Space, time, and context drive anticipatory behavior: Considerations for understanding the behavior of animals in human care

Abstract

Animal-based measures reflecting the welfare state of individuals are critical for ensuring the well-being of animals under human care. Anticipatory behavior is one potential animal-based measure that has gained traction in recent years, as it is theorized to relate to animals' reward sensitivity. It is of particular interest as an assessment for animals living under human care, as the predictability of the captive environment lends itself to the development of this class of behaviors. Animals are likely to exhibit anticipation in locations related to the anticipated event, often in temporally predictable time frames, and before specific contexts they experience in their day-to-day management. In this sense and under certain circumstances, anticipatory behaviors are likely to drive observed behavioral or space use patterns of animals under human care. Drawing conclusions from such data without identifying anticipation may result in misleading conclusions. Here we discuss how space, time, and context are related to patterns of anticipatory behaviors in animals under human care, how unidentified anticipation may alter conclusions regarding animal behavior or welfare under certain circumstances.

Quantifying animals' perception of environmental predictability using anticipatory behavior

“…For an animal that is reward sensitive, semi‐predictability may result in prolonged periods of AB, as the animal cannot fully predict when an event will arrive but expects a general time frame. For animals exhibiting prolonged AB towards an event, understanding the variation in the start time of the desired event may be useful for animal welfare practitioners (Krebs et al, 2022). Providing a cue or decreasing the variability in the arrival of the event may not decrease the intensity of the AB, but can reduce the time period over which AB is expressed and reduce the potential negative welfare outcomes associated with semi‐predictable but uncontrollable events.…”

Using scent to enhance captive welfare and breeding in a zoo-housed endangered lemur species.

“…Pacing was exclusively observed before feeding time and, accordingly to other authors (e.g., 58 ) may be interpreted as an anticipatory behavioural pattern. Particularly, anticipatory behaviours are usually exhibited by animals during the appetitive phase before acquiring a food resource 59 and has been observed in a wide range of species when animals are cared for by humans [60][61][62][63] . The lack of aggressive and abnormal behaviours during the entire study period can be interpreted as an indicator of good welfare status in the study subjects, already before the scent enrichment program.…”

Overnight monitoring reveals the behavioral rhythms of a geriatric male elephant: an animal-centered case study of rest and stereotypy

“…Stereotypic behavior is relatively common in zoo elephants and most typically consists of swaying, head bobbing, and/or pacing (Rees, 2009), with previous studies finding that approximately 60% of elephants in zoos demonstrate some form of stereotypy (Mason and Veasey, 2010). Additionally, stereotypic behavior may be most common following periods of eating in zoo-housed elephants (Greco et al, 2016a), indicating a possible anticipatory function (Krebs et al, 2022). Studies that focus on sleep patterns and stereotypic behavior as two components of behavioral welfare may help us to further enhance elephant wellbeing in zoos.…”

“…Anecdotal observations indicate that the presence of the feeders instead caused the individual to engage in swaying throughout the night and reduced recumbent rest; we observed shorter durations of recumbent rest interrupted by bouts of activity (including stereotypy) to check or wait for the presence of food at the automatic feeders. Given the schedule of this elephant's stereotypic swaying (with a high prevalence in the hours just before caretakers arrive for the day), there is a strong possibility that this behavior is anticipatory in nature (Krebs et al, 2022). In prolonging the possibility of food-and also providing smaller amounts of food at each feeding opportunity as a result-we may have inadvertently removed an otherwise reliable cue of a desired consequence, thereby increasing anticipation across a longer period of the night (Podturkin et al, 2023).…”