Intra-individual variation in cognitive abilities has been widely reported in animals. Recent studies have found that individual cognitive performance varies with personality traits in a wide range of animal taxa, with a speed-accuracy trade-off between cognition and personality traits. Few studies investigated whether these relationships change depending on different contexts. Here we investigate whether the personality trait (as measured by exploratory behavior in a novel environment) is associated with cognition (novel skill learning and spatial memory) in wild male chestnut thrushes Turdus rubrocanus. Using an experimental novel skill learning task set-up, we found that fast-exploring individuals explored the experimental device (a cardboard with eight opaque cups) sooner than slow-exploring individuals. Exploratory behavior was not associated with individual spatial memory performances or an individual ’s capacity to learn the novel skill. Learning speed was positively associated with the difficulty of learning phases, and fast-exploring individuals used less trials to meet the learning criterion. In addition, fast-exploring individuals took less time to complete the 24-hour spatial memory test, but the accuracy of the test was not significantly different between individuals who were more or less exploratory. We suggest that variation in personality traits associates with individual learning speed in cognitive tasks, and that this relationship is context-dependent.
{"title":"Exploratory behavior is associated with the cognitive speed in male chestnut thrushes","authors":"Yingqiang Lou, Yuqi Zou, Yun Fang, Yuehua Sun","doi":"10.1093/cz/zoad055","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoad055","url":null,"abstract":"Intra-individual variation in cognitive abilities has been widely reported in animals. Recent studies have found that individual cognitive performance varies with personality traits in a wide range of animal taxa, with a speed-accuracy trade-off between cognition and personality traits. Few studies investigated whether these relationships change depending on different contexts. Here we investigate whether the personality trait (as measured by exploratory behavior in a novel environment) is associated with cognition (novel skill learning and spatial memory) in wild male chestnut thrushes Turdus rubrocanus. Using an experimental novel skill learning task set-up, we found that fast-exploring individuals explored the experimental device (a cardboard with eight opaque cups) sooner than slow-exploring individuals. Exploratory behavior was not associated with individual spatial memory performances or an individual ’s capacity to learn the novel skill. Learning speed was positively associated with the difficulty of learning phases, and fast-exploring individuals used less trials to meet the learning criterion. In addition, fast-exploring individuals took less time to complete the 24-hour spatial memory test, but the accuracy of the test was not significantly different between individuals who were more or less exploratory. We suggest that variation in personality traits associates with individual learning speed in cognitive tasks, and that this relationship is context-dependent.","PeriodicalId":50599,"journal":{"name":"Current Zoology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138538883","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rocío Prieto, M Cecilia De Mársico, Juan C Reboreda, Romina C Scardamaglia
Juveniles of interspecific avian brood parasites need to locate and recognize conspecifics to continue their life cycle after being reared by individuals of another species. However, little is known about the recognition mechanisms and cues involved in this critical stage of their lives. It has been proposed that adult parasites could show some kind of parental behavior by actively searching and interacting with conspecific young, which in turn could serve the juveniles to learn and/or reinforce the learning of conspecific characteristics. Since acoustic communication is one of the main channels used by birds, if such form of parental behavior by adult avian brood parasites does exist, adult cowbirds should recognize and respond positively to vocalizations of conspecific juveniles. We experimentally tested whether adult shiny Molothrus bonariensis and screaming M. rufoaxillaris cowbirds respond positively towards acoustic signals of conspecific juveniles using two playback experiments, one conducted in semi-captivity and the other in the field. In both cases, we presented three types of playbacks to adults of both cowbird species: vocalizations of shiny cowbird juveniles, vocalizations of screaming cowbird juveniles, and white noise as a control. In the experiment in semi-captivity, no significant differences were found between treatments. In the field experiment, no conspecifics approached the playback area, but hosts of the species whose playback was played were attracted to the loudspeaker. In conclusion, our results do not support the predictions we tested from the parental behavior hypothesis and indicate that adult shiny and screaming cowbirds do not respond positively to acoustic signals of conspecific juveniles, at least not to the type of signals used in our experiments.
{"title":"Lack of response to conspecific juvenile vocalizations in two avian brood parasites","authors":"Rocío Prieto, M Cecilia De Mársico, Juan C Reboreda, Romina C Scardamaglia","doi":"10.1093/cz/zoad053","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoad053","url":null,"abstract":"Juveniles of interspecific avian brood parasites need to locate and recognize conspecifics to continue their life cycle after being reared by individuals of another species. However, little is known about the recognition mechanisms and cues involved in this critical stage of their lives. It has been proposed that adult parasites could show some kind of parental behavior by actively searching and interacting with conspecific young, which in turn could serve the juveniles to learn and/or reinforce the learning of conspecific characteristics. Since acoustic communication is one of the main channels used by birds, if such form of parental behavior by adult avian brood parasites does exist, adult cowbirds should recognize and respond positively to vocalizations of conspecific juveniles. We experimentally tested whether adult shiny Molothrus bonariensis and screaming M. rufoaxillaris cowbirds respond positively towards acoustic signals of conspecific juveniles using two playback experiments, one conducted in semi-captivity and the other in the field. In both cases, we presented three types of playbacks to adults of both cowbird species: vocalizations of shiny cowbird juveniles, vocalizations of screaming cowbird juveniles, and white noise as a control. In the experiment in semi-captivity, no significant differences were found between treatments. In the field experiment, no conspecifics approached the playback area, but hosts of the species whose playback was played were attracted to the loudspeaker. In conclusion, our results do not support the predictions we tested from the parental behavior hypothesis and indicate that adult shiny and screaming cowbirds do not respond positively to acoustic signals of conspecific juveniles, at least not to the type of signals used in our experiments.","PeriodicalId":50599,"journal":{"name":"Current Zoology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138538878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We are far from knowing all species living on the planet. Understanding biodiversity is demanding and requires time and expertise. Most groups are understudied given problems of identifying and delimiting species. DNA barcoding emerged to overcome some of the difficulties in identifying species. Its limitations derive from incomplete taxonomic knowledge and the lack of comprehensive DNA barcode libraries for so many taxonomic groups. Here, we evaluate how useful barcoding is for identifying arthropods from highly diverse leaf litter communities in the southern Appalachian Mountains (USA). We used three reference databases and several automated classification methods on a data set including several arthropod groups. Acari, Araneae, Collembola, Coleoptera, Diptera, and Hymenoptera were well represented, showing different performances across methods and databases. Spiders performed the best, with correct identifications rates to species and genus levels of ~50% across databases. Springtails performed poorly, no barcodes were identified to species or genus. Other groups showed poor to mediocre performance, from around 3% (mites) to 20% (beetles) correctly identified barcodes to species, but also with some false identifications. In general, BOLD-based identification offered the best identification results but, in all cases except spiders, performance is poor, with less than a fifth of specimens correctly identified to genus or species. Our results indicate that the soil arthropod fauna is still insufficiently documented, with many species unrepresented in DNA barcode libraries. More effort toward integrative taxonomic characterization is needed to complete our reference libraries before we can rely on DNA barcoding as a universally applicable identification method.
{"title":"Most soil and litter arthropods are unidentifiable based on current DNA barcode reference libraries","authors":"Ernesto Recuero, Frank E Etzler, Michael Caterino","doi":"10.1093/cz/zoad051","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoad051","url":null,"abstract":"We are far from knowing all species living on the planet. Understanding biodiversity is demanding and requires time and expertise. Most groups are understudied given problems of identifying and delimiting species. DNA barcoding emerged to overcome some of the difficulties in identifying species. Its limitations derive from incomplete taxonomic knowledge and the lack of comprehensive DNA barcode libraries for so many taxonomic groups. Here, we evaluate how useful barcoding is for identifying arthropods from highly diverse leaf litter communities in the southern Appalachian Mountains (USA). We used three reference databases and several automated classification methods on a data set including several arthropod groups. Acari, Araneae, Collembola, Coleoptera, Diptera, and Hymenoptera were well represented, showing different performances across methods and databases. Spiders performed the best, with correct identifications rates to species and genus levels of ~50% across databases. Springtails performed poorly, no barcodes were identified to species or genus. Other groups showed poor to mediocre performance, from around 3% (mites) to 20% (beetles) correctly identified barcodes to species, but also with some false identifications. In general, BOLD-based identification offered the best identification results but, in all cases except spiders, performance is poor, with less than a fifth of specimens correctly identified to genus or species. Our results indicate that the soil arthropod fauna is still insufficiently documented, with many species unrepresented in DNA barcode libraries. More effort toward integrative taxonomic characterization is needed to complete our reference libraries before we can rely on DNA barcoding as a universally applicable identification method.","PeriodicalId":50599,"journal":{"name":"Current Zoology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-11-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138538891","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Human activities affect bird behavior both directly and indirectly. Birds constantly regulate their behavior in response to human disturbance. Gun hunting, a major directional disturbance, puts enormous selection pressure on birds. In China, gun bans have been in place for nearly 30 years, and little hunting using guns occurs in modern cities. However, little attention has been paid to whether a history of hunting still affects the behavioral adaptations of urban birds. In this study, we compared the flight initiation distance (FID) of the Eurasian tree sparrow Passer montanus, Azure-winged magpie Cyanopica cynaus, Common hoopoe Upupa epops and Eurasian magpie Pica pica in the presence of observers with or without popguns. The Eurasian tree sparrow, Azure-winged magpie, and Eurasian magpie effectively recognized the difference between the observers, and perceived the armed observer as a greater threat, exhibiting earlier escape behavior, but this phenomenon was not found in the Common hoopoe. The different expression in FID of experimental bird species in China cities may be affected by the different levels of recognition of hunting pressure due to different hunting histories.
{"title":"Responses of birds to observers holding popguns: Hunting history influences escape behavior of urban birds","authors":"Kaiqi Yuan, Shuang Yang, Jianping Liu, Wei Liang","doi":"10.1093/cz/zoad049","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoad049","url":null,"abstract":"Human activities affect bird behavior both directly and indirectly. Birds constantly regulate their behavior in response to human disturbance. Gun hunting, a major directional disturbance, puts enormous selection pressure on birds. In China, gun bans have been in place for nearly 30 years, and little hunting using guns occurs in modern cities. However, little attention has been paid to whether a history of hunting still affects the behavioral adaptations of urban birds. In this study, we compared the flight initiation distance (FID) of the Eurasian tree sparrow Passer montanus, Azure-winged magpie Cyanopica cynaus, Common hoopoe Upupa epops and Eurasian magpie Pica pica in the presence of observers with or without popguns. The Eurasian tree sparrow, Azure-winged magpie, and Eurasian magpie effectively recognized the difference between the observers, and perceived the armed observer as a greater threat, exhibiting earlier escape behavior, but this phenomenon was not found in the Common hoopoe. The different expression in FID of experimental bird species in China cities may be affected by the different levels of recognition of hunting pressure due to different hunting histories.","PeriodicalId":50599,"journal":{"name":"Current Zoology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2023-11-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138538875","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rémi Gerber, Christophe Piscart, Jean-Marc Roussel, Benjamin Bergerot
Abstract Flight is a key feature of the reproduction and dispersal of emerging aquatic insects. However, morphological measurements of insect flight are mostly available for terrestrial taxa and dragonflies, while aquatic insects have been poorly investigated. We analyzed seven flight-related morphological parameters of 32 taxa belonging to five orders of emerging aquatic insects (Ephemeroptera, Trichoptera, Plecoptera, Diptera, and Megaloptera) with different life history traits related to flight (dispersal strategy, voltinism, adult lifespan, and swarming behavior). After correcting for allometry, we used an a priori-free approach to cluster the individuals according to their flight-related morphology. Then, we explored the levels of agreement between these clusters, taxonomy, and several life history traits of the taxa. All orders were scattered among several clusters, suggesting a large range of flight capacities, particularly for Diptera. We found swarming taxa in each cluster, showing that morphological adaptations to swarming are not identical in all aquatic insects. The clusters did not match the expected dispersal capacity of the taxa as derived from the literature or databases. Heavy wide-winged insects notably gathered taxa traditionally described as good or weak dispersers. Flight capacities based on morphology partly matched with the taxonomy and life-history traits of aquatic insect imagoes. Other parameters such as flight propensity, energy stores, and wing kinematics should help refine their flying and dispersal capacity.
{"title":"Morphology-based classification of the flying capacities of aquatic insects: A first attempt","authors":"Rémi Gerber, Christophe Piscart, Jean-Marc Roussel, Benjamin Bergerot","doi":"10.1093/cz/zoad047","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoad047","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Flight is a key feature of the reproduction and dispersal of emerging aquatic insects. However, morphological measurements of insect flight are mostly available for terrestrial taxa and dragonflies, while aquatic insects have been poorly investigated. We analyzed seven flight-related morphological parameters of 32 taxa belonging to five orders of emerging aquatic insects (Ephemeroptera, Trichoptera, Plecoptera, Diptera, and Megaloptera) with different life history traits related to flight (dispersal strategy, voltinism, adult lifespan, and swarming behavior). After correcting for allometry, we used an a priori-free approach to cluster the individuals according to their flight-related morphology. Then, we explored the levels of agreement between these clusters, taxonomy, and several life history traits of the taxa. All orders were scattered among several clusters, suggesting a large range of flight capacities, particularly for Diptera. We found swarming taxa in each cluster, showing that morphological adaptations to swarming are not identical in all aquatic insects. The clusters did not match the expected dispersal capacity of the taxa as derived from the literature or databases. Heavy wide-winged insects notably gathered taxa traditionally described as good or weak dispersers. Flight capacities based on morphology partly matched with the taxonomy and life-history traits of aquatic insect imagoes. Other parameters such as flight propensity, energy stores, and wing kinematics should help refine their flying and dispersal capacity.","PeriodicalId":50599,"journal":{"name":"Current Zoology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135430174","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alexey P Kryukov, Kirill A Kryukov, Kathleen Collier, Bohao Fang, Scott Edwards
Abstract Partial separation of a peripheral population may lead to its divergence and, potentially, speciation due to genetic drift followed by selection and geographic isolation. This process may cause taxonomic uncertainty because reproductive isolation in allopatry cannot be verified directly. The two Nearctic allopatric species of magpies (Aves, Corvidae: Pica) serve as a good example of these problems. The Black-billed magpie Pica hudsonia is widely distributed in North America, whereas the Yellow-billed Magpie Pica nuttalli is endemic to restricted range in California. Their relationships with Palearctic species have been little studied. We obtained complete mitochondrial genomes of both Nearctic magpie species, along with the Eurasian Magpie (Pica pica) and the Oriental Magpie (Pica serica), 20 mitogenomes in total. Phylogenetic analysis reveals a basal position of P. serica, and P. pica as a sister clade to the two Nearctic species. P. hudsonia and P. nuttalli form reciprocal monophyletic subclades, showing recent divergence between and within them. Our data show that the Nearctic magpie lineage diverged from the common ancestor with P. pica, with a single migration wave via the Beringia. Within the Nearctic, we hypothesize a peripatric mode of speciation among Pica taxa due to divergence and separation of the small marginal population in California below the Sierra-Nevada mountains. Diversifying amino acid substitutions in ND4-ND5-ND6 genes along the branch leading to the New World clade may indicate selection for heat-tolerance. Considering the clear phenotypic differences between P. hudsonia and P. nuttalli, our data, showing their reciprocal monophylies and genetic distinctness, is consistent with the two-species taxonomy.
{"title":"Mitogenomics clarifies the position of the Nearctic magpies (Pica hudsonia and Pica nuttalli) within the Holarctic magpie radiation","authors":"Alexey P Kryukov, Kirill A Kryukov, Kathleen Collier, Bohao Fang, Scott Edwards","doi":"10.1093/cz/zoad048","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoad048","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Partial separation of a peripheral population may lead to its divergence and, potentially, speciation due to genetic drift followed by selection and geographic isolation. This process may cause taxonomic uncertainty because reproductive isolation in allopatry cannot be verified directly. The two Nearctic allopatric species of magpies (Aves, Corvidae: Pica) serve as a good example of these problems. The Black-billed magpie Pica hudsonia is widely distributed in North America, whereas the Yellow-billed Magpie Pica nuttalli is endemic to restricted range in California. Their relationships with Palearctic species have been little studied. We obtained complete mitochondrial genomes of both Nearctic magpie species, along with the Eurasian Magpie (Pica pica) and the Oriental Magpie (Pica serica), 20 mitogenomes in total. Phylogenetic analysis reveals a basal position of P. serica, and P. pica as a sister clade to the two Nearctic species. P. hudsonia and P. nuttalli form reciprocal monophyletic subclades, showing recent divergence between and within them. Our data show that the Nearctic magpie lineage diverged from the common ancestor with P. pica, with a single migration wave via the Beringia. Within the Nearctic, we hypothesize a peripatric mode of speciation among Pica taxa due to divergence and separation of the small marginal population in California below the Sierra-Nevada mountains. Diversifying amino acid substitutions in ND4-ND5-ND6 genes along the branch leading to the New World clade may indicate selection for heat-tolerance. Considering the clear phenotypic differences between P. hudsonia and P. nuttalli, our data, showing their reciprocal monophylies and genetic distinctness, is consistent with the two-species taxonomy.","PeriodicalId":50599,"journal":{"name":"Current Zoology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135455126","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-18DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2310.11781
Peladeau, Côme, Peeters, Geoffroy
Blind Estimation of Audio Effects (BE-AFX) aims at estimating the Audio Effects (AFXs) applied to an original, unprocessed audio sample solely based on the processed audio sample. To train such a system traditional approaches optimize a loss between ground truth and estimated AFX parameters. This involves knowing the exact implementation of the AFXs used for the process. In this work, we propose an alternative solution that eliminates the requirement for knowing this implementation. Instead, we introduce an auto-encoder approach, which optimizes an audio quality metric. We explore, suggest, and compare various implementations of commonly used mastering AFXs, using differential signal processing or neural approximations. Our findings demonstrate that our auto-encoder approach yields superior estimates of the audio quality produced by a chain of AFXs, compared to the traditional parameter-based approach, even if the latter provides a more accurate parameter estimation.
{"title":"Blind estimation of audio effects using an auto-encoder approach and\u0000 differentiable signal processing","authors":"Peladeau, Côme, Peeters, Geoffroy","doi":"10.48550/arxiv.2310.11781","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2310.11781","url":null,"abstract":"Blind Estimation of Audio Effects (BE-AFX) aims at estimating the Audio Effects (AFXs) applied to an original, unprocessed audio sample solely based on the processed audio sample. To train such a system traditional approaches optimize a loss between ground truth and estimated AFX parameters. This involves knowing the exact implementation of the AFXs used for the process. In this work, we propose an alternative solution that eliminates the requirement for knowing this implementation. Instead, we introduce an auto-encoder approach, which optimizes an audio quality metric. We explore, suggest, and compare various implementations of commonly used mastering AFXs, using differential signal processing or neural approximations. Our findings demonstrate that our auto-encoder approach yields superior estimates of the audio quality produced by a chain of AFXs, compared to the traditional parameter-based approach, even if the latter provides a more accurate parameter estimation.","PeriodicalId":50599,"journal":{"name":"Current Zoology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135889499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Giulia Cimarelli, Magdelena Juskaite, Friederike Range, Sarah Marshall-Pescini
Abstract Social learning is a mechanism used by many species to efficiently gain information about their environment. Although many animals live in an environment where members of other species are present, little is known about inter-specific social learning. Domesticated and urbanized species provide the opportunity to investigate whether non-human animals can learn from heterospecifics such as humans, who are integral parts of their social landscape. Although domestic dogs Canis familiaris have been intensively researched for their ability to learn from humans, most studies have focused on dogs living as pets. However, free-ranging dogs represent the majority of the world’s dog population, they live alongside humans, scavenge on human refuse, and are subjected to natural and sexual selection. Thus, free-ranging dogs with extensive exposure to humans and their artifacts provide the opportunity to investigate inter-specific social learning in a naturalistic setting, where learning from humans might be a benefit for them. Here we tested individual free-ranging dogs in a between-subject design: dogs in the control group could spontaneously choose between two novel and differently patterned food-delivering boxes. In the experimental group, instead, dogs could first observe an unfamiliar human approaching and eating from one of the two boxes. We provide the first evidence that free-ranging dogs match the choice of an unfamiliar human. These results show that at least simple forms of inter-specific social learning might be involved in dogs’ success in living alongside humans in a complex urbanized environment.
{"title":"Free-ranging dogs match a human’s preference in a foraging task","authors":"Giulia Cimarelli, Magdelena Juskaite, Friederike Range, Sarah Marshall-Pescini","doi":"10.1093/cz/zoad046","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoad046","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Social learning is a mechanism used by many species to efficiently gain information about their environment. Although many animals live in an environment where members of other species are present, little is known about inter-specific social learning. Domesticated and urbanized species provide the opportunity to investigate whether non-human animals can learn from heterospecifics such as humans, who are integral parts of their social landscape. Although domestic dogs Canis familiaris have been intensively researched for their ability to learn from humans, most studies have focused on dogs living as pets. However, free-ranging dogs represent the majority of the world’s dog population, they live alongside humans, scavenge on human refuse, and are subjected to natural and sexual selection. Thus, free-ranging dogs with extensive exposure to humans and their artifacts provide the opportunity to investigate inter-specific social learning in a naturalistic setting, where learning from humans might be a benefit for them. Here we tested individual free-ranging dogs in a between-subject design: dogs in the control group could spontaneously choose between two novel and differently patterned food-delivering boxes. In the experimental group, instead, dogs could first observe an unfamiliar human approaching and eating from one of the two boxes. We provide the first evidence that free-ranging dogs match the choice of an unfamiliar human. These results show that at least simple forms of inter-specific social learning might be involved in dogs’ success in living alongside humans in a complex urbanized environment.","PeriodicalId":50599,"journal":{"name":"Current Zoology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135766417","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction to: Niche differentiation among facultative filter feeders: Insights from invasive Ponto-Caspian mysids","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/cz/zoad044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/cz/zoad044","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":50599,"journal":{"name":"Current Zoology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135300634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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