314 research outputs found

    Comment concerning cumulative cultural evolution, on M. O'Brien and K.N. Laland 'Genes, culture and agriculture: an example of human niche construction'

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    O’Brien and Laland point out that human culture is exceptional in its cumulative nature. This is often characterized by the ratchet effect, highlighting that high-fidelity social transmission can underpin the accumulation of trait modifications. They also note that the developmental niche-construction processes underlying cultural evolution are understudied. I agree that the evolutionary consequences of culturally constructed learning environments are indeed understudied and that attention to this area may provide a fresh assessment of cumulative cultural evolution. An important focus of cumulative cultural evolution research is in assessing individual cognitive prerequisites that facilitate high-fidelity cultural transmission and the adoption of adaptive innovations (Ehn and Laland 2012). However, it is also important to consider the role of developmental niche construction and the ecological inheritance of learning environments, including forms of symbolic representation and material culture, on cumulative cultural evolution (Cole 1995; Sterelny 2012; Wheeler and Clark 2009). Culturally derived scaffolding for learning can have a direct effect on the differential adoption and retention of cultural traits (cultural selection). For instance, pedagogical traditions in apprenticeships, including traditional patterns of intervention, correction, and collaboration may influence the fidelity of transmission and the potential for cumulative cultural evolution (Gergely and Csibra 2006; Tehrani and Reide 2008; Tennie, Call, and Tomasello 2009). There is also the potential for cumulative cultural evolutionary dynamics to be shaped by forms of symbolic representation. Mathematical history provides particularly obvious examples, where invention of new notation systems, for instance Hindu-Arabic in place of Roman numerals or Feynman diagrams in quantum mechanics, dramatically altered the evolvability of research fields (Gauvain 1998). Thus, for the cumulative cultural evolution of many traits, high-fidelity social transmission and the potential for invention may be critically affected by culturally constructed learning environments (Tennie, Call, and Tomasello 2009). Furthermore, a complete account of cognition required for cumulative cultural evolution may often be reliant on its extension beyond the mind of the individual and on its distributed nature across people and artefacts (Donald 2000; Hutchins 1995, 2008). Without accounting explicitly for the role of developmental niche construction and the ecological inheritance of learning environments, there can be an over- or misattribution of cognitive facility to the mind in order to explain the cumulative cultural evolution of skills such as computational tasks (Hutchins 1995). O’Brien and Laland provide a detailed account of potential gene-culture coevolutionary pathways affecting the cumulative cultural evolution of farming technologies and medicinal practices. A key process in these dynamics is likely to be the niche construction of inherited learning environments, which themselves can be subject to cultural selection and affected by ecological and genetic evolutionary dynamics of human, crop, livestock, and pathogen populations. Thus, the simple ratchet analogy hides complex mechanisms that can result in cumulative cultural evolution of knowledge and beliefs (Tennie, Call, and Tomasello 2009)

    No evidence for individual recognition in threespine or ninespine sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus or Pungitius pungitius)

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    Funding UK NERC NE/D010365/1, ERC Advanced Grant EVOCULTURE (232823).Recognition plays an important role in the formation and organization of animal groups. Many animals are capable of class-level recognition, discriminating, for example, on the basis of species, kinship or familiarity. Individual recognition requires that animals recognize distinct cues, and learn to associate these with the specific individual from which they are derived. In this study, we asked whether sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus and Pungitius pungitius) were capable of learning to recognize individual conspecifics. We have used these fish as model organisms for studying selective social learning, and demonstrating a capacity for individual recognition in these species would provide an exciting opportunity for studying how biases for copying specific individuals shape the dynamics of information transmission. To test for individual recognition, we trained subjects to associate green illumination with the provision of a food reward close to one of two conspecifics, and, for comparison, one of two physical landmarks. Both species were capable of recognizing the rewarded landmark, but neither showed a preference for associating with the rewarded conspecific. Our study provides no evidence for individual recognition in either species. We speculate that the fission–fusion structure of their social groups may not favour a capacity for individual recognition.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

    Space-use and sociability are not related to public-information use in ninespine sticklebacks

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    There has been much recent interest in both public information use, and the evolutionary origins and ecological consequences of animal personalities but surprisingly little integration of these two fields. Personality traits may impact upon the extent to which individuals respond to public information in a number of different ways. As a first step towards addressing some of these questions, in this study, we asked whether personality traits predicted public information use in ninespine sticklebacks (Pungitius pungitius). Over a 33-day period, subjects were scored twice for a number of behavioural traits, including measures of activity, exploration and shoaling tendency, and were exposed multiple times to a public information use foraging task, in which they were required to select the richer of two prey patches based upon the foraging success of two demonstrator groups. The repeatable (r=0.38–0.58) behavioural traits were reduced to two principle components describing space use and sociability. Neither of these was found to be related to either of two measures of public information use. While the personality traits that we considered did not co-vary with public information use in this species, they may well indirectly affect opportunity for exposure to public information, and this is an obvious avenue for further research.PostprintPeer reviewe

    Extended spider cognition

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    HFJ received a visiting professor fellowship from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento CientĂ­fico e TecnolĂłgico (CNPq - Brazil) (PDE PDE232691/2014-2). Research supported in part by a Grant from the John Templeton Foundation to KNL.There is a tension between the conception of cognition as a central nervous system (CNS) process, and a view of cognition as extending towards the body or the contiguous environment. The centralised conception requires large or complex nervous systems to cope with complex environments. Conversely, the extended conception involves the outsourcing of information processing to the body or environment, thus making fewer demands on the processing power of the CNS. The evolution of extended cognition should be particularly favoured among small, generalist predators such as spiders, and here we review the literature to evaluate the fit of empirical data with these contrasting models of cognition. Spiders do not seem to be cognitively limited, displaying a large diversity of learning processes, from habituation to contextual learning, including a sense of numerosity. To tease apart the central from the extended cognition, we apply the mutual manipulability criterion, testing the existence of reciprocal causal links between the putative elements of the system. We conclude that the web threads and configurations are integral parts of the cognitive systems. The extension of cognition to the web helps to explain some puzzling features of spider behaviour and seems to promote evolvability within the group, enhancing innovation through cognitive connectivity to variable habitat features. Graded changes in relative brain size could also be explained by outsourcing information processing to environmental features. More generally, niche-constructed structures emerge as prime candidates for extending animal cognition, generating the selective pressures that help to shape the evolving cognitive system.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

    Skill learning and the evolution of social learning mechanisms

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    This research was supported by a grant from The John Templeton Foundation.Background. Social learning is potentially advantageous, but evolutionary theory predicts that (i) its benefits may be self-limiting because social learning can lead to information parasitism, and (ii) these limitations can be mitigated via forms of selective copying. However, these findings arise from a functional approach in which learning mechanisms are not specified, and which assumes that social learning avoids the costs of asocial learning but does not produce information about the environment. Whether these findings generalize to all kinds of social learning remains to be established. Using a detailed multi-scale evolutionary model, we investigate the payoffs and information production processes of specific social learning mechanisms (including local enhancement, stimulus enhancement and observational learning) and their evolutionary consequences in the context of skill learning in foraging groups. Results. We find that local enhancement does not benefit foraging success, but could evolve as a side-effect of grouping. In contrast, stimulus enhancement and observational learning can be beneficial across a wide range of environmental conditions because they generate opportunities for new learning outcomes. Conclusions. In contrast to much existing theory, we find that the functional outcomes of social learning are mechanism specific. Social learning nearly always produces information about the environment, and does not always avoid the costs of asocial learning or support information parasitism. Our study supports work emphasizing the value of incorporating mechanistic detail in functional analyses.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

    Experience shapes social information use in foraging fish

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    Funding: This work was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NE/D010365/1) to K.N.L.Many species of animal use social information, and in a variety of different contexts, but it is not clear to what degree their ability to do this depends upon their prior experience of the association between the behaviour of others and reward. We addressed this question in an experiment in which two stickleback species (Gasterosteus aculeatus and Pungitius pungitius) were exposed to a novel feeding task and then tested under a range of conditions. Using a fully-factorial training design, fish were either fed from the surface or the bottom of their tank, and at the same time were exposed to conspecifics feeding from the surface or bottom. At test, we showed that in order to be able to use demonstrator behaviour to anticipate the presence of food at the surface, test subjects needed first to have prior experience of both: sticklebacks responded to the behaviour of conspecifics that were feeding at the surface by rising higher in the water column themselves, but, crucially, they only did this if they had prior experience both of finding food at the water surface and of seeing others feed there. Moreover, they only displayed this response in the presence of feeding conspecifics, but not when the demonstrators were not feeding or were absent. The role of prior experience and learning in social information use is surprisingly understudied. We suggest that such work is vital if we are to understand the level at which natural selection operates in shaping social information use and social learning.PostprintPeer reviewe

    Social information use and social learning in non-grouping fishes

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    Funding: NERC (NE/D010365/1) and European Research Council advanced grants (EVOCULTURE 232823).Although it is natural to expect that group-living animals will utilize social learning, the expectation for non-grouping species is less clear. Only a few studies have explored the relationship between sociality and social learning. Here we presented 4 non-grouping fish species, fifteenspine sticklebacks (Spinachia spinachia), bullhead sculpins (Cottus gobio), stone loach (Barbatula barbatula) and juvenile European flounders (Platichthys flesus) with social information provided by groups of a shoal-forming heterospecific, the threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Using a binary choice procedure we allowed individual test subjects to select between simulated prey patches. Although the test subjects could not sample the patches directly they were able to use information generated by the heterospecific demonstrators to select the “richer” of the 2 patches. For comparison we also recorded social information use in 2 shoaling species, threespine, and ninespine sticklebacks (Pungitius pungitius). We saw evidence of social information use and social learning in all 6 species, with no differences seen between social and non-grouping species. We argue that social learning is not likely to be restricted to group-living species, since many solitary species too are regularly exposed to social stimuli from both conspecifics and heterospecifics, and can benefit from using social information. We suggest that researchers have much to learn about the sensory, perceptive, and cognitive mechanisms underlying social learning, and the extent to which these vary (if at all) between grouping and non-grouping species.PostprintPeer reviewe

    An Open Resource for Non-human Primate Imaging.

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    Non-human primate neuroimaging is a rapidly growing area of research that promises to transform and scale translational and cross-species comparative neuroscience. Unfortunately, the technological and methodological advances of the past two decades have outpaced the accrual of data, which is particularly challenging given the relatively few centers that have the necessary facilities and capabilities. The PRIMatE Data Exchange (PRIME-DE) addresses this challenge by aggregating independently acquired non-human primate magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) datasets and openly sharing them via the International Neuroimaging Data-sharing Initiative (INDI). Here, we present the rationale, design, and procedures for the PRIME-DE consortium, as well as the initial release, consisting of 25 independent data collections aggregated across 22 sites (total = 217 non-human primates). We also outline the unique pitfalls and challenges that should be considered in the analysis of non-human primate MRI datasets, including providing automated quality assessment of the contributed datasets

    An introduction to niche construction theory

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    Niche construction refers to the modification of selective environments by organisms. Theoretical and empirical studies of niche construction are increasing in importance as foci in evolutionary ecology. This special edition presents theoretical and empirical research that illustrates the significance of niche construction to the field. Here we set the scene for the following papers by (1) discussing the history of niche construction research, (2) providing clear definitions that distinguish niche construction from related concepts such as ecosystem engineering and the extended phenotype, (3) providing a brief summary of the findings of niche construction research, (4) discussing the contribution of niche construction and ecological inheritance to (a) expanded notions of inheritance, and (b) the extended evolutionary synthesis, and (5) briefly touching on some of the issues that underlie the controversies over niche construction.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe
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