Animal personality is a fairly new branch of biology and has been defined as a difference in behaviour between individuals that is relatively consistent across time and/or context. What researchers now are interested in is to find out what it is that creates and maintains this relatively consistent difference between individuals. One possibility is the stress hormone, corticosterone. I have in this report summed up some of the available studies regarding animal personality and its possible correlation to corticosterone. The personality traits that have been reviewed in this report are boldness, exploration, activity, aggressiveness and sociability. The result of these studies show that boldness have both a negative and a positive correlation; exploration showed different correlations between studies; aggressiveness showed different correlation between different animal types and sociability showed both a negative and none correlations. The only one that I could not determent the correlation for was activity. The research regarding animal personality and corticosterone can be of use when looking at animal welfare and how stress affects different individuals. This can give us a direction in our work to reduce stress for animals in research facilities and food production.

Syftet med denna litteraturstudie var att skapa en sammanhängande bild över djurbeteendets grund och ram. I arbetet analyserades faktorer som påverkar djurbeteendet på grundläggande nivå bl.a. gener, tidiga erfarenheter, hormonnivåer och personlighetstyper. Utöver det skapades en tydlig kategorisering av djurbeteendet med indelning i det medfödda, det inlärda och prägling. Inom de inlärda beteendena identifierades även underklasser där urskildes bl.a. associativ, icke-associativ och social inlärning. Slutligen, för att göra ämnet mer begripligt och belysa den gråa zonen i vilken prägling befinner sig, skapades jämförelse mellan prägling och klassisk betingning hos kycklingar. I det avsnittet analyserades alla överlappningar mellan dessa två kategorier av beteende och alla inkonsekvenser som finns i idéen att kategorisera prägling som en typ av associativ inlärning. Denna studie hade även ett didaktiskt syfte att kartlägga faktorer som bidrar till effektivisering av etologiundervisning i den svenska gymnasieskolan. I analysen identifierades först generella riktlinjer för effektiv undervisning, sedan analyserades strategier och faktorer som effektiviserar biologiundervisning och slutligen konkretiserades metodik för effektiv etologiundervisning. Resultaten tyder på att effektiv undervisning grundas i goda relationer mellan lärare och elever, variation i undervisningsmetoder samt lärarens kompetens i undervisningsanpassningar. I biologiundervisning är bland de viktigaste faktorerna att stimulera elevernas deltagande, skapa begripligt undervisningsinnehåll samt variera undervisningsmiljö. Strategier för framgångsrik etologiundervisning preciserar vikten av bl.a. etologiska studier, undervisningsinnehåll som berör aktuella problem och praktiska övningar där modern teknik används.

Play is a behavior mainly observed in young individuals that can differ greatly between species in both function and appearance. Presence of play indicates positive experiences in animals, making play a useful assessment tool for animal welfare. Commercial hatcheries expose chicks to several stressors that can affect both behavior and welfare. Unfortunately, our understanding of play behavior in chickens is still limited as only a few studies have been conducted.Therefore, the aim of this study was to describe the ontogeny of various play behaviors in modern laying hens and to investigate how stress affects play behavior in chicks. A total of 80 chicks were used whereas 40 were hatched at a hatchery and 40 were hatched under controlled conditions. The chicks were tested in groups of four in enriched test arenas twice a week during five weeks. Each test lasted 30 minutes and novel objects were placed inside the arena after 10 and 20 minutes. Behaviors were noted while analyzing videos from the experiment using one–zero sampling and later divided into the categories of solitary, social, and total play. A linear mixed model with repeated measures was used to investigate how treatment, age, and the interaction treatment*age affect play behavior. Chicks played more during certain ages and all forms of play showed a similar change with age over both treatments. The amount of play did not differ significantly between treatments but there was a numerical (non-significant) tendency for hatchery chicks to play more, which may indicate compensatory play.

One important part of the management of zoo populations is the exchange of animals. The removal of an individual can have unknown effects on the social dynamics of the group. Social network studies are a well-established method to describe the social interactions within a group. This study aims to describe the social interactions in a group of chimpanzees and to test how social dominance rank predicts social interaction patters using a social network approach. Data was collected via observations on Kolmarden Wildlife Parks chimpanzee group, which is composed of seven males and eleven females. A total of 50 h of data was collected over 16 days. This resulted in a dominance rank and four different social networks for different behaviors (touch proximity, proximity, affiliative and agonistic behavior). The eigenvector coefficient, with the notable exception of the proximity network, was rarely correlated with the dominance rank and the highest ranked individual was never the most central. The more dominate individuals had fewer links to others through proximity and affiliative interactions. My analysis of the social network structure provides some evidence that the removal of high-ranking individuals would be unlikely to disproportionally affect the structure of the social network in this group. I highlight the possibility of further analysis such as knock-out analysis (where you examine the consequences of the removal of specific individuals) on existing data and argue that more observations would help to draw up a well-structured plan for translocations of individuals in this group. / En viktig del i förvaltningen av djurparkspopulationer är utbytet av djur. Att flytta en individ från en grupp kan ha okända effekter på gruppens sociala dynamik. Studier av djurs sociala nätverk är en väletablerad metod för att beskriva sociala interaktioner inom en grupp av djur. Syftet med denna studie är att beskriva de sociala interaktionerna i en grupp av schimpanser och testa huruvida en ranking av dominans förutspår mönster i dessa sociala interaktioner genom att tillämpa ’social network analysis’ metoden. Observationsdata samlades in på Kolmårdens djurparks schimpansgrupp, som består av sju hanar och elva honor. Totalt samlades 50 timmar av data under 16 dagar. Detta resulterade i en dominansrankning och fyra olika nätverk för olika typer av sociala interaktioner (närhet med beröring, närhet, affiliativa och agnostiska beteenden). Egienvector koefficienten, med det anmärkningsvärda undantaget för närhets nätverket, var sällan korrelerat med dominansrankningen och den högst rankade individen var aldrig mest central. Mer dominanta individer hade färre länkar till andra genom närhet med beröring och affiliativa interaktioner. Mina analyser av de sociala nätverkens struktur ger vissa bevis för att borttagandet av högt rankade individer inte skulle ge oproportionerliga effekter på den sociala strukturen i denna grupp. Jag uppmärksammar också möjligheterna att med mer analyser som t.ex. knock-out analyser (där man undersöker konsekvensen av att ta bort individer från olika nätverk) på befintlig data, samt mer observationer skulle hjälpa för att kunna göra en väl strukturerad plan för flytt av individer från denna grupp.

The evolutionary origins of human handedness are not yet fully understood as evidence of lateralized behavior in nonhuman primates is inconclusive. In the present study, lateralized behavior in both spontaneously occurring motor patterns and a tube task was examined in 15 white-handed gibbons (Hylobates lar). Significant side preferences at the individual level were found within all 15 studied motor patterns. However, no population-level side bias was found for any of the spontaneously occurring or task-related motor patterns and none of the gibbons were consistent in their hand preference across all motor patterns. When only considering the individuals with a significant preference, a significant majority was left-preferent for resting foot. Strength of side preference was significantly higher for the tube task than for all spontaneously occurring motor patterns. Side preferences for manipulation and resting position were significantly stronger than those for supporting hand. Additionally, the preferences for manipulation were significantly stronger than those for leading limb. In the bimanual tube task, females displayed a tendency towards a left-side bias, while males tended to display a bias to the right. Furthermore, females had a significantly stronger hand preference for supporting hand than males. No other sex differences were found. Age, posture, and kinship had no significant effect on lateralized behavior for any of the motor patterns. As in other nonhuman primates, the white-handed gibbons were only consistent in their hand preference across tasks that required similar movements. Altogether, these findings support the notion that population-level handedness may be restricted to human subjects.

Individuals in social species commonly form dominance relationships among each other, and are often observed to differ in behaviour depending on their social status. However, whether such behavioural differences are a consequence of dominance position, or also a cause to it, remains unclear. In this thesis I therefore investigated two perspectives of the relationship between social dominance and personality in the domestic fowl (Gallus gallus domesticus), a social species that forms relatively stable dominance hierarchies. In paper I I investigated the influence of social status on the expression and consistency of behaviours by experimentally changing status between repeated personality assays. The level of vigilance, activity and exploration changed with social status, while boldness and territorial crows appeared as stable individual properties, independent of status. These results showed that social status contribute to both variation and consistency in behavioural responses. Social status should therefore be taken into account when investigating and interpreting variation in personality. In paper II I showed that behaviour in a novel arena test and during encounter with an opponent can predict social status, more specifically that fast exploration and aggressiveness predicted a dominant social position. Together, these results highlight the dynamics of the two-way relationship between social position and individual behaviour and indicate that individual behaviour can both be a cause and a consequence of social status.

Many dogs suffer from separation anxiety and become excessively stressed when their owner is absent. Since many dogs are left home alone daily, their welfare is at stake. Attention bias tests (ABTs) have previously been used as a way to measure welfare in other non-human animals. The aim of this study was to investigate attention bias in dogs with separation anxiety and dogs without separation anxiety in situations of different short-term emotional states. Three ABTs were performed to assess this, the first one was baseline and included no treatment (neutral) prior to the ABT. The second one was play which had a play treatment (positive) before the ABT, where the dog played with their owner for 2.5 min. The third one was isolation which had an isolation treatment (negative) prior to the ABT, where the dog was alone for 2.5 min. The owner was only present during the ABT in baseline and play. The results showed that separation anxiety only had an effect on barking during isolation, where dogs with separation anxiety barked more. Dogs performed more behaviours related to the owner being absent during isolation: more vocalisation, more looking at the door, being closer to the door (zone five), and being less in the area where the owner stood during baseline and play (zone six), compared to both baseline and play. To my knowledge, the usage of ABTs to measure welfare in dogs are few, and this study revealed that separation anxiety does not affect attention bias.

Bird song can teach us much about animal behaviour and evolution. This study presents a type of song variation that has yet to be extensively studied. The Monotonous Lark Mirafra passerina is a nomadic lark with an iconic, simple and repetitive song. It has been noted to have a large song variation between irruptions, but limited variation in the same irruption, a behaviour previously, to my knowledge, unknown in the avian world. This study aims to describe the song and analyse the variation within and between irruptions, and try to explain the underlying mechanisms behind the variation. This article studies the song by analysing song material spanning 30 years with 140 samples, most from South Africa. The whole song and the syllables were measured. A custom edit distance and Euclidean distance were used to quantify song differences. Principal component analysis was performed on both syllable measurements and the whole song. The results showed a larger song variation between irruptions compared to within irruptions. It also showed that the song varies greatly between irruptions; however, a general pattern of how the song is structured was found. In addition, some indications of song retention between years were noticed. This study describes a unique example of avian behaviour that can broaden our knowledge of animal communication and its evolution and development.

We can describe cognition as the mental processes involved when processing signals and information from our surroundings. Despite being vital for our actions, these processes can be biased by emotions, which results in a judgement bias of ambiguous information. Depressed individuals tend to be pessimistic about such ambiguous information, while individuals under normal or good condition, tend to be optimistic. This is true also for animals. Based on this, cognitive judgement bias tests are developed to measure the affective state of individuals. However, cognitive judgement bias tests require extensive pre-test training for animals to learn positive and negative reference cues. An alternative to using responses to pre-learnt cues could be to use naturally aversive stimuli instead. Eyespot patterns on lepidopterans can be aversive to birds. However, it is scarcely investigated if eyespot patterns can be used to measure affective state. The aim of my study was therefore to investigate if eyespots patterns can replace classic cues in cognitive judgment bias tests measuring affective state. I did so by comparing behavioural responses of red junglefowl chicks (Gallus gallus) to both eyespot patterns and classical cues in a cognitive judgement bias test. Responses correlated between some cues in the two tests, suggesting that eyespot patterns may work as a replacement of pre-learnt cues. However, no differences in responses to the eyespot patterns was found, and so further work is needed to improve the design of eyespot cues to obtain a clearer correlation between responses to eyespot patterns and classical pre-learnt cues in cognitive judgement bias tests. As less training is needed, such improved tests could have positive implications, and be a simpler and more user-friendly way to measure affective state in animals.

The Red Junglefowl is a species of bird that was domesticated by humans around 8 000 years ago. Over time, domestication has led to changes in behavior and morphology, made possible by reduced fear of humans. Fear has been shown to affect cognitive processes, such as the way ambiguous stimuli are perceived by the individual. In this study, I observed the behavior of Red Junglefowl hens that had been selected for either high or low fear of humans to see how the early stages of domestication would affect their tendency to make pessimistic or optimistic judgements. The hens were put in a test arena where they were exposed to positive, negative, and ambiguous stimulus cues, and the time taken to approach each was measured. Hens that had been selected for low fear of humans had overall, albeit not significantly, shorter latencies to approach ambiguous cues. In other words, they were more likely to make optimistic judgements. The results were also affected by the order each stimulus cue was presented. I conclude that domestication may influence the way Red Junglefowl perceive ambiguous stimuli by reducing pessimism.