Appetitive and aversive social learning with living and dead conspecifics in crickets

Abstract

Many animals acquire biologically important information from conspecifics. Social learning has been demonstrated in many animals, but there are few experimental paradigms that are suitable for detailed analysis of its associative processes. We established procedures for appetitive and aversive social learning with living and dead conspecifics in well-controlled stimulus arrangements in crickets, Gryllus bimaculatus. A thirsty demonstrator cricket was released in a demonstrator room and allowed to visit two drinking apparatuses that contained water or saltwater and emitted apple or banana odour, and a thirsty learner was allowed to observe the demonstrator room through a net. In the post-training test, the learner preferred the odour of the water-containing apparatus at which the demonstrator stayed. When a dead cricket was placed on one of the two apparatuses, the learner avoided the odour of that apparatus. Further experiments suggested that a living conspecific can be recognized by either visual or olfactory cues for appetitive social learning, whereas olfactory cues are needed to recognize a dead conspecific for aversive social learning, and that different associative processes underlie social learning with living and dead conspecifics. The experimental paradigms described here will pave the way for detailed research on the neural basis of social learning.

Learning and memory in the cricketGryllus bimaculatus

“…Crickets also possess a high capability of learning and memory as do honey bees. This is supported not only by the results introduced in this review but also by the results of recent studies on social learning (Ebina & Mizunami, 2020) and habit formation (Mizunami et al, 2019).…”

Can crickets recognise bacterially contaminated feed? Gryllus assimilis odour perception of Escherichia coli

“…It is known that house crickets can discriminate between different feeding substances (Morales-Ramos et al, 2020) and learn to recognise different plant-origin odour additives in water sources (Albers and Reichert, 2022). Similar findings on Gryllus bimaculate have been made (Ebina and Mizunami, 2020;Matsumoto and Mizunami, 2000;2006). Additionally, male house crickets can recognise conspecific and heterospecific females and discriminate between them (Otte and Cade, 1976).…”

Limited evidence for learning in a shuttle box paradigm in crickets (Acheta domesticus)

“…The demonstrators would burrow into the leaf litter when exposed to that odor, followed by the naive crickets, whereas on their own the naive crickets did not display any anti-predator behavior (Coolen et al 2005). G. bimaculatus is also capable of associating the presence of conspecifics with rewards (Ebina and Mizunami 2020).…”

“…Crickets are ideal for studying aversive learning because this group of species exhibits a variety of learned behaviors, ranging from associative learning of olfactory cues Mizunami 2000, 2002), to spatial learning (Wessnitzer et al 2008, Doria et al 2019, and even social learning (Coolen et al 2005, Ebina andMizunami 2020). For instance, the Mediterranean field cricket (Gryllus bimaculatus De Geer, 1773 (Orthoptera: Gryllidae)) has been shown to learn the association between specific odors with paired rewards and punishments (Matsumoto and Mizunami 2000).…”