Hollow-dwelling passerine birds were tested for UV surface colour discrimination by using the instinct to bring food to nestlings that makes a bird search for the nest under changing conditions. The experiments were carried out on breeding pairs of pied flycatcher (Muscicapa hypoleuca), great tit (Parus major) and tree sparrow (Passer montanus) in the wild by the method of alternative choice of...

The authors measured plasma carotenoid levels in three insectivorous bird species, the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca), the blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus), and the great tit (Parus major) in metal-polluted and unpolluted sites around a copper smelter. Their aim was to determine whether there was interspecific, age-related, or yearly variation in carotenoid levels and their responses to the...

Some parasite cuckoo species lay eggs that, to the human eye, appear to mimic the appearance of the eggs of their favourite hosts, which hinders discrimination and removal of their eggs by host species. Hitherto, perception of cuckoo-host egg mimicry has been estimated based on human vision or spectrophotometry, which does not account for what the receivers' eye (i.e. hosts) actually discrimina...

There is no way to predict whether the price of stocks and bonds will go up or down over the next few days or weeks. But it is quite possible to foresee the broad course of the prices of these assets over longer time periods, such as, the next three to five years. These findings, which may seem both surprising and contradictory, were made and analyzed by this year’s Laureates, Eugene Fama, Lars...

Group size in an imperative factor in determining an individual’s behavioural actions and applies to all organisms in the animal kingdom. Different group sizes come with varying benefits and threats forcing the animal to accept them or find a group size that suits its needs. Behaviours, such as, standing, walking, sleeping and foraging are a part of shorebirds’ daily routine, yet the frequencie...

SOPHIE VÉRAN*, OLIVIER GIMENEZ*†, ELIZABETH FLINT‡, WILLIAM L. KENDALL§, PAUL F. DOHERTY JR¶ and JEAN-DOMINIQUE LEBRETON* * CEFE, UMR 5175, CNRS, 1919 route de Mende, 34293 Montpellier cedex 5, France; † University of St Andrews, The Observatory, Buchanan Gardens, St Andrews, Fife, Scotland, KY16 9LZ, UK; ‡ US Fish and Wildlife Service, Hawaiian and Pacific Islands NWR Complex, PO Box 50167, Ho...

Three studies using exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses provided consistent evidence for a three-factor model of the social dominance orientation (SDO) in Mainland China. Support for exclusionism, which was not found in previous research, emerged as an independent SDO factor (Studies 1, 2, and 3). In Study 2, this factor predicted SDO difference between a high status group (managers) a...

Measurement invariance of the Behavioural Regulation in Sport Questionnaire when completed by young athletes across five European countries Carme Viladrich, Paul R. Appleton, Eleanor Quested, Joan L. Duda, Saül Alcaraz, Jean-Philippe Heuzé, Priscila Fabra, Oddrun Samdal, Yngvar Ommundsen, Andrew P. Hill, Nikos Zourbanos & Nikos Ntoumanis a Department of Psychobiology and Methodology in Health S...

To investigate if the characteristics of human intestinal Escherichia coli are changing with the environment of the host, we studied intestinal E. coli from subjects having recently migrated from a temperate to a tropical area. We determined the phylogenetic group, the prevalence of the antibiotic resistance, the presence of integrons and the strain diversity in faecal isolates from 25 subjects...

This article examines the theoretical debates that have arisen from the development and subsequent implementation of same-sex partnership legislation in France in 1999. The significance of these debates extends far beyond the specific legislation that triggered them and can be understood as contributing to a far broader analysis of the relevance of traditional French republican ideologies to th...