Exploring the connection between emergent animal personality and fitness using a novel individual-based model and decision tree approach

MacPherson, Brian; Mashayekhi, Morteza; Gras, Régis; Scott, Ryan

doi:10.1016/j.ecoinf.2017.06.004

Cited by 14 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Risk assessment of the environment is crucial during foraging and exploration [110]. Individuals that under assess risk, or are generally bolder, have increased susceptibility to predation [111,112]. Whereas over assessment or more anxious individuals may have increased long-term survival, but may have costs on other functions, such as the ability to forage which may then have negative consequences on growth and reproduction [113,114].…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Paternal exposure to a common herbicide alters the behavior and serotonergic system of zebrafish offspring

2020

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Increasingly, studies are revealing that endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) can alter animal behavior. Early life exposure to EDCs may permanently alter phenotypes through to adulthood. In addition, the effects of EDCs may not be isolated to a single generation − offspring may indirectly be impacted, via non-genetic processes. Here, we analyzed the effects of paternal atrazine exposure on behavioral traits (distance moved, exploration, bottomdwelling time, latency to enter the top zone, and interaction with a mirror) and whole-brain mRNA of genes involved in the serotonergic system regulation (slc6a4a, slc6a4b, htr1Aa, htr1B, htr2B) of zebrafish (Danio rerio). F0 male zebraFIsh were exposed to atrazine at 0.3, 3 or 30 part per billion (ppb) during early juvenile development, the behavior of F1 progeny was tested at adulthood, and the effect of 0.3 ppb atrazine treatment on mRNA transcription was quantified. Paternal exposure to atrazine significantly reduced interactions with a mirror (a proxy for aggression) and altered the latency to enter the top zone of a tank in unexposed F1 offspring. Bottom-dwelling time (a proxy for anxiety) also appeared to be somewhat affected, and activity (distance moved) was reduced in the context of aggression. slc6a4a and htr1Aa mRNA transcript levels were found to correlate positively with anxiety levels in controls, but we found that this relationship was disrupted in the 0.3 ppb atrazine treatment group. Overall, paternal atrazine exposure resulted in alterations across a variety of behavioral traits and showed signs of serotonergic system dysregulation, demonstrating intergenerational effects. Further research is needed to explore transgenerational effects on behavior and possible mechanisms underpinning behavioral effects. OPEN ACCESSCitation: Lamb SD, Chia JHZ, Johnson SL (2020) Paternal exposure to a common herbicide alters the behavior and serotonergic system of zebrafish offspring. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0228357. https://doi.

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Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

Paternal exposure to a common herbicide alters the behavior and serotonergic system of zebrafish offspring

2020

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“…Merging evolutionary ecology with the cognitive sciences, animal cognition, neuroscience as well as artificial intelligence and robotics opens important perspectives in the study of decision-making in organisms with complex cognition and behavior. A drawback is that more complex, computationally intensive simulations with expensive computer programming are required (Huse and Giske, 1998;Giske et al, 2013); (MacPherson et al, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In terms of Marr's analysis, cognitive architecture models work at the second level-the proximate software of cognition, behavior and decision-making-and allow simplified representation at the third level-neurobiological hardware-within a simulation system. As a result, analyzing evolutionary adaptation of the proximate mechanism becomes possible (Giske et al, 2013(Giske et al, , 2014Evers et al, 2014;Eliassen et al, 2016;MacPherson et al, 2017;Budaev et al, 2018).…”

Section: Formal Models and Proximate Implementationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This framework investigates these problems through the genetic algorithm to evolve solutions to genetic (Huse and Giske, 1998;Fiksen, 2000) and cognitive/behavioral (Giske et al, 2013;MacPherson et al, 2017) architecture in individualbased models. Our approach directly translates into testable experiment: increasingly adaptive behavior evolved over successive generations provides evidence for the architecture implemented (Giske et al, 2013(Giske et al, , 2014Andersen et al, 2016;Eliassen et al, 2016;Budaev et al, 2018).…”

Section: Evolutionary Adaptationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Decision-Making From the Animal Perspective: Bridging Ecology and Subjective Cognition

et al. 2019

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Organisms have evolved to trade priorities across various needs, such as growth, survival, and reproduction. In naturally complex environments this incurs high computational costs. Models exist for several types of decisions, e.g., optimal foraging or life history theory. However, most models ignore proximate complexities and infer simple rules specific to each context. They try to deduce what the organism must do, but do not provide a mechanistic explanation of how it implements decisions. We posit that the underlying cognitive machinery cannot be ignored. From the point of view of the animal, the fundamental problems are what are the best contexts to choose and which stimuli require a response to achieve a specific goal (e.g., homeostasis, survival, reproduction). This requires a cognitive machinery enabling the organism to make predictions about the future and behave autonomously. Our simulation framework includes three essential aspects: (a) the focus on the autonomous individual, (b) the need to limit and integrate information from the environment, and (c) the importance of goal-directed rather than purely stimulus-driven cognitive and behavioral control. The resulting models integrate cognition, decision-making, and behavior in the whole phenotype that may include the genome, physiology, hormonal system, perception, emotions, motivation, and cognition. We conclude that the fundamental state is the global organismic state that includes both physiology and the animal's subjective "mind". The approach provides an avenue for evolutionary understanding of subjective phenomena and self-awareness as evolved mechanisms for adaptive decision-making in natural environments.

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“…Each neuronal response function [42,195] and hormonal modulation [69,128] represents the net aggregate of a range of processes, and these aggregates are therefore not in themselves observable. Relevant parameter values can be found by evolving populations of digital organisms [196,215,216] in environments that resemble the evolutionary history of the species [42,217,218]. With this tool, we can theoretically investigate the behaviour and wellbeing of animals that live in a particular environment or those that are transferred to a novel situation or subjected to specific treatment procedures.…”

Section: A Model Of Subjective Phenomena and Elementary Self-awarenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational animal welfare: towards cognitive architecture models of animal sentience, emotion and wellbeing

et al. 2020

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To understand animal wellbeing, we need to consider subjective phenomena and sentience. This is challenging, since these properties are private and cannot be observed directly. Certain motivations, emotions and related internal states can be inferred in animals through experiments that involve choice, learning, generalization and decision-making. Yet, even though there is significant progress in elucidating the neurobiology of human consciousness, animal consciousness is still a mystery. We propose that computational animal welfare science emerges at the intersection of animal behaviour, welfare and computational cognition. By using ideas from cognitive science, we develop a functional and generic definition of subjective phenomena as any process or state of the organism that exists from the first-person perspective and cannot be isolated from the animal subject. We then outline a general cognitive architecture to model simple forms of subjective processes and sentience. This includes evolutionary adaptation which contains top-down attention modulation, predictive processing and subjective simulation by re-entrant (recursive) computations. Thereafter, we show how this approach uses major characteristics of the subjective experience: elementary self-awareness, global workspace and qualia with unity and continuity. This provides a formal framework for process-based modelling of animal needs, subjective states, sentience and wellbeing.

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Exploring the connection between emergent animal personality and fitness using a novel individual-based model and decision tree approach

Cited by 14 publications

References 63 publications

Paternal exposure to a common herbicide alters the behavior and serotonergic system of zebrafish offspring

Paternal exposure to a common herbicide alters the behavior and serotonergic system of zebrafish offspring

Decision-Making From the Animal Perspective: Bridging Ecology and Subjective Cognition

Computational animal welfare: towards cognitive architecture models of animal sentience, emotion and wellbeing

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