Individual and social factors affecting the ability of American crows to solve and master a string pulling task

Pendergraft, LomaJohn T.; Lehnert, Adrienne L.; Marzluff, John M.

doi:10.1111/eth.12980

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 68 publications

(90 reference statements)

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“…Despite the potential benefits of social learning, public information use appears to be species-specific (Webster et al 2019), and individual biases can have a greater effect on learning than social information even when it is employed (Szabo et al 2017). Even in species known to use social information, social learning may be dependent upon an individual having some experience with novel foraging opportunities, as recently shown in American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) (Pendergraft et al 2020) and stickleback species (Webster and Laland 2018). While it is likely that archerfish do use social information, given previous findings suggesting social learning in this species (Schuster et al 2006), many factors may impact the use of social leaning or our ability to detect it.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual behavioural traits not social context affects learning about novel objects in archerfish

Jones

Spence-Jones

Webster

et al. 2021

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Learning can enable rapid behavioural responses to changing conditions but can depend on the social context and behavioural phenotype of the individual. Learning rates have been linked to consistent individual differences in behavioural traits, especially in situations which require engaging with novelty, but the social environment can also play an important role. The presence of others can modulate the effects of individual behavioural traits and afford access to social information that can reduce the need for ‘risky’ asocial learning. Most studies of social effects on learning are focused on more social species; however, such factors can be important even for less-social animals, including non-grouping or facultatively social species which may still derive benefit from social conditions. Using archerfish, Toxotes chatareus, which exhibit high levels of intra-specific competition and do not show a strong preference for grouping, we explored the effect of social contexts on learning. Individually housed fish were assayed in an ‘open-field’ test and then trained to criterion in a task where fish learnt to shoot a novel cue for a food reward—with a conspecific neighbour visible either during training, outside of training or never (full, partial or no visible presence). Time to learn to shoot the novel cue differed across individuals but not across social context. This suggests that social context does not have a strong effect on learning in this non-obligatory social species; instead, it further highlights the importance that inter-individual variation in behavioural traits can have on learning. Significance statement Some individuals learn faster than others. Many factors can affect an animal’s learning rate—for example, its behavioural phenotype may make it more or less likely to engage with novel objects. The social environment can play a big role too—affecting learning directly and modifying the effects of an individual’s traits. Effects of social context on learning mostly come from highly social species, but recent research has focused on less-social animals. Archerfish display high intra-specific competition, and our study suggests that social context has no strong effect on their learning to shoot novel objects for rewards. Our results may have some relevance for social enrichment and welfare of this increasingly studied species, suggesting there are no negative effects of short- to medium-term isolation of this species—at least with regards to behavioural performance and learning tasks.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual behavioural traits not social context affects learning about novel objects in archerfish

Jones

Spence-Jones

Webster

et al. 2021

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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“…Despite these observations, differences in captive housing style do not always result in demonstrable changes in behavior, as compared to wild conspecifics (Gazes, Brown, Basile, & Hampton, ). Further, among corvids and parrots, captive housing has not impeded the ability to test complex social and cognitive research questions, such as those in this special issue ( Clary, Stow, Vernouillet, & Kelly, ; Dufour, Broihanne, & Wascher, ; Heaney, Bastos, Gray, & Taylor, ; Laumer, Massen, Wakonig, Lorck‐Tympner, Carminito, & Auersperg, ; Pendergraft, Lehnert, & Marzluff, ; Morales Picard et al, ; Schwing, Reuillon, Conrad, Noë, & Huber, ; Tassin de Montaigu, Durdevic, Brucks, Krasheninnikova, & von Bayern, ; Wascher, Feider, Bugnyar, & Dufour, ). Additionally, we have used these wild caught, individually housed adult pinyon jays to study various social behaviors, including dominance interactions involving competition over food (Bond, Kamil, & Balda, ; Paz‐y‐Miño C, Bond, Kamil, & Balda, ), food sharing between jays that had never been paired (Duque & Stevens, ), and mesotocin effects on prosocial decision making (Duque et al, ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of mesotocin on social bonding in pinyon jays

Rasmussen

Rodriguez

et al. 2020

Ethology

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The neuropeptide oxytocin influences mammalian social bonding by facilitating the building and maintenance of parental, sexual, and same-sex social relationships. However, we do not know whether the function of the avian homologue mesotocin is evolutionarily conserved across birds. While it does influence avian prosocial behavior, mesotocin's role in avian social bonding remains unclear. Here, we investigated whether mesotocin regulates the formation and maintenance of same-sex social bonding in pinyon jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus), a member of the crow family. We formed squads of four individually housed birds. In the first, 'pair-formation' phase of the experiment, we repeatedly placed pairs of birds from within the squad together in a cage for short periods of time. Prior to entering the cage, we intranasally administered one of three hormone solutions to both members of the pair: mesotocin, oxytocin antagonist, or saline. Pairs received repeated sessions with administration of the same hormone. In the second, 'pair-maintenance' phase of the experiment, all four members of the squad were placed together in a large cage, and no hormones were administered. For both phases, we measured the physical proximity between pairs as our proxy for social bonding. We found that, compared to saline, administering mesotocin or oxytocin antagonist did not result in different proximities in either the pair-formation or pair-maintenance phase of the experiment. Therefore, at the dosages and time frames used here, exogenously introduced mesotocin did not influence same-sex social bond formation or maintenance. Like oxytocin in mammals, mesotocin regulates avian prosocial behavior; however, unlike oxytocin, we do not have evidence that mesotocin regulates social bonds in birds.

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“…Note that crows are social animals that are capable of social learning, thus teaching the crows to solve the task in isolation may not have been the most conducive way to train crows. However, previous research has shown that crows do not easily learn to solve tasks using social learning, although they will use it to refine their technique 60 .…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

American crows that excel at tool use activate neural circuits distinct from less talented individuals

Pendergraft,

Marzluff,

Cross

et al. 2023

Nat Commun

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Tools enable animals to exploit and command new resources. However, the neural circuits underpinning tool use and how neural activity varies with an animal’s tool proficiency, are only known for humans and some other primates. We use 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography to image the brain activity of naïve vs trained American crows (Corvus brachyrhynchos) when presented with a task requiring the use of stone tools. As in humans, talent affects the neural circuits activated by crows as they prepare to execute the task. Naïve and less proficient crows use neural circuits associated with sensory- and higher-order processing centers (the mesopallium and nidopallium), while highly proficient individuals increase activity in circuits associated with motor learning and tactile control (hippocampus, tegmentum, nucleus basorostralis, and cerebellum). Greater proficiency is found primarily in adult female crows and may reflect their need to use more cognitively complex strategies, like tool use, to obtain food.

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Individual and social factors affecting the ability of American crows to solve and master a string pulling task

Cited by 6 publications

References 68 publications

Individual behavioural traits not social context affects learning about novel objects in archerfish

Individual behavioural traits not social context affects learning about novel objects in archerfish

The role of mesotocin on social bonding in pinyon jays

American crows that excel at tool use activate neural circuits distinct from less talented individuals

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