Presence of an audience and consistent interindividual differences affect archerfish shooting behaviour

Jones, Nick; Webster, Michael J.; Templeton, Christopher N.; Schuster, Stefan; Rendell, Luke

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2018.04.024

Cited by 19 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 67 publications

(79 reference statements)

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“…These cues are almost certainly produced inadvertently as a by-product of foraging, though it would be interesting to determine whether foraging sticklebacks are sensitive to their audience, adjusting the foraging behaviour accordingly as has been reported in other species (e.g. [57]). These findings account for the ‘mechanism’ of how PI is transmitted in a physical sense, by identifying the behavioural cues that covary with prey delivery and to which the observers attend.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A four-questions perspective on public information use in sticklebacks (Gasterosteidae)

et al. 2019

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Whether learning primarily reflects general processes or species-specific challenges is a long-standing matter of dispute. Here, we present a comprehensive analysis of public information use (PI-use) in sticklebacks (Gasterosteidae). PI-use is a form of social learning by which animals are able to assess the relative quality of resources, here prey patches, by observing the behaviour of others. PI-use was highly specific with only Pungitius and their closest relative Culaea inconstans showing evidence of PI-use. We saw no effects of ontogenetic experience upon PI-use in Pungitius pungitius . Experiments with live demonstrators and animated fish revealed that heightened activity and feeding strikes by foraging conspecifics are important cues in the transmission of PI. Finally, PI-use was the only form of learning in which P. pungitius and another stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus differed. PI-use in sticklebacks is species-specific and may represent an ‘ecological specialization’ for social foraging. Whether this reflects selection on perception, attentional or cognitive processes remains to be determined.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A four-questions perspective on public information use in sticklebacks (Gasterosteidae)

et al. 2019

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“…We used two replicate setups of three tanks each to run up two groups of fish at a time. In each setup, three tanks were set up side by side with a 0.5-cm gap between them, using the same setup as in Jones et al (2018) (see Fig. 1).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Stock tanks (180 × 45 cm and 35 cm deep) held at temperatures between 25 and 26°C under a 12:12 h light:dark cycle, had environmental enrichment in the form of 3-cmdeep gravel substrate and several plastic plants. Water quality parameters (pH, nitrite, ammonia and nitrate concentrations) were measured weekly, and levels were kept within a range appropriate for archerfish (Newport et al 2013;Jones et al 2018), using external canister filters and regular water changes.…”

Section: Subjectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Famous for their ability to 'shoot' down prey (Bekoff and Dorr 1976;Dill 1977;Schuster 2007), archerfish exhibit low sociality with no grouping preference (Timmermans and Maris 2000), possibly linked to their highly competitive foraging behaviour (Rischawy et al 2015) and tendency for intra-specific kleptoparasitism (Davis and Dill 2012). Previous work has suggested that they use social information (Schuster et al 2006) and alter their shooting behaviour in response to a conspecific in a neighbouring tank (Jones et al 2018). However, little else is known about their social behaviour and social effects on learning.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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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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“…The molted crabs’ video was transferred to the main computer and if there was no molting, the video was deleted. The large MPEG-TS Video was then uploaded within the Solomon Coder software [1] , a simple and free solution for behavior coding [7] , [8] . The installation software was freely available online at https://solomoncoder.com/ , https://solomoncoder.com/download.php .…”

Section: Experimental Design Materials and Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioural data on instar crab movement at different thermal acclimation

2019

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This article investigated how crabs responded to different culture temperatures especially dislocation before molting using a combination of large recording files and computer software. In this novel approach of video recording portunid crab behavioral data, crab culture was recorded at five different acclimation temperatures of 20, 24, 28, 32 and 36 °C. Crabs were reared until the instar stage before being acclimatized for video recording. Large video files (MPEG-TS) were then analyzed using the latest version of Solomon Coder software developed by A. Peter and programmed with Embarcadero® Delphi® XE [1]. Recorded data was analyzed by calculating and marking movements of crabs using the time sequence tool. Additionally, a total movement was counted 30 min before crabs molted from instar stage 8 to instar stage 9. Part of the data is associated with the research article “Thermal tolerance and locomotor activity of blue swimmer crab Portunus pelagicus instar reared at different temperatures” (Azra et al., 2018) [2] and provided here as raw data of Supplementary materials.

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Presence of an audience and consistent interindividual differences affect archerfish shooting behaviour

Cited by 19 publications

References 67 publications

A four-questions perspective on public information use in sticklebacks (Gasterosteidae)

A four-questions perspective on public information use in sticklebacks (Gasterosteidae)

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

Behavioural data on instar crab movement at different thermal acclimation

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