Pub Date : 2024-08-06DOI: 10.1101/2024.08.02.606104
Sarah Josephine Stednitz, Andrew Lesak, Adeline L Fecker, Peregrine Painter, Phil Washbourne, Luca Mazzucato, Ethan K Scott
Social behavior across animal species ranges from simple pairwise interactions to thousands of individuals coordinating goal-directed movements. Regardless of the scale, these interactions are governed by the interplay between multimodal sensory information and the internal state of each animal. Here, we investigate how animals use multiple sensory modalities to guide social behavior in the highly social zebrafish (Danio rerio) and uncover the complex features of pairwise interactions early in development. To identify distinct behaviors and understand how they vary over time, we developed a new hidden Markov model with constrained linear-model emissions to automatically classify states of coordinated interaction, using the movements of one animal to predict those of another. We discovered that social behaviors alternate between two interaction states within a single experimental session, distinguished by unique movements and timescales. Long-range interactions, akin to shoaling, rely on vision, while mechanosensation underlies rapid synchronized movements and parallel swimming, precursors of schooling. Altogether, we observe spontaneous interactions in pairs of fish, develop novel hidden Markov modeling to reveal two fundamental interaction modes, and identify the sensory systems involved in each. Our modeling approach to pairwise social interactions has broad applicability to a wide variety of naturalistic behaviors and species and solves the challenge of detecting transient couplings between quasi-periodic time series.
{"title":"Probabilistic modeling reveals coordinated social interaction states and their multisensory bases","authors":"Sarah Josephine Stednitz, Andrew Lesak, Adeline L Fecker, Peregrine Painter, Phil Washbourne, Luca Mazzucato, Ethan K Scott","doi":"10.1101/2024.08.02.606104","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.08.02.606104","url":null,"abstract":"Social behavior across animal species ranges from simple pairwise interactions to thousands of individuals coordinating goal-directed movements. Regardless of the scale, these interactions are governed by the interplay between multimodal sensory information and the internal state of each animal. Here, we investigate how animals use multiple sensory modalities to guide social behavior in the highly social zebrafish (<em>Danio rerio</em>) and uncover the complex features of pairwise interactions early in development. To identify distinct behaviors and understand how they vary over time, we developed a new hidden Markov model with constrained linear-model emissions to automatically classify states of coordinated interaction, using the movements of one animal to predict those of another. We discovered that social behaviors alternate between two interaction states within a single experimental session, distinguished by unique movements and timescales. Long-range interactions, akin to shoaling, rely on vision, while mechanosensation underlies rapid synchronized movements and parallel swimming, precursors of schooling. Altogether, we observe spontaneous interactions in pairs of fish, develop novel hidden Markov modeling to reveal two fundamental interaction modes, and identify the sensory systems involved in each. Our modeling approach to pairwise social interactions has broad applicability to a wide variety of naturalistic behaviors and species and solves the challenge of detecting transient couplings between quasi-periodic time series.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933444","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-06DOI: 10.1101/2024.08.04.606559
Avantika Deep Sharma, Aravind Sridharan, Kavita Isvaran
Social interactions across taxa are often mediated through multiple signals. Studies examining the maintenance of multiple signals are mostly focused on males and often fail to capture female signalling diversity and strategies. In the recent decade, there has been a surge in the documentation of female signalling, however, our understanding of the functional relevance of multiple signals in females still lags behind. In this study, we examined multiple signals in females of an arboreal gliding lizard, Draco dussumieri, and compared them to those in males. We specifically tested the relative role of the backup signal and the multiple receiver hypotheses in the maintenance of multiple signals in both sexes. Female D.dussumieri used a variety of signals to socially interact with conspecifics, especially using their dewlap. The signalling repertoire of females was as diverse as that of males, although the relative use of the signals varied. In females, a few signals seem to be maintained by the backup signal hypothesis, with limited support for the multiple receiver hypothesis as well. For males too, both mechanisms appeared to maintain multiple signals. Interestingly, for some signals, the sexes differed in the context in which they used a given signal. Overall, these findings highlight the functional role of multiple signals in females, which can differ from that observed in males. Therefore, traits conventionally considered male-exclusive when also examined in females can provide finer insights into trait function and evolution.
{"title":"Decoding the Dewlap: Multiple signals in females and males of a gliding lizard","authors":"Avantika Deep Sharma, Aravind Sridharan, Kavita Isvaran","doi":"10.1101/2024.08.04.606559","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.08.04.606559","url":null,"abstract":"Social interactions across taxa are often mediated through multiple signals. Studies examining the maintenance of multiple signals are mostly focused on males and often fail to capture female signalling diversity and strategies. In the recent decade, there has been a surge in the documentation of female signalling, however, our understanding of the functional relevance of multiple signals in females still lags behind. In this study, we examined multiple signals in females of an arboreal gliding lizard, <em>Draco dussumieri</em>, and compared them to those in males. We specifically tested the relative role of the backup signal and the multiple receiver hypotheses in the maintenance of multiple signals in both sexes. Female <em>D.dussumieri</em> used a variety of signals to socially interact with conspecifics, especially using their dewlap. The signalling repertoire of females was as diverse as that of males, although the relative use of the signals varied. In females, a few signals seem to be maintained by the backup signal hypothesis, with limited support for the multiple receiver hypothesis as well. For males too, both mechanisms appeared to maintain multiple signals. Interestingly, for some signals, the sexes differed in the context in which they used a given signal. Overall, these findings highlight the functional role of multiple signals in females, which can differ from that observed in males. Therefore, traits conventionally considered male-exclusive when also examined in females can provide finer insights into trait function and evolution.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-06DOI: 10.1101/2024.08.03.606274
Andrew R. Ryan, Annetta Zintl, Laura L. Griffin, Matthew Quinn, Amy Haigh, Pietro Sabbatini, Bawan Amin, Simone Ciuti
Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is a trophically-transmitted protozoan parasite that has been suggested to facilitate its transmission by altering intermediate hosts’ anti-predator behaviour, thus increasing the likelihood of completing the cycle inside its definitive host i.e. domestic and wild felines. T. gondii has been linked to reduced risk-aversion, slower reaction times, and more exploratory behaviours in intermediate hosts, including most famously weakened aversion to the scent of feline predators in mice. Studies examining this phenomenon, however, have almost exclusively been carried out in laboratory conditions with small mammals, whereas little is known about the role of T. gondii within more complex ecological contexts involving large mammals in the wild. Under such scenario, the goals of our study were three-fold. Firstly, to determine the prevalence of T. gondii infection in a population of free-living fallow deer (Dama dama) living in a park at the edge of a metropolis. Secondly, to find a link between deer seropositivity and space use in the park, namely proximity to buildings with domestic cats, where deer may have been more likely to contract the disease. Finally, to determine whether infection with T. gondii was linked to risk taking behaviour in these free ranging large mammals, namely likelihood to approach park visitors. To achieve our goals, we estimated seropositivity and combined it with spatial distribution and behavioural data of individually-recognizable deer ranging from those that avoid humans (risk-avoiders) to those who beg for food (risk-takers). We found T. gondii to be quite widespread in this population with a seropositive of 20% (24 out of 120 individuals). Contrary to our expectations, we found no correlation between T. gondii seropositivity and space use in the park, therefore not allowing us to engage with the dynamics of disease contraction. We did however find that fallow deer taking the risk of approaching humans were also more likely to be seropositive. Are risk taking individuals more likely to contract the disease? Or, alternatively, do they take more risk because they have contracted the disease? The causal mechanism behind our result has yet to be disentangled, opening new scenarios in research aimed at tackling host manipulation in this parasite. It is a fact, however, that those animals that were more likely to be in contact with the public were also those more likely to be seropositive, adding key empirical evidence to the study of zoonotic diseases. Our study is a significant contribution on the transmission and maintenance dynamics of T. gondii, offering new insights on the need to conduct longitudinal studies able to disentangle the causal mechanism and T. gondii’s ability to manipulate its intermediate host.
{"title":"Fallow deer approaching humans are also more likely to be seropositive for Toxoplasma gondii","authors":"Andrew R. Ryan, Annetta Zintl, Laura L. Griffin, Matthew Quinn, Amy Haigh, Pietro Sabbatini, Bawan Amin, Simone Ciuti","doi":"10.1101/2024.08.03.606274","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.08.03.606274","url":null,"abstract":"<em>Toxoplasma gondii</em> (<em>T. gondii</em>) is a trophically-transmitted protozoan parasite that has been suggested to facilitate its transmission by altering intermediate hosts’ anti-predator behaviour, thus increasing the likelihood of completing the cycle inside its definitive host i.e. domestic and wild felines. <em>T. gondii</em> has been linked to reduced risk-aversion, slower reaction times, and more exploratory behaviours in intermediate hosts, including most famously weakened aversion to the scent of feline predators in mice. Studies examining this phenomenon, however, have almost exclusively been carried out in laboratory conditions with small mammals, whereas little is known about the role of <em>T. gondii</em> within more complex ecological contexts involving large mammals in the wild. Under such scenario, the goals of our study were three-fold. Firstly, to determine the prevalence of <em>T. gondii</em> infection in a population of free-living fallow deer (<em>Dama dama</em>) living in a park at the edge of a metropolis. Secondly, to find a link between deer seropositivity and space use in the park, namely proximity to buildings with domestic cats, where deer may have been more likely to contract the disease. Finally, to determine whether infection with <em>T. gondii</em> was linked to risk taking behaviour in these free ranging large mammals, namely likelihood to approach park visitors. To achieve our goals, we estimated seropositivity and combined it with spatial distribution and behavioural data of individually-recognizable deer ranging from those that avoid humans (risk-avoiders) to those who beg for food (risk-takers). We found <em>T. gondii</em> to be quite widespread in this population with a seropositive of 20% (24 out of 120 individuals). Contrary to our expectations, we found no correlation between <em>T. gondii</em> seropositivity and space use in the park, therefore not allowing us to engage with the dynamics of disease contraction. We did however find that fallow deer taking the risk of approaching humans were also more likely to be seropositive. Are risk taking individuals more likely to contract the disease? Or, alternatively, do they take more risk because they have contracted the disease? The causal mechanism behind our result has yet to be disentangled, opening new scenarios in research aimed at tackling host manipulation in this parasite. It is a fact, however, that those animals that were more likely to be in contact with the public were also those more likely to be seropositive, adding key empirical evidence to the study of zoonotic diseases. Our study is a significant contribution on the transmission and maintenance dynamics of <em>T. gondii</em>, offering new insights on the need to conduct longitudinal studies able to disentangle the causal mechanism and <em>T. gondii</em>’s ability to manipulate its intermediate host.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"75 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-06DOI: 10.1101/2024.08.02.606436
Willem L Weertman, Venkatesh Gopal, Dominic M Sivitilli, David Scheel, David Henry Gire
Odor-plume-guided navigation, tracking an odor plume to its source, is a primordial behavior used by most animals to search beyond the visual range. Here we report the first laboratory observations of octopuses performing this behavior, demonstrating that they can use odor plumes to find food. In a three-station discrimination task carried out in the dark, octopus showed a strong preference to move upstream towards the food-baited target, supporting the hypothesis that they are performing odor-guided search. When seeking a single baited target, also in the dark, octopuses not only preferred to move upstream towards the food source, but they also displayed characteristic motions associated with odor-gated rheotaxis, a commonly used odor tracking strategy used by many animals, which includes pausing, switchbacks, and across-stream redirections to the bait. Additionally, when approaching single baited stations the octopus often made reactive fast lunging motions. The observation of these fast arm-aligned motions (FAAM), taken together with the observation that the octopus did not have a characteristic body axis orientation to the bait, as would be expected if bilaterally symmetric organs such as the olfactory pits guided this behavior, supports the hypothesis that the suckers are the primary chemosensory organs driving octopus odor-guided behaviors. Currently, there is uncertainty about the function of the olfactory pits. Our work suggests that their role is perhaps exclusively in mediating reproduction and appetite.
{"title":"Octopus can use odor plumes to find food","authors":"Willem L Weertman, Venkatesh Gopal, Dominic M Sivitilli, David Scheel, David Henry Gire","doi":"10.1101/2024.08.02.606436","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.08.02.606436","url":null,"abstract":"Odor-plume-guided navigation, tracking an odor plume to its source, is a primordial behavior used by most animals to search beyond the visual range. Here we report the first laboratory observations of octopuses performing this behavior, demonstrating that they can use odor plumes to find food. In a three-station discrimination task carried out in the dark, octopus showed a strong preference to move upstream towards the food-baited target, supporting the hypothesis that they are performing odor-guided search. When seeking a single baited target, also in the dark, octopuses not only preferred to move upstream towards the food source, but they also displayed characteristic motions associated with odor-gated rheotaxis, a commonly used odor tracking strategy used by many animals, which includes pausing, switchbacks, and across-stream redirections to the bait. Additionally, when approaching single baited stations the octopus often made reactive fast lunging motions. The observation of these fast arm-aligned motions (FAAM), taken together with the observation that the octopus did not have a characteristic body axis orientation to the bait, as would be expected if bilaterally symmetric organs such as the olfactory pits guided this behavior, supports the hypothesis that the suckers are the primary chemosensory organs driving octopus odor-guided behaviors. Currently, there is uncertainty about the function of the olfactory pits. Our work suggests that their role is perhaps exclusively in mediating reproduction and appetite.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933366","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-06DOI: 10.1101/2024.08.03.605972
Kim Uittenhove, Hatef Otroshi Shahreza, Sébastien Marcel, Meike Ramon
Recent developments in generative AI offer the means to create synthetic identities, or deepfakes, at scale. As deepfake faces and voices become indistinguishable from real ones, they are considered as promising alternatives for research and development to enhance fairness and protect humans’ rights to privacy. Notwithstanding these efforts and intentions, a basic question remains unanswered: Are natural faces and facial deepfakes perceived and remembered in the same way? Using images created via professional photography on the one hand, and a state-of-the-art generative model on the other, we investigated the most studied process of face cognition: perceptual matching and discrimination of facial identity. Our results demonstrate that identity discrimination of natural and synthetic faces is governed by the same underlying perceptual mechanisms: objective stimulus similarity and observers’ ability level. These findings provide empirical support both for the societal risks associated with deepfakes, while also underscoring the utility of synthetic identities for research and development.
{"title":"Synthetic And Natural Face Identity Processing Share Common Mechanisms","authors":"Kim Uittenhove, Hatef Otroshi Shahreza, Sébastien Marcel, Meike Ramon","doi":"10.1101/2024.08.03.605972","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.08.03.605972","url":null,"abstract":"Recent developments in generative AI offer the means to create synthetic identities, or deepfakes, at scale. As deepfake faces and voices become indistinguishable from real ones, they are considered as promising alternatives for research and development to enhance fairness and protect humans’ rights to privacy. Notwithstanding these efforts and intentions, a basic question remains unanswered: Are natural faces and facial deepfakes perceived and remembered in the same way? Using images created via professional photography on the one hand, and a state-of-the-art generative model on the other, we investigated the most studied process of face cognition: perceptual matching and discrimination of facial identity. Our results demonstrate that identity discrimination of natural <em>and</em> synthetic faces is governed by the same underlying perceptual mechanisms: objective stimulus similarity and observers’ ability level. These findings provide empirical support both for the societal risks associated with deepfakes, while also underscoring the utility of synthetic identities for research and development.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"303 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933367","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-05DOI: 10.1101/2024.08.02.606403
Roy Harpaz, Morgan Phillips, Ronan Goel, Florian Engert, Mark C Fishman
Complex group behavior can emerge from simple inter-individual interactions. Commonly, these interactions are considered static and hardwired and little is known about how experience and learning affect collective group behavior. Young larvae use well described visuomotor transformations to guide inter-individual interactions and collective group structure. Here, we use naturalistic and virtual-reality (VR) experiments to impose persistent changes in population density and measure their effects on future visually evoked turning behavior and the resulting changes in group structure. We find that neighbor distances decrease after exposure to higher population densities, and increase after the experience of lower densities. These adaptations develop slowly and gradually, over tens of minutes and remain stable over many hours. Mechanistically, we find that larvae estimate their current group density by tracking the frequency of neighbor-evoked looming events on the retina and couple the strength of their future interactions to that estimate. A time-varying state-space model that modulates agents' social interactions based on their previous visual-social experiences, accurately describes our behavioral observations and predicts novel aspects of behavior. These findings provide concrete evidence that inter-individual interactions are not static, but rather continuously evolve based on past experience and current environmental demands. The underlying neurobiological mechanisms of experience dependent modulation can now be explored in this small and transparent model organism.
{"title":"Experience-dependent modulation of collective behavior in larval zebrafish","authors":"Roy Harpaz, Morgan Phillips, Ronan Goel, Florian Engert, Mark C Fishman","doi":"10.1101/2024.08.02.606403","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.08.02.606403","url":null,"abstract":"Complex group behavior can emerge from simple inter-individual interactions. Commonly, these interactions are considered static and hardwired and little is known about how experience and learning affect collective group behavior. Young larvae use well described visuomotor transformations to guide inter-individual interactions and collective group structure. Here, we use naturalistic and virtual-reality (VR) experiments to impose persistent changes in population density and measure their effects on future visually evoked turning behavior and the resulting changes in group structure. We find that neighbor distances decrease after exposure to higher population densities, and increase after the experience of lower densities. These adaptations develop slowly and gradually, over tens of minutes and remain stable over many hours. Mechanistically, we find that larvae estimate their current group density by tracking the frequency of neighbor-evoked looming events on the retina and couple the strength of their future interactions to that estimate. A time-varying state-space model that modulates agents' social interactions based on their previous visual-social experiences, accurately describes our behavioral observations and predicts novel aspects of behavior. These findings provide concrete evidence that inter-individual interactions are not static, but rather continuously evolve based on past experience and current environmental demands. The underlying neurobiological mechanisms of experience dependent modulation can now be explored in this small and transparent model organism.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"3 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933441","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-03DOI: 10.1101/2024.07.31.606043
Rahul Mondal, Jose Manuel Aburto, Rebecca Sear, Shripad D Tuljapurkar, Udaya Shankar Mishra, Roberto Salguero-Gomez
Temporal variability in inflation can lead to important fluctuations in the long-term growth rate of human populations via their differential impacts on vital rates like survival and fertility. However, historically, demographic studies have overlooked this time-dependent relationship. Here, we test whether human populations have higher stochastic population growth rates when exposed to lower levels of inflation. We also examine if lower survival rates at older ages (>60 years) and fertility rates at the later reproductive years (>30 years) among populations exposed to higher inflation rates determine their expected lower long-term growth rate compared to those exposed to lower inflation rates. To explore the impact of variability in inflation on vital rates response, we develop a quantitative pipeline with four steps, and parameterise it with high-resolution economic and demographic data across 76 countries from 1971-2021. The four steps are (1) defining treatment groups based on levels of trend inflation (creeping inflation (0-3%), walking inflation (3-10%), galloping inflation (10-50%), and hyperinflation (>50%)) among which the stochastic population growth rates will be compared; (2) constructing matrix population models for each environmental state under every treatment. The environmental states for each treatment are defined on the basis of the duration of inflation (e.g., 0, 2, 4, six years or above); (3) estimating the stochastic population growth rate for each treatment by considering a Markovian environment dictated by the long-term frequency (f) and temporal autocorrelation (ρ) of the treatment; and (4) decomposing the differences in the population growth rate between treatments into contributions from environmental variability and vital rate differences between environments to test how vital rates impact on population growth under varying environmental scenarios. In agreement with our hypothesis, we find that the stochastic population growth rate at lower levels of inflation is systematically higher than that at a higher level of inflation at all stationary frequencies and temporal autocorrelation of the inflation environment. Moreover, the disadvantage in survival at older ages (>60 years) and fertility at ages >30 years led to the lower stochastic growth rate among populations exposed to higher level of inflation such as creeping inflation compared to higher level of inflation, such as walking inflation. Our framework explicitly links human population performance and inflation environment by describing nonlinear feedback between inflation, human survival, fertility, population growth, and its age structure. We discuss the potential of our approach to study the life-history strategies and population dynamics of a wide range of drivers of environmental variability.
{"title":"Human populations with low survival at advanced ages and postponed fertility reduce long-term growth in high inflation environments","authors":"Rahul Mondal, Jose Manuel Aburto, Rebecca Sear, Shripad D Tuljapurkar, Udaya Shankar Mishra, Roberto Salguero-Gomez","doi":"10.1101/2024.07.31.606043","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.07.31.606043","url":null,"abstract":"Temporal variability in inflation can lead to important fluctuations in the long-term growth rate of human populations via their differential impacts on vital rates like survival and fertility. However, historically, demographic studies have overlooked this time-dependent relationship. Here, we test whether human populations have higher stochastic population growth rates when exposed to lower levels of inflation. We also examine if lower survival rates at older ages (>60 years) and fertility rates at the later reproductive years (>30 years) among populations exposed to higher inflation rates determine their expected lower long-term growth rate compared to those exposed to lower inflation rates. To explore the impact of variability in inflation on vital rates response, we develop a quantitative pipeline with four steps, and parameterise it with high-resolution economic and demographic data across 76 countries from 1971-2021. The four steps are (1) defining treatment groups based on levels of trend inflation (creeping inflation (0-3%), walking inflation (3-10%), galloping inflation (10-50%), and hyperinflation (>50%)) among which the stochastic population growth rates will be compared; (2) constructing matrix population models for each environmental state under every treatment. The environmental states for each treatment are defined on the basis of the duration of inflation (e.g., 0, 2, 4, six years or above); (3) estimating the stochastic population growth rate for each treatment by considering a Markovian environment dictated by the long-term frequency (f) and temporal autocorrelation (ρ) of the treatment; and (4) decomposing the differences in the population growth rate between treatments into contributions from environmental variability and vital rate differences between environments to test how vital rates impact on population growth under varying environmental scenarios. In agreement with our hypothesis, we find that the stochastic population growth rate at lower levels of inflation is systematically higher than that at a higher level of inflation at all stationary frequencies and temporal autocorrelation of the inflation environment. Moreover, the disadvantage in survival at older ages (>60 years) and fertility at ages >30 years led to the lower stochastic growth rate among populations exposed to higher level of inflation such as creeping inflation compared to higher level of inflation, such as walking inflation. Our framework explicitly links human population performance and inflation environment by describing nonlinear feedback between inflation, human survival, fertility, population growth, and its age structure. We discuss the potential of our approach to study the life-history strategies and population dynamics of a wide range of drivers of environmental variability.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141933443","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-02DOI: 10.1101/2024.08.02.606321
Guniz Goze Eren, Leonard Boger, Marianne Roca, Fumie Hiramatsu, Jun Liu, Luis Alvarez, Desiree L. Goetting, Nurit Zorn, Ziduan Han, Misako Okumura, Monika Scholz, James W Lightfoot
Behaviors are adaptive traits evolving through natural selection. Crucially, the genetic, molecular, and neural modifications that shape behavioral innovations are poorly understood. Here, we identify specialized adaptations linked to the evolution of aggression in the predatory nematode Pristionchus pacificus. Using machine learning, we identified robust behavioral states associated with aggressive episodes. These depend on modifications to the invertebrate noradrenergic pathway, with octopamine promoting predatory bouts, and tyramine antagonistically suppressing predation. Strikingly, aggression coincides with rewiring of key circuits across nematode evolution. We find additional octopaminergic neurons with morphological adaptations, including neurites extending to teeth-like structures, and expanded receptor expression throughout head sensory neurons gating prey detection. Thus, evolutionary adaptations in noradrenergic circuits facilitated the emergence of aggressive behavioral states associated with complex predatory traits.
{"title":"Predatory aggression evolved through adaptations to noradrenergic circuits","authors":"Guniz Goze Eren, Leonard Boger, Marianne Roca, Fumie Hiramatsu, Jun Liu, Luis Alvarez, Desiree L. Goetting, Nurit Zorn, Ziduan Han, Misako Okumura, Monika Scholz, James W Lightfoot","doi":"10.1101/2024.08.02.606321","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.08.02.606321","url":null,"abstract":"Behaviors are adaptive traits evolving through natural selection. Crucially, the genetic, molecular, and neural modifications that shape behavioral innovations are poorly understood. Here, we identify specialized adaptations linked to the evolution of aggression in the predatory nematode Pristionchus pacificus. Using machine learning, we identified robust behavioral states associated with aggressive episodes. These depend on modifications to the invertebrate noradrenergic pathway, with octopamine promoting predatory bouts, and tyramine antagonistically suppressing predation. Strikingly, aggression coincides with rewiring of key circuits across nematode evolution. We find additional octopaminergic neurons with morphological adaptations, including neurites extending to teeth-like structures, and expanded receptor expression throughout head sensory neurons gating prey detection. Thus, evolutionary adaptations in noradrenergic circuits facilitated the emergence of aggressive behavioral states associated with complex predatory traits.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"34 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141884902","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-02DOI: 10.1101/2024.08.02.605822
Jesus E. Madrid, Nicole M. Pranic, Samantha Chu, Johanna J. D. Bergstrom, Rhea Singh, Joclin Rabinovich, Kaycee Arias Lopez, Alexander G. Ophir, Katherine A. Tschida
Social isolation affects the brain and behavior in a variety of animals, including humans. Studies in traditional laboratory rodents, including mice and rats, have supported the idea that short-term social isolation promotes affiliative social behaviors, while long-term isolation promotes anti-social behaviors, including increased aggression. Whether the effects of isolation on the social behaviors of mice and rats generalize to other rodents remains understudied. In the current study, we characterized the effects of short-term (3-days) social isolation on the vocal and non-vocal social behaviors of adult prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) during same-sex and opposite-sex social interactions. Our experiments revealed that short-term isolation did not affect rates of ultrasonic vocalizations or time spent in non-aggressive social behaviors and huddling. In contrast, short-term isolation affected aggression in a sex- and context-specific manner during male-male interactions. Our findings highlight the importance of comparative work across species and the consideration of social context to understand the diverse ways in which social isolation can impact social behavior.
{"title":"Effects of short-term isolation on vocal and non-vocal social behaviors in prairie voles","authors":"Jesus E. Madrid, Nicole M. Pranic, Samantha Chu, Johanna J. D. Bergstrom, Rhea Singh, Joclin Rabinovich, Kaycee Arias Lopez, Alexander G. Ophir, Katherine A. Tschida","doi":"10.1101/2024.08.02.605822","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.08.02.605822","url":null,"abstract":"Social isolation affects the brain and behavior in a variety of animals, including humans. Studies in traditional laboratory rodents, including mice and rats, have supported the idea that short-term social isolation promotes affiliative social behaviors, while long-term isolation promotes anti-social behaviors, including increased aggression. Whether the effects of isolation on the social behaviors of mice and rats generalize to other rodents remains understudied. In the current study, we characterized the effects of short-term (3-days) social isolation on the vocal and non-vocal social behaviors of adult prairie voles (<em>Microtus ochrogaster</em>) during same-sex and opposite-sex social interactions. Our experiments revealed that short-term isolation did not affect rates of ultrasonic vocalizations or time spent in non-aggressive social behaviors and huddling. In contrast, short-term isolation affected aggression in a sex- and context-specific manner during male-male interactions. Our findings highlight the importance of comparative work across species and the consideration of social context to understand the diverse ways in which social isolation can impact social behavior.","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"43 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141884903","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-08-01DOI: 10.1101/2024.07.31.606111
Justin A Harris, Charles Randy Gallistel
More than four decades ago, Gibbon and Balsam (1981) showed that the acquisition of Pavlovian conditioning in pigeons is directly related to the informativeness of the conditioning stimulus (CS) about the unconditioned stimulus (US), where informativeness is defined as the ratio of the US-US interval (C) to the CS-US interval (T). However, the evidence for this relationship in other species has been equivocal. Here, we describe an experiment that measured the acquisition of appetitive Pavlovian conditioning in 14 groups of rats trained with different C/T ratios (ranging from 1.5 to 300) to establish how learning is related to informativeness. We show that the number of trials required for rats to start responding to the CS is determined by the C/T ratio and, remarkably, the specific scalar relationship between the rate of learning and informativeness aligns very closely to that previously obtained with pigeons. We also found that the response rate after extended conditioning is strongly related to T, with the terminal CS response rate being a scalar function of the CS reinforcement rate (1/T). Moreover, this same scalar relationship extended to the rats' response rates during the (never-reinforced) inter-trial interval, which was directly proportional to the contextual rate of reinforcement (1/C). The findings establish that animals encode rates of reinforcement, and that conditioning is directly related to how much information the CS provides about the US. The consistency of the data across species, captured by a simple regression function, suggests a universal model of conditioning
{"title":"Information, certainty, and learning.","authors":"Justin A Harris, Charles Randy Gallistel","doi":"10.1101/2024.07.31.606111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.07.31.606111","url":null,"abstract":"More than four decades ago, Gibbon and Balsam (1981) showed that the acquisition of Pavlovian conditioning in pigeons is directly related to the informativeness of the conditioning stimulus (CS) about the unconditioned stimulus (US), where informativeness is defined as the ratio of the US-US interval (C) to the CS-US interval (T). However, the evidence for this relationship in other species has been equivocal. Here, we describe an experiment that measured the acquisition of appetitive Pavlovian conditioning in 14 groups of rats trained with different C/T ratios (ranging from 1.5 to 300) to establish how learning is related to informativeness. We show that the number of trials required for rats to start responding to the CS is determined by the C/T ratio and, remarkably, the specific scalar relationship between the rate of learning and informativeness aligns very closely to that previously obtained with pigeons. We also found that the response rate after extended conditioning is strongly related to T, with the terminal CS response rate being a scalar function of the CS reinforcement rate (1/T). Moreover, this same scalar relationship extended to the rats' response rates during the (never-reinforced) inter-trial interval, which was directly proportional to the contextual rate of reinforcement (1/C). The findings establish that animals encode rates of reinforcement, and that conditioning is directly related to how much information the CS provides about the US. The consistency of the data across species, captured by a simple regression function, suggests a universal model of conditioning","PeriodicalId":501210,"journal":{"name":"bioRxiv - Animal Behavior and Cognition","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-08-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141884830","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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