows, wrens, and toads.
I wanted to highlight our six presentations for anyone who missed them. All are still available online! 🧵
Our Yellow Toad research is a team effort, led by @steph_doucet and myself with our amazing students: @NicolasTalks @KatrinaMGardner & @NShangi. We thank @ACGuanacaste @NSERC_CRSNG and @uwindsor for support.
Thanks for joining my #AnimBehav2023 presentation! End of 🧵
In conclusion, our research demonstrates:
1. Yellow toads exhibit dynamic sexual dichromatism.
2. Yellow colour is used as a signal of sex.
3. Male colour varies with blood parasites.
4. Variation in yellow colour doesn’t appear to influence female choice.
🧵6/6 #AnimBehav2023
Using 3-D printed #RoboToads, we compared female reactions to bright-yellow vs dull-yellow males in triangular arenas. We found no evidence for female preference for brighter-yellow males.
Key paper: https://bit.ly/3GQCwrt
🧵5/6 #AnimBehav2023
We found diverse blood parasites in male Incilius luetkenii toads. Male colour varied with parasitism. For example, males with fewer Apicomplexa and Nematoda parasites had higher yellow saturation.
Key paper: https://bit.ly/3Wlbs9F
🧵4/6 #AnimBehav2023
We presented yellow and brown clay models to toads at their breeding pond. We found that males amplex with brown models, but avoid amplexus with yellow models. Therefore colour allows males to differentiate between sexes.
Key paper: https://bit.ly/3ZKjwn4
🧵3/6 #AnimBehav2023
Yellow Toads exhibit DYNAMIC SEXUAL DICHROMATISM: they are dichromatic only on mating day. We measured colour with reflectance spectrometry and found both dynamic dichromatism and substantial variation in male yellowness.
Key paper: https://bit.ly/3HbhANb
🧵2/6 #AnimBehav2023
Mr. Frog went a courtin’: Colour, male-male competition, female choice, & parasites in Yellow Toads.
Yellow Toads (Incilius luetkenii) change from brown to yellow for one day of mating. 🐸 What do they accomplish with their colourful courtship signals?
🧵1/6 #AnimBehav2023
6/6 This pilot study offers exciting perspectives on the use of robots as automat to autonomously record data using artificial intelligence in the field. Future research is planned to test whether monkeys can learn from a robot #AnimBehav2023
5/6 Our study monkeys got habituated to the robot presence very quickly. This might be due to the robot being a food provider, monkeys’ behavioural flexibility and good level of habituation to humans and field experiments #AnimBehav2023
4/6 More individuals came within 10m to the robot, and we found no significant effect of rank, age or sex on time spent at that proximity. High rankers displayed more threat and stress related behaviours compared to low rankers #AnimBehav2023
3/6 Who got in close proximity to the robot? Only 5-7/37 individuals approached so close the robot. High rankers significantly spent more time within 1m of the robot with no significant effect of age or sex. Apart an adult male, they were all from the same family #AnimBehav2023
2/6 This remotely controlled robot had one box filled with food on its back. We introduced it gradually: it was first laying down with food in the box and on the ground and then quadrupedal, slightly moving its body and its head with food only inside the box #AnimBehav2023
1/6 Robots are more and more socially accepted by human societies, but what about animal-robot interactions? Can a robot be tolerated by wild animals? We introduced an ANYmal robot to a group of 37 wild vervet monkeys in South Africa over 6 days for about 10h #AnimBehav2023
Our experimental design:
We used 3 pairs of loudspeakers to simulate 3 additional pairs of wrens, increasing the apparent density of conspecifics. We compared the behaviour of territorial males and females before and after the density manipulation experiment
#AnimBehav2023 /5
In addition to our literature review, we conducted a playback experiment. We manipulated density to test the effects of changes in the number of neighbours, studying Rufous-and-white Wrens @ACGuanacaste in the tropical dry forest of Costa Rica.
#AnimBehav2023 /4
Our literature review reveals that little is known about the effects of density on songbirds vocal behaviour. We also found that existing studies are biased towards the vocal behaviour of males in temperate regions.
#AnimBehav2023 /3
We conducted a systematic review of the literature on the effects of density on bird song. We found a limited number of papers on this topic.
#AnimBehav2023 /2
