Rapid habituation of scan behavior in captive marmosets following brief predator encounters

Dacier, A.; Maia, Rafael; Agustinho, Daniel Paiva; Barros, Marília

doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2005.09.006

Cited by 22 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Canton-S flies displayed heightened activity while exploring in the presence of the predator, but this heightened activity was no longer present once the flies finished exploring the arena, demonstrating that they were capable of habituating the predator stimuli. Habituation to predator specific stimuli has significant adaptive value as it allows animals to minimize the cost of escape behaviors in the face of predator false alarms [18, 62]. In this context, it is not surprising that the potential super-normal stimuli of the moving mock spider continued to drive higher levels of activity in Canton-S flies after the arena had been fully explored.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Habituation is a form of learning, likely present in all animal taxa, that drives the progressive decrease in behavioral responsiveness to repeated non-informative stimuli [16, 17]. In some circumstances, prey animals are capable of habituating to predator cues, leading to reduced defensive reactions to those predators [18, 19]. This habituation may allow the animal to reduce the cost of attention and heightened vigilance, allowing it to resume other adaptive behaviors such as foraging.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Drosophila increase exploration after visually detecting predators

et al. 2017

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Novel stimuli elicit behaviors that are collectively known as specific exploration. These behaviors allow the animal to become more familiar with the novel objects within its environment. Specific exploration is frequently suppressed by defensive reactions to predator cues. Herein, we examine if this suppression occurs in Drosophila melanogaster by measuring the response of these flies to wild harvested predators. The flies used in our experiments have been cultured and had not lived under predator threat for multiple decades. In a circular arena with centrally-caged predators, wild type Drosophila actively avoided the pantropical jumping spider, Plexippus paykulli, and the Texas unicorn mantis, Phyllovates chlorophaena, indicating an innate defensive reaction to these predators. Interestingly, wild type Drosophila males also avoided a centrally-caged mock spider, and the avoidance of the mock spider became exaggerated when it was made to move within the cage. Visually impaired Drosophila failed to detect and avoid the Plexippus paykulli and the moving mock spider, while the broadly anosmic orco2 mutants were fully capable of detecting and avoiding Plexippus paykulli, indicating that these flies principally relied upon vison to perceive the predator stimuli. During early exploration of the arena, exploratory activity increased in the presence of Plexippus paykulli and the moving mock spider. The elevated activity induced by Plexippus paykulli disappeared after the fly had finished exploring, suggesting the flies were capable of habituating the predator cues. Taken together, these results indicate that despite being isolated from predators for decades Drosophila will visually detect these predators, retain innate defensive behaviors, respond by increasing exploratory activity in the arena rather than suppressing activity, and may habituate to normal predator cues.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drosophila increase exploration after visually detecting predators

et al. 2017

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“…Habituation is important in an anti-predator context because it helps animals to minimize false alarms to harmless events (Thorpe, 1969;Dacier et al, 2006;Glaudas et al, 2006). Under conditions where an object cannot be classified a priori as either harmless or dangerous, animals need to learn whether the object can be safely ignored.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habituation under natural conditions: model predators are distinguished by approach direction

Raderschall

Magrath

Hemmi

2011

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARYHabituation is an active process that allows animals to learn to identify repeated, harmless events, and so could help individuals deal with the trade-off between reducing the risk of predation and minimizing escape costs. Safe habituation requires an accurate distinction between dangerous and harmless events, but in natural environments such an assessment is challenging because sensory information is often noisy and limited. What, then, comprises the information animals use to recognize objects that they have previously learned to be harmless? We tested whether the fiddler crab Uca vomeris distinguishes objects purely by their sensory signature or whether identification also involves more complex attributes such as the direction from which an object approaches. We found that crabs habituated their escape responses after repeated presentations of a dummy predator consistently approaching from the same compass direction. Females habituated both movement towards the burrow and descent into the burrow, whereas males only habituated descent into the burrow. The crabs were more likely to respond again when a physically identical dummy approached them from a new compass direction. The crabs distinguished between the two dummies even though both dummies were visible for the entire duration of the experiment and there was no difference in the timing of the dummiesʼ movements. Thus, the position or approach direction of a dummy encodes important information that allows animals to identify an event and habituate to it. These results argue against the traditional notion that habituation is a simple, nonassociative learning process, and instead suggest that habituation is very selective and uses information to distinguish between objects that is not available from the sensory signature of the object itself.

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“…When dealing with predators, habituation can be effective in minimizing costs of false alarms (e.g. Dacier et al 2006;Glaudas et al 2006). Prey animals, with their lives at stake, have to be especially careful not to habituate to the wrong stimulus or one that is classified too broadly.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High stimulus specificity characterizes anti-predator habituation under natural conditions

Hemmi

Merkle

2009

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Habituation is one of the most fundamental learning processes that allow animals to adapt to dynamic environments. It is ubiquitous and often thought of as a simple form of non-associative learning. Very little is known, though, about the rules that govern habituation and their significance under natural conditions. Questions about how animals incorporate habituation into their daily behaviour and how they can assure only to habituate to non-relevant stimuli are still unanswered. Animals under threat of predation should be particularly selective about which stimuli they habituate to, since ignoring a real threat could be fatal. In this study, we tested the response of fiddler crabs, Uca vomeris, to repeatedly approaching dummy predators to find out whether these animals habituate to potential predators and to test the selectivity of the habituation process. The crabs habituated to model predators, even though they were confronted with real predators during the same habituation process. They showed remarkable selectivity towards the stimulus: a simple change in the approach distance of the stimulus led to a recovery in their responses. The results strongly indicate that in the context of predator avoidance, habituation under natural conditions is highly selective and a stimulus is not defined just by its current sensory signature, but also its spatio-temporal history.

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Rapid habituation of scan behavior in captive marmosets following brief predator encounters

Cited by 22 publications

References 18 publications

Drosophila increase exploration after visually detecting predators

Drosophila increase exploration after visually detecting predators

Habituation under natural conditions: model predators are distinguished by approach direction

High stimulus specificity characterizes anti-predator habituation under natural conditions

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