Oded Berger-Tal

The exploration-exploitation dilemma: a multidisciplinary framework.

The trade-off between the need to obtain new knowledge and the need to use that knowledge to improve performance is one of the most basic trade-offs in nature, and optimal performance usually requires some balance between exploratory and exploitative behaviors. Researchers in many disciplines have been searching for the optimal solution to this dilemma. Here we present a novel model in which the exploration strategy itself is dynamic and varies with time in order to optimize a definite goal, such as the acquisition of energy, money, or prestige. Our model produced four very distinct phases: Knowledge establishment, Knowledge accumulation, Knowledge maintenance, and Knowledge exploitation, giving rise to a multidisciplinary framework that applies equally to humans, animals, and organizations. The framework can be used to explain a multitude of phenomena in various disciplines, such as the movement of animals in novel landscapes, the most efficient resource allocation for a start-up company, or the effects of old age on knowledge acquisition in humans.

Research Priorities from Animal Behaviour for Maximising Conservation Progress

Poor communication between academic researchers and wildlife managers limits conservation progress and innovation. As a result, input from overlapping fields, such as animal behaviour, is underused in conservation management despite its demonstrated utility as a conservation tool and countless papers advocating its use. Communication and collaboration across these two disciplines are unlikely to improve without clearly identified management needs and demonstrable impacts of behavioural-based conservation management. To facilitate this process, a team of wildlife managers and animal behaviour researchers conducted a research prioritisation exercise, identifying 50 key questions that have great potential to resolve critical conservation and management problems. The resulting agenda highlights the diversity and extent of advances that both fields could achieve through collaboration.

State of emergency: Behavior of gerbils is affected by the hunger state of their predators

Predator-prey interactions are usually composed of behaviorally sophisticated games in which the values of the strategies of foraging prey individuals may depend on those of their predators, and vice versa. Therefore, any change in the behavior of the predator should result in changes to the behavior of the prey. However, this key prediction has rarely been tested. To examine the effects of the predator state on prey behavior, we manipulated the state of captive Barn Owls, Tyto alba, and released them into an enclosure containing Allenbys gerbils, Gerbillus andersoni allenbyi, a common prey of the owls. The owls were significantly more active when hungry. In response, the gerbils altered their behavior according to the state of the owl. When the owl was hungry, the gerbils visited fewer food patches, foraged in fewer patches, and harvested less food from each patch. Moreover, the gerbils kept their foraging bouts closer to their burrow, which reduced the overlap among foraging ranges of individual gerbils. Thus, changes in the state of the predator affect the foraging behavior of its prey and can also mediate competition among prey individuals.

Learning and conservation behavior: an introduction and overview

Learning is a key aspect of behavior that may greatly enhance the survival and fecundity of animals, especially in a changing environment. Wildlife conservation problems often involve increasing the population of threatened or endangered species, decreasing the population of species deemed over abundant or encouraging animals to move to or from certain areas. Learning is an example of reversible plasticity (for review see Dukas 2009), which typically remains open to change throughout life. Old associations can be replaced, relearned and reinstated, facilitating behavioral modifications across an individual’s lifetime. Because learning is potentially demographically important, and because it can be used to modify individual’s behavior, it may therefore be an important tool for conservation behaviorists (Blumstein & Fernández-Juricic 2010). Our aim in this chapter is to introduce the fundamentals of learning that will later be developed and applied in subsequent chapters. Animal learning theory defines learning as experience that elicits a change in behavior (Rescorla 1988, Heyes 1994). There are three basic mechanisms, or types of experiences, that underlie animal learning. The simplest learning process is non-associative because it involves an individual’s experience with a single stimulus. During this process, exposure to the single stimulus results in a change in themagnitude of response upon subsequent exposures to that stimulus. If the response increases, the process is called sensitization; if the response decreases, the process is called habituation. More complex associative learning mechanisms involve a change in behavior as a result of experience with two stimuli through Pavlovian conditioning (also referred to as classical conditioning),

Using machine learning to disentangle homonyms in large text corpora

Systematic reviews are an increasingly popular decision-making tool that provides an unbiased summary of evidence to support conservation action. These reviews bridge the gap between researchers and managers by presenting a comprehensive overview of all studies relating to a particular topic and identify specifically where and under which conditions an effect is present. However, several technical challenges can severely hinder the feasibility and applicability of systematic reviews, for example, homonyms (terms that share spelling but differ in meaning). Homonyms add noise to search results and cannot be easily identified or removed. We developed a semiautomated approach that can aid in the classification of homonyms among narratives. We used a combination of automated content analysis and artificial neural networks to quickly and accurately sift through large corpora of academic texts and classify them to distinct topics. As an example, we explored the use of the word reintroduction in academic texts. Reintroduction is used within the conservation context to indicate the release of organisms to their former native habitat; however, a Web of Science search for this word returned thousands of publications in which the term has other meanings and contexts. Using our method, we automatically classified a sample of 3000 of these publications with over 99% accuracy, relative to a manual classification. Our approach can be used easily with other homonyms and can greatly facilitate systematic reviews or similar work in which homonyms hinder the harnessing of large text corpora. Beyond homonyms we see great promise in combining automated content analysis and machine-learning methods to handle and screen big data for relevant information in conservation science.

The role of animal sensory perception in behavior-based management

At the core of the conservation behavior framework is behavior-based management, which takes into consideration animal behavior in making conservation decisions (Chapter 1). Often, behavior-based management requires manipulation of the behavior of a species in order to accomplish specific conservation or management goals (Sutherland 1998) or avoiding actions producing stimuli that may elicit unwanted behavioral responses. Manipulating behavior may involve repelling an invasive nest parasite from a breeding site, attracting a species to a restored habitat, or sensitizing newly re-introduced individuals to predators. Obviously, the specific means of manipulating behavior will be a function of the biology of the species. One strategy to modify the behavior of animals is to develop stimuli (visual, auditory, olfactory, etc.) intended to grab their attention and generate a specific type of response. For instance, songs of conspecifics have been used successfully to attract individuals of the endangered Cape Sable seaside sparrow (Ammodramus maritimus mirabilis) to suitable breeding areas in the Florida Everglades (Virzi et al. 2012). But, some situations can bemore challenging. For example, in trying to cause aversive responses in rabbits close to agricultural fields, Wilson andMcKillop (1986) tested the effectiveness of a commercially available scaring device that would broadcast sounds at high frequencies (9–15 kHz). They found that the device effect was limited to only 3 m and only while it was playing back the sounds, but most importantly animals habituated after just a few days. Despite the different characteristics of the acoustic stimuli and the different taxa, these opposite results suggest that some species may perceive our stimuli, but that perception alone does not guarantee a response. Is there any strategy

Behavior-based contributions to reserve design and management

INTRODUCTION All students of conservation are familiar with the quintessential model of a reserve network, in which a hostile, human-dominated matrix limits the occurrence of natural habitat and vulnerable species to scattered protected areas connected by corridors of intermediate suitability (e.g. Diamond 1975, Soule & Terborgh 1999, Bennett 2003). This conceptual model also identifies anthropogenic features, such as roads, that may create such significant barriers to animal movement that they require mitigation (reviewed by Forman et al. 2006). The resulting construct for conservation planning tends to categorize types of space as core areas, corridors, matrix and barriers while underestimating the myriad non-spatial features of both species and landscapes that exist along inconvenient and intersecting continua. Behavior is one of these factors and it contributes much to the fate of imperiled populations, but its effects have not been much synthesized in the contexts of reserve design and conservation management. Before delving into the role of behavior in reserve design, it is worth pausing to consider some of the reasons for the traditional emphasis on spatial characteristics. First, binary and spatial constructs are readily visualized by people to facilitate common and explicit goals, such as the creation of national parks and other kinds of protected areas. Second, spatial features of reserve design are supported by foundational and extensive ecological theory, much of which emanated from Island Biogeography (MacArthur & Wilson 1967, reviewed by Lomolino & Brown 2009), to provide support for conservation predictions, management actions and enduring academic interest. A third reason that spatial attributes lead so much of reserve design is that space influences most of the physical experiences of organisms and defines most anthropogenic threats to biodiversity (Chapter 1) across a vast range of scales. Despite the good reasons to emphasize space in reserve design, we contend that space alone does not define the experience of any individual or directly imperil populations. Space is more like a canvas on which those experiences play out. Protecting the habitat contained in space is essential to most conservation action, but that action alone cannot ensure the survival of individuals, populations, species or ecosystems. Moreover, spatial attributes are difficult to generalize as both problems and solutions in conservation (Newmark 1996, Gascon et al . 2000), which limits their proactive use in ways that could best advance conservation goals (Caughley 1994).

National conservation science conferences as a means of bridging conservation science and practice: Conservation Conferences

Scientific meetings are instrumental in driving most scientific fields forward, but are especially important for multidisciplinary fields such as conservation science where the different participants come from a highly diverse array of fields and organizations. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Systematic reviews and maps as tools for applying behavioral ecology to management and policy

&NA; Although examples of successful applications of behavioral ecology research to policy and management exist, knowledge generated from such research is in many cases under‐utilized by managers and policy makers. On their own, empirical studies and traditional reviews do not offer the robust syntheses that managers and policy makers require to make evidence‐based decisions and evidence‐informed policy. Similar to the evidence‐based revolution in medicine, the application of formal systematic review processes has the potential to invigorate the field of behavioral ecology and accelerate the uptake of behavioral evidence in policy and management. Systematic reviews differ from traditional reviews and meta‐analyses in that their methods are peer reviewed and prepublished for maximum transparency, the evidence base is widened to cover work published outside of academic journals, and review findings are formally communicated with stakeholders. This approach can be valuable even when the systematic literature search fails to yield sufficient evidence for a full review or meta‐analysis; preparing systematic maps of the existing evidence can highlight deficiencies in the evidence base, thereby directing future research efforts. To standardize the use of systematic evidence syntheses in the field of environmental science, the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence (CEE) created a workflow process to certify the comprehensiveness and repeatability of systematic reviews and maps, and to maximize their objectivity. We argue that the application of CEE guidelines to reviews of applied behavioral interventions will make robust behavioral evidence easily accessible to managers and policy makers to support their decision‐making, as well as improve the quality of basic research in behavioral ecology.

Introduction: the whys and the hows of conservation behavior

Our planet is changing at a startling pace. The rate of species extinction is alarmingly high (Barnosky et al. 2011) and unique ecosystems such as coral reefs and tropical forests are rapidly diminishing and disappearing. It is very clear that the only way to prevent, or at least slow down, this mass extinction, is by direct action. The science of conservation biology stands before the ongoing environmental crisis, offering some hope that through the implementation of our accumulating interdisciplinary scientific knowledge we can prevent, and even reverse, the decline of the diversity of life on Earth. The behavior of an organism is, in a sense, the mediator between the organism and its environment and provides flexibility so the organisms can maintain a adequate fitness over a wider range of environmental conditions. This, of course, has limits, and under extreme changes the organisms behavior will fail to provide a sufficient buffer from the changing environment. Knowledge of a species’ behavioral attributes provides, therefore, important insights into how anthropogenic actions (direct or indirect) will impact the species, and what actions can be taken to minimize this impact. In this chapter we will start by giving a brief general overview of conservation biologys interdisciplinary foundations. Many excellent volumes have been dedicated to this field (e.g. Groom et al . 2006, Primack 2006, Hunter & Gibbs 2007), and they give a far more comprehensive picture of the history, practice and many challenges of conservation biology. However, we hope we provide enough background in the first part of this chapter to make our readers better understand the goals of conservation, and to have these goals stay in their minds, as they continue reading about the more specific aspects of using behavior in conservation. Before considering the role of behavior in conservation, we will first consider the roots of behavioral ecology, and then discuss the short history of conservation behavior – a field dedicated to the use of the knowledge of animal behavior in conservation biology. To conclude this introductory chapter, we will outline the principles of the conservation behavior framework that serves as the basis for the structure of this book. Conservation biology has three objectives: (1) Documenting the extant biological diversity on Earth. (2) Locating, defining and investigating anthropogenic threats to biodiversity. (3) Developing and implementing practical approaches to reducing or eliminating these threats (Groom et al. 2006, Primack 2006).