In Drosophila melanogaster, natural genetic variation in the foraging gene affects the foraging behaviour of larval and adult flies, larval reward learning, adult visual learning, and adult aversive training tasks. Sitters (for s) are more sedentary and aggregate within food patches whereas rovers (forR) have greater movement within and between food patches, suggesting that these natural variants are likely to experience different social environments. We hypothesized that social context would differentially influence rover and sitter behaviour in a cognitive task. We measured adult rover and sitter performance in a classical olfactory training test in groups and alone. All flies were reared in groups, but fly training and testing were done alone and in groups. Sitters trained and tested in a group had significantly higher learning performances compared to sitters trained and tested alone. Rovers performed similarly when trained and tested alone and in a group. In other words, rovers learning ability is independent of group training and testing. This suggests that sitters may be more sensitive to the social context than rovers. These differences in learning performance can be altered by pharmacological manipulations of PKG activity levels, the foraging (for) gene's gene product. Learning and memory is also affected by the type of social interaction (being in a group of the same strain or in a group of a different strain) in rovers, but not in sitters. These results suggest that for mediates social learning and memory in D. melanogaster.
The use of multiple cues can enhance the detection, recognition, discrimination, and memorability of individuals by receivers. We conducted two experiments, using only males, to test whether territorial red-backed salamanders, Plethodon cinereus, could use only chemical or only visual cues to remember familiar conspecifics. In both experiments, focal males spent significantly more time threatening unfamiliar than familiar male intruders. They also chemoinvestigated the filter paper containing chemical cues of unfamiliar intruders more often than that of familiar intruders. These results suggest that red-backed salamanders can use both chemical and visual cues to recognize familiar individuals, allowing them to distinguish between less threatening neighbours and more threatening intruders in the heterogeneous forest floor habitat, where visual cues alone would not always be available.
We investigated how exposure duration (time that two individuals initially interact) and separation interval (time between the initial interaction and a subsequent interaction) affect recognition memory of conspecifics in male red-backed salamanders Plethodon cinereus. Previous studies have demonstrated that this species aggressively defends territories. We recorded aggressive behavior to assess recognition memory, because aggression is more intense toward previously unencountered individuals compared to previously encountered individuals in this species. We found that with 15-min exposures and 5-day separation intervals, focal males did not spend significantly more time threatening ‘unfamiliar’ intruders than ‘familiar’ intruders. After either 8-hour exposures and 5-day separation intervals and 5-day exposures and 5-day separation intervals, focal males spent significantly more time threatening unfamiliar intruders than familiar intruders. These results suggest that male red-backed salamanders can remember familiar conspecifics (e.g., territorial neighbors) after at least an 8-hour exposure duration and that memory persists at least as long as 5 days. After 5-day exposure and 15-day separation intervals, we found no significant difference in aggressive behavior toward familiar and unfamiliar intruders. Long separation intervals (15 days) may lead either to loss of memory of previously familiar individuals or, alternatively, aggressive reassessment of individuals as only a change in behavior indicates positively that memory has occurred. Thus, variance in territorial defense within an individual may depend on its ability to recognize conspecific males.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.