News by Subject Social & Behavior

Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and Friedrich Schiller University in Jena have found that dogs adapt their communicative strategies to their environment and that owner behavior influences communicative effort and success. Experimental results found no evidence that dogs rely on communication history or follow the principle of least effort and suggest that owner behavior has a bigger impact on canine communication than previously thought.

How old is your tail-wagging bundle of joy in human years? According to the well-known "rule of paw," one dog year is the equivalent of 7 years. Now, in a study published July 2, in the journal Cell Systems, scientists say it's wrong. Dogs are much older than we think, and researchers devised a more accurate formula to calculate a dog's age based on the chemical changes in the DNA as organisms grow old.

While scientists are trying to find a vaccine for COVID-19, the rabies virus continues to kill 59,000 people every year. But unlike COVID, a vaccine has existed for more than a century. Vaccinating dogs can stop the spread to humans, but systemic challenges make that easier said that done. In a new study, scientists where grassroots campaigns to stop rabies work-- and where they need to be coupled with large-scale efforts.

This week, scientists of the Institute of Bee Health of the University of Bern have published an article in the peer-reviewed journal Communications Biology, which shows how even low doses of neonicotinoid insecticides, as they may realistically occur in contaminated soils, adversely affect the development of black garden ants (Lasius niger). This study highlights the need to overthink current deployment and management of chemical pest control for more sustainable agriculture.

In a new mathematical model that bridges animal movement and disease spread, territorial behaviors decreased the severity of potential disease outbreaks -- but at the cost of increased disease persistence. Lauren White of the University of Maryland's National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, Annapolis, MD, and colleagues present these findings in PLOS Computational Biology.