Alexander D M Wilson

University of Plymouth | UoP · Biological and Marine Sciences

Group living in animals is a well-studied phenomenon, having been documented extensively in a wide range of terrestrial, freshwater and marine species. While social dynamics are complex across space and time, recent technological and analytical advances enable deeper understanding of their nature and ecological implications. While for some taxa a g...

Social network analysis (SNA) has become a widespread tool for the study of animal social organization. However despite this broad applicability, SNA is currently limited by both an overly strong focus on pattern analysis as well as a lack of dynamic interaction models. Here we use a dynamic modeling approach that can capture the responses of socia...

Electronic tags (both biotelemetry and biologging platforms) have informed conservation and resource management policy and practice by providing vital information on the spatial ecology of animals and their environments. However, the extent of the contribution of biological sensors (within electronic tags) that measure an animal's state (e.g., hear...

Recently, there has been growing recognition that fish harvesting practices can have important impacts on the phenotypic distributions and diversity of natural populations through a phenomenon known as fisheries-induced evolution. Here we experimentally show that two common recreational angling techniques (active crank baits versus passive soft pla...

Over the last decade, there has been an exponential increase in studies using social network analysis to describe the structure of animal societies. In this synthesis, we examine the contribution of social network analysis towards developing our understanding of the social organization of elasmobranchs and teleost fishes. We review and discuss the...

Commercial overexploitation and climate change can alter the physiology and behavior of marine organisms, although intraspecific phenotypic responses to such changes can vary greatly depending on the environment, species, and severity of the stressor. Under the pace‐of‐life syndrome (POLS) hypothesis, behavior, physiology, and life‐history traits a...

Lucihormetica verrucosa (Blattodea, Blaberidae) are highly sexually dimorphic cockroaches, with the males having two symmetrically organised ‘glowspots’ on their pronotum. The spots can range in colour from whitish-yellow to red, depending on the quantity of carotenoids in their diet. These spots auto-fluoresce when exposed to UV wavelengths, with...

It is imperative for individuals to exhibit flexible behaviour according to ecological context, such as available resources or predation threat. Manipulative studies on responses to threat often focus on behaviour in the presence of a single indicator for the potential of predation, whereas in the wild perception of threat will probably be more nua...

Research from terrestrial communities shows that diminished predation risk is a principal driver of heterospecific grouping behavior, with foraging ecology predicting the roles that species play in groups, as more vulnerable foragers preferentially join more vigilant ones from whom they can benefit. Meanwhile, field studies examining the adaptive s...

The ability to adapt behaviour according to context is vital to the success of many organisms, particularly when it comes to mitigating risk, across time and space, in unpredictable environments. While many studies have examined the role of predation threat in shaping behaviour, very few have quantitatively investigated prey responses across differ...

There are many syntheses on the role of animal behavior in understanding and mitigating conservation threats for wildlife. That body of work has inspired the development of a new discipline called conservation behavior. Yet, the majority of those synthetic papers focus on non-fish taxa such as birds and mammals. Many fish populations are subject to...

Early-life experiences can shape life histories and population dynamics of wild animals. To examine whether stressful stimuli experienced in early life resulted in carryover effects in later life stages, we conducted several experimental manipulations and then monitored wild fish with passive integrated transponder tags during juvenile out-migratio...

Grouping behavior occurs across a wide variety of taxa, both within and between species. While members are thought to obtain foraging and antipredator advantages, they can also experience costs in the forms of competition or increased conspicuity to predators. The mechanisms behind these costs and benefits can vary depending on group composition, u...

Teaching can be a rewarding, yet challenging, experience for early career researchers (ECRs) in fields like ecology and evolution. Much of this challenge arises from the reality that ECRs in ecology and evolution typically receive little, if any, pedagogical training or advice on how to balance teaching, research (which can include extended field w...

Linking morphological differences in foraging adaptations to prey choice and feeding strategies has provided major evolutionary insights across taxa. Here, we combine behavioural and morphological approaches to explore and compare the role of the rostrum (bill) and micro-teeth in the feeding behaviour of sailfish (Istiophorus platypterus) and strip...

We compared baseline and maximal cortisol concentrations between predator exposure and prey blood samples in pumpkinseed Lepomis gibbosus, captured using a standardised fishing event underneath osprey Pandion haliaetus nests and away from osprey nests. We did not detect differences in cortisol or glucose between sites. These findings suggest that p...

The partnership between non‐burrowing gobiid fishes and alpheid shrimps is one of the most remarkable interspecific mutualisms currently recognised in behavioural biology. The shrimp rely on tactile and chemical cues from their goby partners to warn them of approaching predators. In return, the shrimp construct and maintain the burrows which provid...

Animal groups are often composed of individuals that vary according to behavioral, morphological, and internal state parameters. Understanding the importance of such individual-level heterogeneity to the establishment and maintenance of coherent group responses is of fundamental interest in collective behavior. We examined the influence of hunger o...

To effectively balance the need to forage against the need to avoid predation, animals should utilize information from both their physical and social environments. However, most studies have considered these factors in isolation and few have investigated how animals change the use of these cues temporally. Using novel 3D modeling of the environment...

In most fisheries, larger fish experience substantially higher mortality than smaller fish. Body length, life‐history and behavioral traits often correlate, such that fisheries‐induced changes in size or life‐history can also alter behavioural traits. However, empirical evidence regarding how size‐selective harvesting alters the evolution of behavi...

In many animal species, variation in reproductive success among individuals has led to the evolution of alternative mating strategies, which in the case of insects can often be correlated with developmental trajectories. In the Wellington tree weta, Hemideina crassidens, males can mature at the 8th, 9th or 10th instar, while females mature at the 1...

In fisheries worldwide, larger fish are subjected to substantially greater fishing mortality than smaller fish. Body length and behavioral traits are often correlated, such that fisheries-induced changes in either behaviour or morphology can also alter other traits as result of direct or indirect selection. Consistent behavioral differences among i...

Despite substantial research interest in understanding individual-level consistency in behavioral attributes, significant knowledge gaps remain across traits and taxa. For example, relatively few studies have looked at social personality in large marine species such as elasmobranchs and whether or not individual differences in behavior are maintain...

Recent research has demonstrated that an individual's behavioural decisions can have a profound impact on an animal's fitness. For anadromous fishes requiring access to spawning habitat above obstructions, successful passage at fishways may at least in part be a function of an individual's behavioural type. The objectives of this study were to dete...

The costs and benefits of group living often depend on the spatial position of individuals within groups and the ability of individuals to occupy preferred positions. For example, models of predation events for moving prey groups predict higher mortality risk for individuals at the periphery and front of groups. We investigated these predictions in...

Partial migration is a common phenomenon, yet the causes of individual differences in migratory propensity are not well understood. We examined factors that potentially influence timing of migration and migratory propensity in a wild population of juvenile brown trout (Salmo trutta) by combining experimental manipulations with passive integrated tr...

The social network approach has focused increasing attention on the complex web of relationships found in animal groups and populations. As such, network analysis has been used frequently to identify the role that particular individuals play in their social interactions and this approach has led to the question of whether, and in what context, indi...

Light pollution is a prevalent, but often overlooked, ecological concern in a variety of ecosystems. Marine environments are subjected to artifcial lighting from coastal development, in addition to ofshore sources, such as fshing vessels, oil platforms and cruise ships. Fish species that rely on nearshore habitats are most signifcantly impacted by...

Natural resource management agencies implement conservation policies with the presumption that they are effective and of benefit to aquatic ecosystems. However, it is often difficult to decide what management action to implement and what will be most effective. Here we call for natural resource management agencies to fully adopt and implement evide...

Despite many positive benefits of ecotourism, increased human encounters with wildlife may have detrimental effects on wild animals. As charismatic megafauna, nesting and foraging sea turtles are increasingly the focus of ecotourism activities. The purpose of our study was to quantify the behavioral responses of immature green turtles (Chelonia myd...

Lateralization is widespread throughout the animal kingdom [1-7] and can increase task efficiency via shortening reaction times and saving on neural tissue [8-16]. However, lateralization might be costly because it increases predictability [17-21]. In predator-prey interactions, for example, predators might increase capture success because of speci...

Selectively removing fish based on particular traits, such as body size, may shift trait abundance in the remaining population, resulting in a phenomenon called fisheries-induced evolution. Recently, there is growing interest in evaluating the effects of fisheries-induced evolution on fish behaviour. Aquatic protected areas (APAs) have been designa...

[ Proc. R. Soc. B 283 , 20161671 (Published online 2 November 2016). ([doi:10.1098/rspb.2016.1671][2])][2] There was a mismatch between the units reported for the base metabolic rate, c , in [figure 3][2] c in [[1][3]] and the corresponding units in the main text and labels of [figure 3][2] a , b

The concept of behavioural syndromes (i.e. correlations between behavioural traits) has provided an important framework for understanding individual variation in animal behaviour and its link to individual variation in physiology and life-history traits. The pace-of-life syndrome concept posits that behavioural, physiological and life-history trait...

We present evidence of a novel form of group hunting. Group hunting sailfish (Istiophorus platypterus) alternate attacks on their schooling prey (Sardinella aurita). While only 23% of attacks result in prey capture, multiple prey are injured in 95% of attacks, resulting in an increase of injured fish in the school with the number of attacks. How qu...

The nonconsumptive consequences of predators on prey behavior, survival, and demography have recently garnered significant attention by ecologists. However, the impacts of top predators on free-ranging prey are challenging to evaluate because the most common fright response for prey is to leave the area of risk. Additionally, the top-down impacts o...

Freshwater ecosystems are threatened by a wide range of anthropogenic infrastructure related to hydropower, irrigation, municipal withdrawals, and industrial cooling. Technology can be used to mitigate the loss of fish associated with such infrastructure by exploiting the sensory physiology of a species through stimuli designed to manipulate their...

Individuals cope differently to challenging and stressful situations. Being inverted is challenging and stressful for animals, as the position leaves them vulnerable to predators and desiccation. Although sea star self-righting was first studied in the 19th century, efforts to quantify patterns of within-individual consistency and among-individual...

Billfishes are considered to be among the fastest swimmers in the oceans. Previous studies have estimated maximum speed of sailfish and black marlin at around 35 m s(-1) but theoretical work on cavitation predicts that such extreme speed is unlikely. Here we investigated maximum speed of sailfish, and three other large marine pelagic predatory fish...

We present evidence of a novel form of group hunting. Individual sailfish (Istiophorus platypterus) alternate attacks with other group members on their schooling prey (Sardinella aurita). While only 24% of attacks result in prey capture, multiple prey are injured in 95% of attacks, resulting in an increase of injured fish in the school with the num...

Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee’s (IACUCs) serve an important role in ensuring that ethical practices are used by researchers working with vertebrate taxa including fish. With a growing number of researchers working on fish in the field and expanding mandates of IACUCs to regulate field work, there is potential for interactions between...

Scholarly peer review relies on rigorous yet fair assessments of articles by qualified referees in a timely manner. We considered the extent to which a prolonged peer-review process can delay the dissemination of results in a conservation context by combining insight from a survey with our own perspectives. A survey of authors who published peer-re...

Electronic tags have become a common tool in fish research, enhancing our understanding of how fish interact with their environment and move among different habitats, for estimating mortality and recording internal physiological states. An often-untested assumption of electronic tagging studies is that tagged fish are representative of untagged con...

Delays in peer reviewed publication may have consequences for both assessment of scientific prowess in academics as well as communication of important information to the knowledge receptor community. We present an analysis on the perspectives of authors publishing in conservation biology journals regarding their opinions on the importance of speed...

Digital action cameras (ACs) are increasingly being utilized for aquatic research purposes due to their cost effectiveness, versatility, high-resolution imagery, and durability. Here we review the advantages of AC technology in research, with particular emphases on (a) research videography (both in the field and the laboratory), (b) animal-borne st...

Group living in animals is a well-studied phenomenon, having been documented extensively in a wide range of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine species. Although social dynamics are complex across space and time, recent technological and analytical advances enable deeper understanding of their nature and ecological implications. While for some taxa...

Billfishes are considered among the fastest swimmers in the oceans. Despite early estimates of extremely high speeds, more recent work showed that these predators (e.g., blue marlin) spend most of their time swimming slowly, rarely exceeding 2 m s(-1). Predator-prey interactions provide a context within which one may expect maximal speeds both by p...

Fine-scale differences in behaviour and habitat use have important ecological implications, but have rarely been examined in marine gastropods. We used tri-axial accelerometer loggers to estimate activity levels and movement patterns of the juvenile queen conch Lobatus gigas (n = 11) in 2 habitat types in Eleuthera, The Bahamas. In 2 manipulations...

Consistent individual differences in behaviour have been well documented in a variety of animal taxa, but surprisingly little is known about the fitness and life-history consequences of such individual variation. In wild salmonids, the timing of fry emergence from gravel spawning nests has been suggested to be coupled with individual behavioural tr...

Consistent individual differences in behaviour have been well documented in a variety of animal taxa, but surprisingly little is known about the fitness and life-history consequences of such individual variation. In wild salmonids, the timing of fry emergence from gravel spawning nests has been suggested to be coupled with individual behavioural tr...

Delays in peer reviewed publication may have consequences for both assessment of scientific prowess in academics as well as communication of important information to the knowledge receptor community. We present an analysis on the perspectives of authors publishing in conservation biology journals regarding their opinions on the importance of speed...

Over the last decade, the study of consistent individual-level differences in behaviour, or animal personality, has become a subject of significant research growth. This ongoing interest in personality traits is likely attributable to the diverse range of taxa as well as ecological contexts in which personality has been shown to be mechanistically...

The study of teleost fishes has played an important role in pushing the boundaries of behavioural ecology, including research topics such as the evolution of life-history traits, sexual selection, cooperation, and collective behaviour and decision making. This chapter outlines how the application of a social networks approach to fish can advance th...

As catch-and-release angling continues to grow as a management and conservation strategy, understanding the mechanisms contributing to potential negative consequences for released fish is essential for developing sustainable recreational fisheries. Longer angling times generally contribute to increased stress and mortality in fish such that reducin...

The istiophorid family of billfishes is characterized by an extended rostrum or 'bill'. While various functions (e.g. foraging and hydrodynamic benefits) have been proposed for this structure, until now no study has directly investigated the mechanisms by which billfishes use their rostrum to feed on prey. Here, we present the first unequivocal evi...

Social organization is often studied through point estimates of individual association or interaction patterns, which does not account for temporal changes in the course of familiarization processes and the establishment of social dominance. Here, we present new insights on short-term temporal dynamics in social organization of mixed-sex groups tha...

One of the main challenges in the study of social networks in vertebrates is to close the gap between group patterns and dynamics. Usually scan samples or transect data are recorded to provide information about social patterns of animals, but these techniques themselves do not shed much light on the underlying dynamics of such groups. Here we show...

The first generation of research on animal social networks was primarily aimed at introducing the concept of social networks to the fields of animal behaviour and behavioural ecology. More recently, a diverse body of evidence has shown that social fine structure matters on a broader scale than initially expected, affecting many key ecological and e...

The complex mutualistic relationship between the cleaner fish (Labroides dimidiatus) and their ‘clients’ in many reef systems throughout the world has been the subject of debate and research interest for decades. Game-theory models have long struggled with explaining how the mixed strategies of cheating and honesty might have evolved in such a syst...