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Bastos R, Martins B, Cabral JA, Ceia FR, Ramos JA, Paiva VH, Luís A, Santos M. Oceans of stimuli: an individual-based model to assess the role of olfactory cues and local enhancement in seabirds' foraging behaviour. Anim Cogn 2020; 23:629-42. [PMID: 32152923 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-020-01368-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/24/2019] [Revised: 02/07/2020] [Accepted: 03/02/2020] [Indexed: 01/01/2023]
Abstract
Oceans are extremely dynamic environments, which poses challenges for top-predators such as seabirds to find food resources. Yet, seabirds evolved sensorial abilities (olfactory senses) along with complex behaviours (social information transfer through local enhancement) to improve foraging efficiency. Using the Cory's shearwater (Calonectris borealis) as a model species, we developed an individual-based model to explore the complementary role of different searching mechanisms (olfactory foraging and local enhancement) for the optimal foraging behaviour of pelagic seabirds during 1-day foraging trips around breeding colonies. Model outputs were compared with observed patterns of Cory's shearwaters distribution during local foraging trips. Also, the foraging efficiency of virtual individuals was analysed considering hypothetical scenarios of foraging conditions and densities of foraging individuals around breeding colonies. The results support the use of a combination of searching strategies by Cory's shearwaters, which produced representative patterns of space use from tracked individuals, including spatial foraging segregation of neighbouring sub-colonies. Furthermore, while the mechanisms underpinning local enhancement played a key role in mitigating sub-optimal foraging conditions, the use of olfactory senses conferred great adaptive foraging advantages over a wide range of environmental conditions. Our results also indicate a synergistic effect between the two strategies, which suggests that a multimodal foraging strategy is useful to forage in extremely dynamic environments. The developed model provides a basis for further investigation regarding the role of foraging mechanisms in the population dynamics of colonial animals, including the adaptive foraging behaviour of marine top predators to dynamic environmental conditions.
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Hoffman CL, Suchak M. Dog rivalry impacts following behavior in a decision-making task involving food. Anim Cogn 2017; 20:689-701. [PMID: 28421298 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-017-1091-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 09/06/2016] [Revised: 03/31/2017] [Accepted: 04/04/2017] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
Abstract
Dogs learn a great deal from humans and other dogs. Previous studies of socially influenced learning between dogs have typically used a highly trained demonstrator dog who is unfamiliar to the observer. Because of this, it is unknown how dynamics between familiar dogs may influence their likelihood of learning from each other. In this study, we tested dogs living together in two-dog households on whether individual dogs' rivalry scores were associated with performance on a local enhancement task. Specifically, we wanted to know whether dog rivalry impacted whether an observer dog would approach a plate from which a demonstrator dog had eaten all available food, or whether the observer dog would approach the adjacent plate that still contained food. Dog rivalry scores were calculated using the Canine Behavioral Assessment and Research Questionnaire and indicated each dog's tendency to engage aggressively with the other household dog. Low-rivalry dogs were more likely to approach the empty plate than high-rivalry dogs when the observer dog was allowed to approach the plates immediately after the demonstrator had moved out of sight. This difference between low- and high-rivalry dogs disappeared, however, when observer dogs had to wait 5 s before approaching the plates. The same pattern was observed during a control condition when a human removed the food from a plate. Compared to low-rivalry dogs, high-rivalry dogs may pay less attention to other dogs due to a low tolerance for having other dogs in close proximity.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christy L Hoffman
- Department of Animal Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation, Canisius College, 2001 Main Street, Buffalo, NY, 14208, USA.
| | - Malini Suchak
- Department of Animal Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation, Canisius College, 2001 Main Street, Buffalo, NY, 14208, USA
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Abstract
Animals often learn through observing their conspecifics. However, the mechanisms of them obtaining useful knowledge during observation are beginning to be understood. This protocol describes a novel social observation task to test the 'local enhancement theory', which proposes that presence of social subjects in an environment facilitates one's understanding of the environments. By combining behavior test and in vivo electrophysiological recording, we found that social observation can facilitate the observer's spatial representation of an unexplored environment. The task protocol was published in Mou and Ji, 2016.
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Affiliation(s)
- Xiang Mou
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA.,Memory and Brain Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA
| | - Daoyun Ji
- Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA.,Department of Neuroscience, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA.,Memory and Brain Research Center, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA
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Abstract
Knowledge of top predator foraging adaptability is imperative for predicting their biological response to environmental variability. While seabirds have developed highly specialised techniques to locate prey, little is known about intraspecific variation in foraging strategies with many studies deriving information from uniform oceanic environments. Australasian gannets (Morus serrator) typically forage in continental shelf regions on small schooling prey. The present study used GPS and video data loggers to compare habitat-specific foraging strategies at two sites of contrasting oceanographic regimes (deep water near the continental shelf edge, n=23; shallow inshore embayment, n=26), in south-eastern Australia. Individuals from the continental shelf site exhibited pelagic foraging behaviours typical of gannet species, using local enhancement to locate and feed on small schooling fish; in contrast only 50% of the individuals from the inshore site foraged offshore, displaying the typical pelagic foraging strategy. The remainder adopted a strategy of searching sand banks in shallow inshore waters in the absence of conspecifics and other predators for large, single prey items. Furthermore, of the individuals foraging inshore, 93% were male, indicating that the inshore strategy may be sex-specific. Large inter-colony differences in Australasian gannets suggest strong plasticity in foraging behaviours, essential for adapting to environmental change.
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Affiliation(s)
- Melanie R Wells
- School of Life and Environmental Sciences (Burwood Campus), Deakin University, Geelong 3125, Australia
| | - Lauren P Angel
- School of Life and Environmental Sciences (Burwood Campus), Deakin University, Geelong 3125, Australia
| | - John P Y Arnould
- School of Life and Environmental Sciences (Burwood Campus), Deakin University, Geelong 3125, Australia
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Roselino AC, Rodrigues AV, Hrncir M. Stingless bees (Melipona scutellaris) learn to associate footprint cues at food sources with a specific reward context. J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol 2016; 202:657-66. [PMID: 27352364 DOI: 10.1007/s00359-016-1104-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2016] [Revised: 06/09/2016] [Accepted: 06/12/2016] [Indexed: 02/08/2023]
Abstract
Foraging insects leave chemical footprints on flowers that subsequent foragers may use as indicators for recent flower visits and, thus, potential resource depletion. Accordingly, foragers should reject food sources presenting these chemical cues. Contrasting this assumption, experimental studies in stingless bees (Apidae, Meliponini), so far, demonstrated an attractive effect of footprints. These findings lead to doubts about the meaning of these chemical cues in natural foraging contexts. Here, we asked whether foragers of stingless bees (Melipona scutellaris) use footprints according to the previously experienced reward level of visited food sources. Bees were trained to artificial flower patches, at which the reward of a flower either decreased or, alternatively, increased after a visit by a forager. Individuals were allowed a total of nine foraging bouts to the patch, after which their preference for visited or unvisited flowers was tested. In the choice tests, bees trained under the decreasing reward context preferred unvisited flowers, whereas individuals trained under the increasing reward context preferred visited flowers. Foragers without experience chose randomly between visited and unvisited flowers. These results demonstrate that M. scutellaris learns to associate unspecific footprint cues at food sources with differential, specific reward contexts, and uses these chemical cues accordingly for their foraging decisions.
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Rose A, Kolar M, Tschapka M, Knörnschild M. Learning where to feed: the use of social information in flower-visiting Pallas' long-tongued bats (Glossophaga soricina). Anim Cogn 2015; 19:251-62. [PMID: 26497984 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-015-0930-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/08/2015] [Revised: 10/07/2015] [Accepted: 10/09/2015] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Abstract
Social learning is a widespread phenomenon among vertebrates that influences various patterns of behaviour and is often reported with respect to foraging behaviour. The use of social information by foraging bats was documented in insectivorous, carnivorous and frugivorous species, but there are little data whether flower-visiting nectarivorous bats (Phyllostomidae: Glossophaginae) can acquire information about food from other individuals. In this study, we conducted an experiment with a demonstrator-observer paradigm to investigate whether flower-visiting Pallas' long-tongued bats (Glossophaga soricina) are able to socially learn novel flower positions via observation of, or interaction with, knowledgeable conspecifics. The results demonstrate that flower-visiting G. soricina are able to use social information for the location of novel flower positions and can thereby reduce energy-costly search efforts. This social transmission is explainable as a result of local enhancement; learning bats might rely on both visual and echo-acoustical perception and are likely to eavesdrop on auditory cues that are emitted by feeding conspecifics. We additionally tested the spatial memory capacity of former demonstrator bats when retrieving a learned flower position, and the results indicate that flower-visiting bats remember a learned flower position after several weeks.
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Affiliation(s)
- Andreas Rose
- Institute of Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics, University of Ulm, Helmholtzstr. 10/1, 89069, Ulm, Germany.
| | - Miriam Kolar
- Institute of Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics, University of Ulm, Helmholtzstr. 10/1, 89069, Ulm, Germany
| | - Marco Tschapka
- Institute of Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics, University of Ulm, Helmholtzstr. 10/1, 89069, Ulm, Germany
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Roosevelt Avenida, Tupper Building 401, Balboa, Panama
| | - Mirjam Knörnschild
- Institute of Evolutionary Ecology and Conservation Genomics, University of Ulm, Helmholtzstr. 10/1, 89069, Ulm, Germany
- Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Roosevelt Avenida, Tupper Building 401, Balboa, Panama
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Abstract
When an individual is faced with choosing between unfamiliar food options, it may benefit initially by choosing the option chosen by other animals so avoiding potentially poisonous food. It is not clear which cues the naïve forager learns from the demonstrator for choosing between food options. To determine firstly which birds (zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata) would copy a demonstrator's choice, in Experiment 1 we presented each observer with a demonstrator feeding from one of two differently coloured feeders and then tested the observer's feeder colour preference. Of the same-sex/mixed-sex demonstrator-observer pairs tested only females copied male demonstrators. In Experiment 2, birds did not prefer either feeder colour in the absence of demonstrators confirming the social learning effect observed in Experiment 1. In Experiment 3, copying females fed significantly more at the feeder of the demonstrated colour, rather than at the location of the demonstrated feeder. These data point not just to the identity of the individual to be copied but also to the kind of information learned.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Susan D Healy
- School of Biology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, UK
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Bijleveld AI, van Gils JA, Jouta J, Piersma T. Benefits of foraging in small groups: An experimental study on public information use in red knots Calidris canutus. Behav Processes 2014; 117:74-81. [PMID: 25218106 DOI: 10.1016/j.beproc.2014.09.003] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/01/2014] [Revised: 08/28/2014] [Accepted: 09/02/2014] [Indexed: 11/20/2022]
Abstract
Social foraging is common and may provide benefits of safety and public information. Public information permits faster and more accurate estimates of patch resource densities, thus allowing more effective foraging. In this paper we report on two experiments with red knots Calidris canutus, socially foraging shorebirds that eat bivalves on intertidal mudflats. The first experiment was designed to show that red knots are capable of using public information, and whether dominance status or sex affected its use. We showed that knots can detect the foraging success of conspecifics and choose a patch accordingly. Neither dominance status nor sex influenced public information use. In the second experiment, by manipulating group size, we investigated whether public information use affected food-patch discovery rates and patch residence times. We showed that the time needed before locating a food patch decreased in proportion to group size. Also, an individual's number of patch visits before locating the food declined with group size, and, to our surprise, their average patch residence time did as well. Moreover, knots differed in their search strategy in that some birds consistently exploited the searching efforts of others. We conclude that socially foraging knots have the potential to greatly increase their food-finding rate by using public information. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: In Honor of Jerry Hogan.
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Affiliation(s)
- Allert I Bijleveld
- Department of Marine Ecology, NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, 1790 AB Den Burg, Texel, The Netherlands.
| | - Jan A van Gils
- Department of Marine Ecology, NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, 1790 AB Den Burg, Texel, The Netherlands
| | - Jeltje Jouta
- Department of Marine Ecology, NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, 1790 AB Den Burg, Texel, The Netherlands
| | - Theunis Piersma
- Department of Marine Ecology, NIOZ Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, 1790 AB Den Burg, Texel, The Netherlands; Chair in Global Flyway Ecology, Animal Ecology Group, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Studies (CEES), University of Groningen, PO Box 11103, 9700 CC, Groningen, The Netherlands
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