Although service firms recognize the significance of frontline employees’ emotional labor in enhancing perceived service quality and sustaining competitive advantage, the theoretical mechanisms underlying this relationship remain insufficiently understood. Drawing on the Emotions as Social Information Model (EASI), this study proposed that frontline employees’ emotional labor influences customer perceived service quality through two distinct pathways: emotional contagion and inferential processing. Moreover, the relative strength of these two pathways is contingent upon customer involvement. Using dyadic data collected from frontline employees and customers in the banking sector, the results indicated the following: frontline employees’ different emotional labor strategies (deep acting and surface acting) exerted significant influence on perceived service quality through different pathways. Specifically, surface acting impacted service quality solely through emotional contagion process (via customers’ positive affect). Whereas deep acting influenced service quality through both emotional contagion (via customers’ positive affect) and inferential processing (via customer participation). Additionally, customer involvement moderated the relationship between deep acting and customer participation (strengthening the positive association), as well as the link between surface acting and customers’ positive affect (attenuating the negative association).

Existing studies on fish swimming have generally examined the effects of the surrounding flow field under stationary conditions using a uniform incoming flow. Moreover, most research has focused on flow phenomena around individual fish or specific regions of the fish body. However, an increasing number of studies have demonstrated that group locomotion not only reduces energy consumption but also provides sociological benefits, including predator avoidance and enhanced predation success. In this study, we employ an overset mesh technique—implemented through the secondary development of a user defined file in Fluent—to investigate the influence of passive hydrodynamics on the self-propelled swimming of fish under a uniform incoming flow. This study primarily focuses on elucidating the mechanisms underlying fish self-propelled swimming and the relationships among tail-beat frequency, incoming flow velocity, and swimming performance, while also examining the hydrodynamic variations in both juxtaposed and tandem fish pair configurations. The study demonstrated that passive hydrodynamics did not contribute to speed gain in side-by-side swimming fish. As the inter-fish spacing decreased, the negative effects became more pronounced, although phase variations enhanced propulsion. In contrast, tandem swimming fish benefited from hydrodynamic interactions, with the upstream fish experiencing greater advantages than the downstream fish; however, the influence of wake vortices occasionally disrupted these benefits. However, due to intermittent interference from the wake vortex, these hydrodynamic benefits are not consistently sustained. In this study, we examine the variations in key parameters during the swimming process of fish schools, which is essential for elucidating their underlying swimming mechanisms.

Enhancements in water quality and soil characteristics of wetlands can improve the ecological environment of the area and enrich its biodiversity. The present study examined the effects of five distinct crops (i.e.: colza oil, mustard, Chinese cabbage, wheat, barley) cultivated in remediation plots, and evaluated their impact on water quality and soil fertility. The water quality within the remediated farmland was categorized as Class III (moderately polluted). The soil exhibited low total nitrogen and organic matter levels (the mean values were respectively 0.032% and 10.84 g/kg), and high readily available phosphorus and potassium concentration (the mean values were respectively 75.71 and 247.64 mg/kg). The soil fertility was comprehensively categorized as Class III (moderately polluted). Subsequently, the different components of bird droppings in the soil were investigated for their potential effects on soil fertility. The present research demonstrated that the remediation of farmland had the potential to enhance the quality of water and soil fertility in wetland. This, in turn, might result in an increased number of migratory birds inhabiting the area.

Publication date: January 2026 Source: Animal Behaviour, Volume 231 Author(s): Matilda Gibbons, Elisabetta Versace, Andrew Crump, Bartosz Baran, Lars Chittka

by Yiyang Wu, Xiangbin Teng, Yi Du Auditory-motor synchronization, the alignment of body movements with rhythmic patterns in music, is a universal human behavior, yet its full scope remains incompletely understood. Through four experiments with 123 young nonmusicians, integrating eye-tracking, neurophysiological recordings, white matter structural imaging, and behavioral analysis, we reveal a previously unrecognized form of synchronization: spontaneous eye blinks synchronize with musical beats. Blinks robustly synchronized with beats across a range of tempi and independently of melodic cues. Electroencephalogram recordings revealed a dynamic correspondence between blink timing and neural beat tracking. Blink synchronization performance was linked to white matter microstructure variation in the left superior longitudinal fasciculus, a key sensorimotor pathway. Additionally, the strength of blink synchronization reflected the modulation of dynamic auditory attention. These findings establish blink synchronization as a novel behavioral paradigm, expanding the auditory-motor synchronization repertoire and highlighting the intricate interplay between music rhythms and oculomotor activity. This discovery underscores a cross-modal active sensing mechanism, offering new insights into embodied music perception, rhythm processing, and their potential clinical applications.

Ecology and Evolution, Volume 15, Issue 12, December 2025.

The ability to detect animate objects is a fundamental property of the animal visual system. Among the cues used to infer animacy, gravity provides an important reference for identifying animate motion. Earlier work has demonstrated that upward-moving objects, which violate gravitational constraints, elicit spontaneous attention in newborn humans and domestic chicks. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this innate predisposition remain unclear. We recorded neural activity in the nidopallium of one-week-old domestic chicks as they observed stimuli moving upward or downward. In parallel, we analyzed spontaneous behavioral responses with video-based tracking and high-speed accelerometer data. This analysis revealed a robust attentional bias toward upward-moving, gravity-defying stimuli. We identified neurons in the NCL that encode the direction of motion, most of which responded preferentially to upward movement. Moreover, the population activity of direction-sensitive neurons successfully predicted the spontaneous behavioral response to upward-moving objects.

Brain and Behavior, Volume 15, Issue 11, November 2025.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume 122, Issue 46, November 2025. SignificanceMosquitoes use rhythmic sensory responses to find human hosts, but the role of circadian rhythms in this behavior is not well understood. Using an automated assay, we show thatAedes aegyptimosquitoes’ responses to CO2, a critical host cue, ...

Publication date: Available online 26 November 2025 Source: Physiology & Behavior Author(s): Longfei Huo, Xiaojing Miao, Yi Ren, Xuran Zhang, Qiqi Fu, Jiali Yang, Muqing Liu

Publication date: January 2026 Source: Animal Behaviour, Volume 231 Author(s): Jenny C.A. Read, Vivek Nityananda

Scientific Reports, Published online: 28 November 2025; doi:10.1038/s41598-025-10070-6A supported decision-making model for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis based on feature screening and optimized neural network

Nature Communications, Published online: 28 November 2025; doi:10.1038/s41467-025-66703-xPhotonic crystal microresonators permit precise control of nonlinear optical processes. By suppressing specific parasitic processes, they enable the efficient and robust generation of single-mode squeezed vacuum states of light.

Today, social media platforms hold the sole power to study the effects of feed-ranking algorithms. We developed a platform-independent method that reranks participants’ feeds in real time and used this method to conduct a preregistered 10-day field ...

Publication date: Available online 25 November 2025 Source: Animal Behaviour Author(s): Michelle Beyer, Cristina Tuni

We present the design and application of the Dormouse Data Logger Generation 3 (DDL3), a novel, programmable and modular monitoring system integrated into a standard nest box for dormice. The logger is recording the nest chamber through various sensors. Incorporating multiple power-saving strategies, the system achieved battery runtimes of over one month, enabling extended monitoring with minimal disturbance. It has been continuously deployed in the field since 2023, demonstrating stable operation under variable environmental conditions. The data collected from a single nest box during the 2024 season are presented here. The DDL3 provided a reliable record of post-hibernation activity in a nest box and enabled detection of seasonal fluctuations in body mass of hazel dormice. Camera, scale and motion-sensing functions supported recognition of torpor events. In addition, the camera recorded behavioural data, documenting cooperative nest construction and rearing offspring. These capabilities enable continuous, non-invasive monitoring of the seasonal dynamics of hazel dormouse behaviour, including pre-hibernation activity. This demonstrates the DDL3’s suitability for high-resolution wildlife monitoring and conservation studies.

Tracking and analyzing animal behaviour is a crucial step in fields such as neuroscience and developmental biology. Behavioral studies in the nematode C. elegans, for example, help in understanding how organisms respond to external cues and how the specific physiological responses link to either instantaneous or learned behavior. Although tracking behaviour through locomotion patterns and posture dynamics are routine, they become laborious, time-consuming tasks when performed manually. Automation of this process is therefore crucial for accurate and fast detection and analysis. To this end, in this work, we report the development of Deep Pose Tracker (DPT), an end-to-end deep learning model designed to automate the analysis of posture dynamics and locomotion behaviour of C. elegans. This YOLO (You Only Look Once)-based model enables automatic detection and tracking of these worms while measuring essential behavioural features like motion speed, orientation, forward or reverse locomotion and complex body bends like omega turns. In addition, it includes eigenworm decomposition in order to analyze different body shapes that these tiny worms make during their motion, and represent the overall posture dynamics in a low-dimensional space. Our DPT model can generate highly accurate data, with very high inference speed while being user-friendly. DPT, therefore, can be a valuable toolkit for researchers studying behaviour under different environmental stimuli.

Publication date: January 2026 Source: Animal Behaviour, Volume 231 Author(s): Anna N. Osiecka, Romain Lefèvre, Elodie F. Briefer

Changing algorithms with artificial intelligence tools can influence partisan animosity

Primate evolution has been dominated above all by increases in brain size over time. Here I show that two separate pressures have been responsible for substantial changes in the major structural features of the primate brain. Lineages that have adopted pairliving are associated with a differential increase in the volume of the subcortical brain. This mainly reflects an increase in body size and a consequent need to invest in cerebellum size in order to manage large body masses in 3D arboreal environments, a trend that continues through the great apes. The second trajectory is associated with a switch to group-living, and is associated with a progressive increase in neocortex volume. This seems to have occurred in three distinct waves corresponding to stepwise increases in social group size. These trends are not associated with phylogeny, but represent taxonomically mosaic evolution driven by individual species exposure to new kinds of habitats.

by Wen G. Chen, Helene M. Langevin Interoception may be a key mechanism in “Whole Person Health.” More and better technologies, tools, and mechanistic research are needed to fully understand its role, as well as new interventions to promote healthy physiological self-regulation through interoceptive signals. Decoding the body’s internal signals could revolutionize Whole Person Health. This Perspective suggests a research framework linking brain, body and behavior to foster resilience, self-regulation and holistic well-being.

Publication date: January 2026 Source: Animal Behaviour, Volume 231 Author(s): Laura Leyva, Paula Daban, Javier Atalah, Gonzalo Perez-Benavente, Jesus S. Troncoso, Pablo Sanchez-Jerez

Phenotypic drug screening remains constrained by the vastness of chemical space and the technical challenges of scaling experimental workflows. To overcome these barriers, computational methods have been developed to prioritize compounds, but they rely ...

Fairness reputation refers to the perception of others’ adherence to fair norms based on their behaviors. However, previous studies often rely on simple correlation and regression analyses without comparing cognition across roles in the ultimatum game (UG) and the dictator game (DG). Our study measured the categorical and two-dimensional cognitions (warmth-competence) of participants with different social value orientations toward proposers, responders, and dictators with varying fairness reputations. We found that proposers and dictators with fairness reputations were perceived more positively, and individualists could better distinguish between them. Regarding responders with fairness reputations, they were perceived as more fair, trustworthy, and competent, but less altruistic, cooperative, and warm. The social cognitive network of responders differed from those of proposers and dictators, with warmth cognition being central to three roles, supporting the warmth–competence model. This study highlighted the differential impact of fairness reputation in shaping social cognitions, providing insights into understanding social interactions.

Publication date: Available online 27 November 2025 Source: Applied Animal Behaviour Science Author(s): Renee Denby, Lauren Hopkins, Lauren Little, Grant W. Tempero, Clare Browne, Melissa Collins, Nicholas Ling, Timothy L. Edwards