Shoaling generates social learning of foraging information in guppies

Laland, Kevin N.; Williams, Kerry

doi:10.1006/anbe.1996.0318

Cited by 256 publications

(187 citation statements)

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“…The innovator was the first individual to solve the maze task in order to exploit a novel food source. Other experiments carried out in our laboratory, in which populations of guppies were exposed to repeated trials of maze tasks, have found evidence for the transmission of this acquired foraging information between individuals, and of its diffusion through the population (Laland & Williams 1997;unpublished data). Thus the kind of innovation expressed by our guppies can indeed introduce novel behaviour patterns into a population.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…Guppies are an excellent model system for research into animal innovation for several reasons. First, social transmission of foraging information has been clearly demonstrated in guppies (Laland & Williams 1997), and it would be valuable to establish which individuals are most likely to generate the foraging innovations. Second, guppies vary in their tendency to inspect unfamiliar predators (Magurran et al 1993), which may reflect variation in a more general response to novel situations, and thereby influence foraging innovation.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Foraging innovation in the guppy

1999

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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.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

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confidence: 99%

Foraging innovation in the guppy

1999

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“…An early study by Day et al (2001) showed that guppies, Poecilia reticulata, are hindered in their ability to locate food resources by the relative inertia of larger groups when visibility is compromised. The authors concluded that the guppies increasingly preferred to remain part of the group with increasing group size, and hence interpreted their findings in terms of 'positive frequency-dependent social learning, or conformity' (Day et al, 2001, p. 924; also see Lachlan, Crooks, & Laland, 1998;Laland & Williams, 1997 for similar findings and interpretations). This interpretation, however, has been criticized based on the consideration that guppies are a shoaling species and therefore let their behavioural choices become immersed in the collective group decision.…”

Section: Do Fish Show Conformity?mentioning

confidence: 97%

Conformity without majority? The case for demarcating social from majority influences

Leeuwen

Haun

2014

Animal Behaviour

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Keywords: conformity decision making frequency-dependent learning majority influence nonhuman animals social learningIn this review, we explore the extent to which the recent evidence for conformity in nonhuman animals may alternatively be explained by the animals' preference for social information regardless of the number of individuals demonstrating the respective behaviour. Conformity as a research topic originated in human psychology and has been described as the phenomenon in which individuals change their behaviour to match the behaviour displayed by the majority of group members. Recent studies have aimed to investigate the same process in nonhuman animals; however, most of the adopted designs have not been able to control for social influences independent of any majority influence and some studies have not even incorporated a majority in their designs. This begs the question to what extent the 'conformity interpretation' is preliminary and should be revisited in light of animals' general susceptibility to social influences. Similarly, demarcating social from majority influences sheds new light on the original findings in human psychology and motivates reinterpretation of the reported behavioural patterns in terms of social instead of majority influences. Conformity can have profound ramifications for individual fitness and group dynamics; identifying the exact source responsible for animals' behavioural adjustments is essential for understanding animals' learning biases and interpreting cross-species data in terms of evolutionary processes.

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“…Jacobs and Campbell's (1961) replacement method has been used to study the transmission of food preferences in rats (Galef & Allen 1995) and route preference in guppies (Laland & Williams 1997;.…”

Section: Nonhuman Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a unified science of cultural evolution

2006

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We suggest that human culture exhibits key Darwinian evolutionary properties, and argue that the structure of a science of cultural evolution should share fundamental features with the structure of the science of biological evolution. This latter claim is tested by outlining the methods and approaches employed by the principal subdisciplines of evolutionary biology and assessing whether there is an existing or potential corresponding approach to the study of cultural evolution. Existing approaches within anthropology and archaeology demonstrate a good match with the macroevolutionary methods of systematics, paleobiology, and biogeography, whereas mathematical models derived from population genetics have been successfully developed to study cultural microevolution. Much potential exists for experimental simulations and field studies of cultural microevolution, where there are opportunities to borrow further methods and hypotheses from biology. Potential also exists for the cultural equivalent of molecular genetics in "social cognitive neuroscience," although many fundamental issues have yet to be resolved. It is argued that studying culture within a unifying evolutionary framework has the potential to integrate a number of separate disciplines within the social sciences.

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Shoaling generates social learning of foraging information in guppies

Cited by 256 publications

References 29 publications

Foraging innovation in the guppy

Foraging innovation in the guppy

Conformity without majority? The case for demarcating social from majority influences

Towards a unified science of cultural evolution

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