Outputs (17)

Communicating information about the psychology of a wild carnivore, the red fox, influences perceived attitudinal changes but not overall tolerance in people (2024)
Journal Article
Morton, F. B., Henri, D., Adaway, K., Adaway, K. A., Soulsbury, C., Soulsbury, C. D., & Hopkins, C. R. (2024). Communicating information about the psychology of a wild carnivore, the red fox, influences perceived attitudinal changes but not overall tolerance in people. Biological Conservation, 296, Article 110653. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2024.110653

Studies on wild animal psychology are growing in popularity due to the important role they play in understanding how wildlife is responding to human-driven environmental changes. However, communicating psychological information to the general public... Read More about Communicating information about the psychology of a wild carnivore, the red fox, influences perceived attitudinal changes but not overall tolerance in people.

Urban foxes are bolder but not more innovative than their rural conspecifics (2023)
Journal Article
Morton, F. B., Gartner, M., Norrie, E. M., Haddou, Y., Soulsbury, C. D., & Adaway, K. A. (2023). Urban foxes are bolder but not more innovative than their rural conspecifics. Animal behaviour, 203, 101-113. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.07.003

Urbanization is the fastest form of landscape transformation on the planet, but researchers' understanding of the relationships between urbanization and animal behaviour is still in its infancy. In terms of foraging, bold and innovative behaviours ar... Read More about Urban foxes are bolder but not more innovative than their rural conspecifics.

Expert range maps of global mammal distributions harmonised to three taxonomic authorities (2022)
Journal Article
Marsh, C. J., Sica, Y. V., Burgin, C. J., Dorman, W. A., Anderson, R. C., del Toro Mijares, I., Vigneron, J. G., Barve, V., Dombrowik, V. L., Duong, M., Guralnick, R., Hart, J. A., Maypole, J. K., McCall, K., Ranipeta, A., Schuerkmann, A., Torselli, M. A., Lacher, T., Mittermeier, R. A., Rylands, A. B., …Jetz, W. (2022). Expert range maps of global mammal distributions harmonised to three taxonomic authorities. Journal of Biogeography, 979-992. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14330

Aim: Comprehensive, global information on species' occurrences is an essential biodiversity variable and central to a range of applications in ecology, evolution, biogeography and conservation. Expert range maps often represent a species' only availa... Read More about Expert range maps of global mammal distributions harmonised to three taxonomic authorities.

Studying animal innovation at the individual level: A ratings-based assessment in capuchin monkeys (Sapajus [Cebus] sp.). (2021)
Journal Article
Morton, F. B., Buchanan-Smith, H. M., Brosnan, S. F., Thierry, B., Paukner, A., Essler, J. L., Marcum, C. S., & Lee, P. C. (2021). Studying animal innovation at the individual level: A ratings-based assessment in capuchin monkeys (Sapajus [Cebus] sp.). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 135(2), 258-265. https://doi.org/10.1037/com0000264

Large-scale studies of individual differences in innovative behavior among nonhuman animals are rare because of logistical difficulties associated with obtaining observational data on a large number of innovative individuals across multiple locations... Read More about Studying animal innovation at the individual level: A ratings-based assessment in capuchin monkeys (Sapajus [Cebus] sp.)..

Personality structure in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). (2021)
Journal Article
Morton, F. B., Robinson, L. M., Brando, S., & Weiss, A. (2021). Personality structure in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 135(2), 219-231. https://doi.org/10.1037/com0000259

Comparative studies can help identify selective pressures that contributed to species differences in the number and composition of personality domains. Despite being adapted to an aquatic lifestyle and last sharing a common ancestor with primates som... Read More about Personality structure in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus)..

Do wild raccoons (Procyon lotor) use tools? (2020)
Journal Article
Morton, F. B. (2020). Do wild raccoons (Procyon lotor) use tools?. Animal Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-020-01430-y

Being able to make and use tools was once considered to be an evolutionary hallmark of our species, but has since been documented in other animals. However, for reasons that remain unclear, not all species naturally use tools. Racoons (Procyon lotor)... Read More about Do wild raccoons (Procyon lotor) use tools?.

Data reduction analyses of animal behaviour: avoiding Kaiser's criterion and adopting more robust automated methods (2019)
Journal Article
Morton, F. B., & Altschul, D. (2019). Data reduction analyses of animal behaviour: avoiding Kaiser's criterion and adopting more robust automated methods. Animal behaviour, 149, 89-95. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.01.003

Data reduction analyses such as principal components and exploratory factor analyses identify relationships within a set of potentially correlated variables, and cluster correlated variables into a smaller overall quantity of groupings. Because of th... Read More about Data reduction analyses of animal behaviour: avoiding Kaiser's criterion and adopting more robust automated methods.

Divergent personality structures of brown (Sapajus apella) and white-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus) (2016)
Journal Article
Robinson, L. M., Morton, F. B., Gartner, M. C., Widness, J., Paukner, A., Essler, J. L., Brosnan, S. F., & Weiss, A. (2016). Divergent personality structures of brown (Sapajus apella) and white-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus). Journal of Comparative Psychology, 130(4), 305-312. https://doi.org/10.1037/com0000037

One way to gain insights into personality evolution is by comparing the personality structures of related species. We compared the personality structure of 240 wild white-faced capuchin monkeys to the personality structure of 100 captive brown capuch... Read More about Divergent personality structures of brown (Sapajus apella) and white-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus).

Happiness is positive welfare in brown capuchins (Sapajus apella) (2016)
Journal Article
Robinson, L. M., Waran, N. K., Leach, M. C., Morton, F. B., Paukner, A., Lonsdorf, E., Handel, I., Wilson, V. A., Brosnan, S. F., & Weiss, A. (2016). Happiness is positive welfare in brown capuchins (Sapajus apella). Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 181, 145-151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2016.05.029

Questionnaires that allow people who are familiar with individual animals to rate the welfare of these animals are an underutilised tool. We designed a 12-item welfare questionnaire and tested its reliability and associations with subjective well-bei... Read More about Happiness is positive welfare in brown capuchins (Sapajus apella).

Using photographs to study animal social cognition and behaviour: Do capuchins' responses to photos reflect reality? (2016)
Journal Article
Morton, F. B., Brosnan, S. F., Prétôt, L., Buchanan-Smith, H. M., O'Sullivan, E., Stocker, M., D'Mello, D., & Wilson, V. A. (2016). Using photographs to study animal social cognition and behaviour: Do capuchins' responses to photos reflect reality?. Behavioural Processes, 124, 38-46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.beproc.2015.10.005

© 2015 Elsevier B.V. Behavioural responses to photos are often used to infer what animals understand about their social environment, but are rarely validated against the same stimuli in real life. If subjects' responses to photos do not reflect respo... Read More about Using photographs to study animal social cognition and behaviour: Do capuchins' responses to photos reflect reality?.