Memory, transmission and persistence of alternative foraging techniques in wild common marmosets

Gunhold, Tina; Massen, Jorg J. M.; Schiel, Nicola; Souto, Antonio; Bugnyar, Thomas

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2014.02.023

Cited by 33 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 71 publications

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“…There is a wide variety of evidence from demonstrations of imitation in common marmosets ( Bugnyar & Huber, 1997; Voelkl and Huber, 2000), to rapid social learning without reinforcement in cotton-top tamarins (Moscovice & Snowdon, 2006), to long-term retention of socially learned behavior in both marmosets and tamarins in both captivity and the wild (Moscovice & Snowdon, 2006; Gunhold, Massen, Schiel, Souto & Bugnyar, 2014; Gunhold, Range, Huber & Bugnyar, 2015), and of teaching (Humle & Snowdon, 2008, Rapaport, 2011). In addition, wild pygmy marmosets ( Cebuella pygmaea , de la Torre & Snowdon, 2009) have population specific vocal dialects that cannot be explained by habitat acoustics or genetic variation and thus are suggestive of innovations that can spread through a population.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stick-weaving: Innovative behavior in tamarins (Saguinus oedipus).

Snowdon¹,

Roskos²

2017

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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Some captive cotton-top tamarins spontaneously weave sticks in the mesh of their enclosures so that the stick is lodged between two mesh openings. Sticks are broken from natural branches placed in the enclosures and often modified by biting them in the center before weaving through the mesh. To investigate this further we systematically surveyed all animals in our colony and found that all successful stick weaving tamarins were descendants from only two of the 16 breeding groups contributing to the colony membership at the time of surveying or were the mates of these descendants, suggesting stick-weaving is a socially learned behavior. Successful stick-weavers were presented with pipe cleaners, soda straws and wooden dowels to see if they would generalize stick-weaving to novel objects. Seven of 10 animals successfully wove with straws or pipe cleaners showing that they could generalize the behavior to objects that were physically different but had the same affordances as the sticks. Data from a father-daughter pair suggest a form of coaching. Innovative behavior is needed for the emergence of culture with subsequent social transmission. Although innovative behavior in primates is mainly associated with foraging and is more likely to occur among males, stick-weaving has no obvious reward and appeared equally in both sexes. Stick-weaving behavior and its probable social transmission across generations suggest the possibility of cultural traditions emerging in this species.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stick-weaving: Innovative behavior in tamarins (Saguinus oedipus).

Snowdon¹,

Roskos²

2017

Journal of Comparative Psychology

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“…In habitual social learners, such as chimpanzees53 and marmosets2830, group members may exhibit social modification of their social personality traits, such as the level of affiliation, gregariousness and social tolerance. However, social learning may not suffice to cause group similarity in other traits, including boldness and exploratory tendency, as these behaviours are less directly involved in interactions with the group mates.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In some cases, conformity to others’ behaviour has been experimentally shown27. Second, social learning modifies marmoset foraging behaviour282930, which may be associated with exploratory tendency. Third, marmosets are cooperative breeders, that is, groups consist of a breeding pair and adult offspring that forgo breeding for remaining in the natal group as adult helpers.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Common marmosets show social plasticity and group-level similarity in personality

Koski

Burkart

2015

Sci Rep

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The social environment influences animal personality on evolutionary and immediate time scales. However, studies of animal personality rarely assess the effects of the social environment, particularly in species that live in stable groups with individualized relationships. We assessed personality experimentally in 17 individuals of the common marmoset, living in four groups. We found their personality to be considerably modified by the social environment. Marmosets exhibited relatively high plasticity in their behaviour, and showed ‘group-personality’, i.e. group-level similarity in the personality traits. In exploratory behaviour this was maintained only in the social environment but not when individuals were tested alone, suggesting that exploration tendency is subjected to social facilitation. Boldness, in contrast, showed higher consistency across the social and solitary conditions, and the group-level similarity in trait scores was sustained also outside of the immediate social environment. The ‘group-personality’ was not due to genetic relatedness, supporting that it was produced by social effects. We hypothesize that ‘group-personality’ may be adaptive for highly cooperative animals through facilitating cooperation among individuals with similar behavioural tendency.

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“…This study is the first to show that video demonstrations are useful as a means to seed alternative problem-solving techniques under field conditions and adds to the small but rising corpus of experimental studies revealing social learning in the wild [1,[3][4][5][6][7][8]15]. The fact that marmosets can learn from twodimensional images of unfamiliar conspecifics underlines the potent force of social learning in primates, i.e.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Video demonstrations seed alternative problem-solving techniques in wild common marmosets

2014

Self Cite

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Studies of social learning and tradition formation under field conditions have recently gained momentum, but suffer from the limited control of socio-ecological factors thought to be responsible for transmission patterns. The use of artificial visual stimuli is a potentially powerful tool to overcome some of these problems. Here, in a field experiment, we used video images of unfamiliar conspecifics performing virtual demonstrations of foraging techniques. We tested 12 family groups of wild common marmosets. Six groups received video demonstrations (footage of conspecifics either pulling a drawer open or pushing a lid upwards, in an 'artificial fruit'); the other six groups served as controls (exposed to a static image of a conspecific next to the fruit). Subjects in video groups were more manipulative and successful in opening the fruit than controls; they were also more likely to use the technique they had witnessed and thus could serve as live models for other family members. To our knowledge, this is the first study that used video demonstrations in the wild and demonstrated the potent force of social learning, even from unfamiliar conspecifics, under field conditions.

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Memory, transmission and persistence of alternative foraging techniques in wild common marmosets

Cited by 33 publications

References 71 publications

Stick-weaving: Innovative behavior in tamarins (Saguinus oedipus).

Stick-weaving: Innovative behavior in tamarins (Saguinus oedipus).

Common marmosets show social plasticity and group-level similarity in personality

Video demonstrations seed alternative problem-solving techniques in wild common marmosets

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