动物的警戒行为——回顾及展望

Vigilance Behavior of Animals: Overview and Perspective

警戒行为是动物对群体内部或外部刺激的行为反应,主要表现为抬头环视周围环境,具有反捕食和社会性监视功能,有利于个体适合度的增加。诸多研究表明,多种因素可以影响到动物警戒行为的强度和模式。内部因素主要包括个体的年龄、性别、所处空间位置和群体大小等,外部因素主要是捕食风险和人类活动的干扰。近年来,动物警戒同步性研究引起了广泛关注。同步警戒和协调警戒对立于独立警戒而存在,强调个体能够受到周围个体警戒状态的影响,继而表现出相同或相反的行为,并且其强度与群体大小等因素有关。在今后的研究中,可以在警戒行为影响因素和同步性方面进行更加深入而全面的探索。此外,警戒行为的个体差异和时空变化等也将是重要的研究方向。

Vigilance behavior is the response of animals to the stimuli from inside or outside of the population, and mainly expressed as raising head and looking around. Vigilance is aimed at anti-predation and social monitoring which is beneficial for the survival and fitness of individuals. Studies have shown that the intensity and pattern of vigilance can be influenced by various factors, including internal factors such as individual age, sex, spatial position and group size, and external factors such as predation risk and human disturbance. Recently, synchronization of vigilance behavior has been gained great atten- tion. Compared with independent vigilance, synchronized or coordinated vigilance suggests that individuals can be influ- enced by the vigilance status of their neighbors and then behaving similarly or oppositely. And the synchronization of vigi- lance can be affected by group size or other factors. In conclusion, more thorough and comprehensive studies should be ex- plored on the influencing factors and synchronization of vigilance, moreover, the individual and temporal-spatial variations of animal vigilance behavior can shed a new light on further research.