Ultrasonic vocalizations and social learning of food preferences by female Norway rats

We examined whether ultrasonic vocalizations facilitate social learning of food preferences in female Norway rats, Rattus norvegicus. Females produced ultrasonic vocalizations at higher rates when they were reunited with a familiar conspecific if one member of the reunited pair had eaten an unfamiliar food while the pair members were separated. However, the influence of demonstrator rats on food choices of their observers was as great in pairs of rats that had been devocalized surgically as it was in sham-operated controls. The latter result is not consistent with the hypothesis that ultrasonic vocalizations facilitate social learning of food preferences in Norway rats.     

Explaining social learning of food preferences without aversions: an evolutionary simulation model of Norway rats

Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) transmit preferences for novel foods socially by smelling each other's breath. However, rats fail to learn aversions, acquiring a preference even if the rat whose breath they smell has been poisoned. Rats can distinguish between sick and healthy conspecifics and social learning of both preferences and aversions is present in other species - hence it is unclear why rats cannot learn aversions socially. We constructed an evolutionary simulation in which a population of rats foraged from a central location, exploiting food sites that could contain edible or toxic foodstuffs. We examined the relationship between toxin lethality and selection for individual versus social learning and discrimination between sick and healthy conspecifics in order to allow learning of both preferences and aversions. At low lethality levels individual learning was selected for and at intermediate levels we found social learning of both preferences and aversions. Finally, given high lethality levels the simulated rats would employ social learning but failed to learn aversions, matching the behaviour of real rats. We argue that Norway rats do not learn aversions socially because their environment may contain only highly lethal toxins which make interaction with a sick conspecific an extremely rare event.     

根田鼠幼体食物选择的社群学习

社群学习为动物的一种可塑性表型行为,能使动物获得适应于栖息地的行为模式.本文在实验室条件下,通过自助餐式食物选择实验,测定栖息于青藏高原高寒草甸生态系统的根田鼠断乳幼体间食物选择的社群学习模式.结果表明,同伴对其学习个体的食物选择具有显著的作用(P<0.001).学习个体对同伴已觅食食物的摄入量占其总摄入量的71%以上.在多同伴及单同伴与学习个体相互作用4 h后,同伴对学习个体的食物选择的学习具有显著的作用(P<0.01),而在24 h后,同伴对学习个体食物选择的作用则消失.多同伴与单同伴对学习个体的食物选择作用的差异不显著(P>0.05).熟悉同伴对学习个体的食物选择具有显著的效应(P<0.01),而陌生同伴对学习个体的食物选择则无显著作用(P >0.05).     

Field crickets change mating preferences using remembered social information

Plasticity in female mate choice can fundamentally alter selection on male ornaments, but surprisingly few studies have examined the role of social learning in shaping female mating decisions in invertebrates. We used the field cricket Teleogryllus oceanicus to show that females retain information about the attractiveness of available males based on previous social experience, compare that information with incoming signals and then dramatically reverse their preferences to produce final, predictable, mating decisions. Male ornament evolution in the wild may depend much more on the social environment and behavioural flexibility through learning than was previously thought for non-social invertebrates. The predictive power of these results points to a pressing need for theoretical models of sexual selection that incorporate effects of social experience.     

Social learning influences the preferences of domestic hens for novel food

It has been argued that social learning helps animals either avoid noxious substances or identify food items, but evidence suggests that avian social learning is fundamentally different from that of mammals. In two experiments, we investigated whether the preferences of domestic hens, Gallus g. domesticus, for novel food were influenced by observing the feeding behaviour of conspecifics. In experiment 1, we attempted to confirm that birds can develop socially learnt aversions to unpalatable foods. Despite demonstrators showing a highly visible ‘disgust reaction’ after eating unpalatable coloured food, observers did not develop aversions to similarly coloured food. In experiment 2, we aimed to determine whether preferences for palatable food were socially learnt, and whether the extent of a demonstrator's preference for novel food affected the magnitude of the observer's socially learned preference. Demonstrators ate coloured food of standard or high palatability, or did not peck food at all. When the demonstrators pecked more frequently or fed more quickly from the food, the observers consumed a greater proportion of food of the same colour; however, this was only when the food was red, not green. We argue this indicates an unlearned aversion to red food, overcome by social learning of the food being highly palatable. The results provide no evidence that adult hens learn aversions through observing disgust reactions, but show that hens are sensitive to the extent of demonstrator preferences for palatable food. The data do not support the hypothesis that avian social learning is fundamentally different from that of mammals. Copyright 2002 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.     

Cognitive neuroscience: early learning centres

Learning leads to neural changes often considered to be driven by 'smart' areas of the brain. A recent study of the cellular changes that underlie perceptual learning has found that plasticity in the primary visual cortex V1 is necessary for learning and the changes that correlate with learning are more complex than one might expect.     

Selectivity in social and asocial learning: investigating the prevalence,effect and development of young children's learning preferences

Culture evolution requires both modification and faithful replication of behaviour, thus it is essential to understand how individuals choose between social and asocial learning. In a quasi-experimental design, 3- and 5-year-olds (176), and adults (52) were presented individually with two novel artificial fruits, and told of the apparatus'' relative difficulty (easy versus hard). Participants were asked if they wanted to attempt the task themselves or watch an experimenter attempt it first; and then had their preference either met or violated. A significant proportion of children and adults (74%) chose to learn socially. For children, this request was efficient, as observing a demonstration made them significantly quicker at the task than learning asocially. However, for 5-year-olds, children who selected asocial learning were also found to be highly efficient at the task, showing that by 5 years children are selective in choosing a learning strategy that is effective for them. Adults further evidenced this trend, and also showed selectivity based on task difficulty. This is the first study to examine the rates, performance outcomes and developmental trajectory of preferences in asocial and social learning, ultimately informing our understanding of innovation.     

Individual differences in responses of Norway rats to social induction of food preferences

Each of 36 observer rats was: (1) exposed to a demonstrator rat that had eaten an unpalatable, cayenne-pepper-flavored diet (Diet Cay), then tested to determine its willingness to eat Diet Cay and (2) exposed to a demonstrator rat that had eaten a palatable diet (Diet NPT) to which the observer had previously learned an aversion, then tested to determine its willingness to eat Diet NPT. In both instances, some observers ate substantial amounts of the diet that their respective demonstrators had eaten, while other observers did not. No consistency was found across the two situations in the relative susceptibility of individual observer rats to social influences on their food choices. In a second experiment, observer rats interacted, at 3 day intervals, with demonstrator rats that had each eaten different diets. After each interaction, all observers were given a choice test to determine their preferences for the diet that their demonstrators had eaten. Again, there was no consistency in the relative strength of individual observer rats' socially induced preferences for diets fed to demonstrators. Stable individual differences in magnitude of susceptibility to social influence on food preference did not account for a detectable proportion of observed variance in diet selection.     

Efficiency of food utilization by fruit bats

Summary Neotropical fruit bats consume figs (Ficus spp.) and other fruit in small bites which they suck dry and drop as pellets. The swallowed juice transits the short digestive system in 0.5 h or less. The efficiency of this unusual mode of feeding was determined by comparing the nutritional content of pellets, feces and urine of captive Artibeus jamaicensis to that of the wild figs (Ficus insipida) they had been fed. The bats extracted 57% of the wet weight and 37% of the dry weight of the fruit. The swallowed juice contained 40% of the non-fiber carbohydrate present in whole figs and was digested almost completely. Of the 160±37 seeds per fig, roughly 80% were swallowed, but almost all of these were passed intact in the feces. Overall 25–30% of the metabolizable calories in the figs were swallowed and absorbed. This mode of feeding enables the bats to extract the readily digestable calories from up to 2x their 50 g body weights in figs each night while never having to fly with more than a few grams of food in their guts at any one time.