Investigating Unused Tools for the Animal Behavioral Diversity Toolkit

Abstract

Behavioral diversity is a commonly used tool used to quantify the richness and evenness of animal behaviors and assess the effect of variables that may impact an animal’s quality of life. The indices used in behavioral diversity research, and the study subjects, have not been formally reviewed. This paper aims to identify which indices are being used in behavioral diversity research, and under which scenarios, and uncover novel indices from other disciplines that could be applied to behavioral diversity. To investigate the techniques and species investigated in behavioral diversity literature, a Web of Science literature search was conducted. Two methods: behavioral richness and the Shannon–Wiener index, were the most frequently used indices, whereas the Behavioral Variability index featured rarely. While a range of species appeared in the behavioral literature, mammals were the most frequently studied Class, whereas amphibians did not feature in any papers. There are several diversity indices which did not feature in behavioral diversity including Simpson’s index, and Chao. Such indices could be used to better understand animal behavioral study outputs or be used to estimate the number of ‘unobserved’ behaviors that an animal may express. Future studies could therefore extend beyond the Shannon–Wiener and richness indices.

Evaluation of an automated response‐independent schedule on the behavioral welfare of shelter dogs

“…Greater variability in behaviors in the During period of the FT condition was also observed for most of the individually analyzed dogs. Although not directly assessed, this may indicate positive welfare commonly associated with increased behavioral diversity (Brereton & Fernandez, 2022; Miller et al, 2020). In short, increased desired behaviors and a greater display of a behavioral repertoire should identify as positive welfare for most companion animals, which is essential to directly evaluate in shelters.…”

Can You Vary the Cassowary? Using Multiple Measures to Assess and Compare Casuarius Activity in Human Care

“…Therefore, greater documentation of cassowary behavior in human care is necessary for proper welfare assessment (Jones et al, 2022). Additionally, the use of multiple measures, including assessments of habitat use (Brereton & Fernandez, 2022a) behavioral diversity (Brereton & Fernandez, 2022b;Miller et al, 2020), and application of evidence-based welfare assessments (Sherwen et al, 2018) would assist in better identifying key welfare metrics for cassowaries and other ratite species.…”

“…The diversity scores were just above middle values (> 0.5), which suggests moderate variability in the behaviors displayed. Behavioral diversity is increasingly being used as a potential indicator of animal welfare within zoos (Brereton & Fernandez, 2022a;Miller et al, 2020). Higher levels of behavioral diversity have been associated with overall increased welfare, including decreased abnormal behaviors and a more diverse behavioral repertoire (de Azevedo et al Schultz & Young, 2018).…”

The Science and Social Validity of Companion Animal Welfare: Functionally Defined Parameters in a Multidisciplinary Field

“…Induction is related to allocation through contingency, which links an environmental event to an increase or decrease in activity. Response allocation is related to welfare due to the importance of response variability to welfare, with enclosure use and behavioral diversity measurement used to assess how environmental variables impact an animal's quality of life [64,85,86]. Welfare is compromised when an organism spends too much time engaging in one activity to the detriment of other behaviors that are necessary for survival and wellbeing.…”