Foraging innovation in the guppy

Abstract

When novel behaviour patterns spread through animal populations, typically one animal will initiate the diffusion. It is not known whether such 'innovators' are particularly creative individuals, individuals exposed to the appropriate environmental contingencies, or individuals in a particular motivational state. We describe three experiments that investigated the factors influencing foraging innovation in the guppy, Poecilia reticulata. We exposed small laboratory populations of fish to novel foraging tasks, which involved exploration and problem solving to locate a novel food source. Experiments 1 and 2 found that (1) females were more likely to innovate than males, (2) food-deprived fish were more likely to innovate than nonfood-deprived subjects, and (3) smaller fish were more likely to innovate than larger fish. We suggest that the sex difference may reflect parental investment asymmetries in males and females. Experiment 3 found that past innovators were more likely to innovate than past noninnovators. Collectively, the results suggest that differences in foraging innovation in guppies are best accounted for by differences in motivational state, but, in addition, guppies may vary in their predisposition to innovate.

Larger groups are more successful in innovative problem solving in house sparrows

“…Clearly this topic needs more attention. Last, we did not find any effect of the birds' sex or the groups' sex ratio on their problem-solving success, which again adds to the general picture that whether and how sex affects problem solving varies widely across taxa (28,(30)(31)(32).…”

“…The tendency to solve novel tasks varies among individuals e.g., in relation to age (32) and learning skills (28,34), and some studies suggest that ''innovativeness'' may be an aspect of animal personalities (30,31,42). Increased success of groups containing behaviorally diverse individuals has been shown by recent theoretical (16) and empirical work (17).…”

“…Second, to infer the mechanisms that may lead to differential success in differently-sized groups, we (i) analyzed in detail the behavior of birds during problem-solving tests, and (ii) performed a separate neophobia test to explore any difference between the groups in their propensity to approach novel objects that may also influence problem solving (8,27). Finally, because both problem solving (30)(31)(32) and the effect of sociality on problem solving (15,33) may depend on the individual's sex and its interaction with group mates' sex, we also manipulated the sex ratio of the groups and investigated all combination of sexes (i.e., males only, females only, or both).…”

Fish cognition: a primate's eye view

“…Still, this conclusion is very preliminary as this topic has hardly been investigated in fish, and it is therefore unclear whether the difference is real or due to a lack of knowledge. Foraging innovations in guppies, for example, spread readily through a population under controlled laboratory conditions (Laland and Reader 1999).…”

The relation between social rank, neophobia and individual learning in starlings

“…For example, mid-to low-ranking individuals are quicker to detect and enter novel locations, and so are less neophobic, than dominant groupmates in birds (jackdaws, Corvus monedula: Katzir 1982; barnacle geese, Branta leucopsis: Stahl et al 2001) and capuchin monkeys, Cebus apella (di Bitetti & Janson 2001). Thus subordinate individuals may be forced, by their lack of access to established resources, to incur the potential costs and risks of exploration (Laland & Reader 1999), whereas dominants can subsequently displace subordinates if and when the latter locate valuable resources. According to this scenario, low-ranking individuals would not necessarily be predicted to be less neophobic (or more neophilic) than high-rankers when away from the group, since it is the social context that evokes rank-dependent responses to novelty.…”