Wasps Use Social Eavesdropping to Learn about Individual Rivals

Tibbetts, Elizabeth A.; Wong, Ellery; Bonello, Sarah

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2020.05.053

Cited by 48 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 30 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Many approaches to social complexity seek to understand how much animals know about their social worlds, and recent work has advocated explicitly quantifying social information when attempting to assess social complexity (23,44). There is growing evidence that social information is actively sought by individuals across a wide range of species (29,(45)(46)(47). However, while we can quantify many aspects of social structure, without additional experimental manipulation (e.g., refs.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aggression heuristics underlie animal dominance hierarchies and provide evidence of group-level social information

Hobson

Mønster

DeDeo

2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

123

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Members of a social species need to make appropriate decisions about who, how, and when to interact with others in their group. However, it has been difficult for researchers to detect the inputs to these decisions and, in particular, how much information individuals actually have about their social context. We present a method that can serve as a social assay to quantify how patterns of aggression depend upon information about the ranks of individuals within social dominance hierarchies. Applied to existing data on aggression in 172 social groups across 85 species in 23 orders, it reveals three main patterns of rank-dependent social dominance: the downward heuristic (aggress uniformly against lower-ranked opponents), close competitors (aggress against opponents ranked slightly below self), and bullying (aggress against opponents ranked much lower than self). The majority of the groups (133 groups, 77%) follow a downward heuristic, but a significant minority (38 groups, 22%) show more complex social dominance patterns (close competitors or bullying) consistent with higher levels of social information use. These patterns are not phylogenetically constrained and different groups within the same species can use different patterns, suggesting that heuristic use may depend on context and the structuring of aggression by social information should not be considered a fixed characteristic of a species. Our approach provides opportunities to study the use of social information within and across species and the evolution of social complexity and cognition.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Aggression heuristics underlie animal dominance hierarchies and provide evidence of group-level social information

Hobson

Mønster

DeDeo

2021

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

123

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Eusocial insects with their relatively simple nervous systems represent highly attractive models for studying neurological origins of sociality, and examples of primitive early social learning have recently been documented. [ 87,88 ] At the same time, lack of genetic accessibility and a challenge to reproduce highly complex hierarchical social structures in laboratory conditions impose significant experimental difficulties. In this regard, a non‐eusocial Drosophila and in particular its larval stage surprisingly steps in by integrating genetic accessibility with a robust and tractable behavioral phenotype.…”

Section: Conclusion and Outlook: In Search For A Tractable Model Sysmentioning

confidence: 99%

Critical periods shaping the social brain: A perspective from Drosophila

Dombrovski

Condron

2020

BioEssays

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many sensory processing regions of the central brain undergo critical periods of experience-dependent plasticity. During this time ethologically relevant information shapes circuit structure and function. The mechanisms that control critical period timing and duration are poorly understood, and this is of special importance for those later periods of development, which often give rise to complex cognitive functions such as social behavior. Here, we review recent findings in Drosophila, an organism that has some unique experimental advantages, and introduce novel views for manipulating plasticity in the post-embryonic brain. Critical periods in larval and young adult flies resemble classic vertebrate models with distinct onset and termination, display clear connections with complex behaviors, and provide opportunities to control the time course of plasticity. These findings may extend our knowledge about mechanisms underlying extension and reopening of critical periods, a concept that has great relevance to many human neurodevelopmental disorders.

show abstract

“…Vu et al 2020). The behavioral paradigm used in this study mirrors other lab studies of social behavior and cognition in P. fuscatus that examined encounters in a neutral arena and detect variable amounts of aggression 41,44,46 , though is likely to be a less extreme social experience compared to paradigms that challenge individuals in their nest or home cage and or otherwise produce strong fighting responses used in other behavioral transcriptomic studies 6,18,19,28 . Although the social experiences in our trials were comparatively mild, we nevertheless detect hundreds of differentially expressed genes in response to social interactions.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Female P. fuscatus learn and remember the identity of other wasps from previous interactions 44 or even outcomes of fights among other individuals they have seen interacting 46 . Behavioral experiments have demonstrated both short and long-term memories of individuals 44,46 , suggesting that signatures of both processes may be enriched among differentially regulated genes. Indeed, genes annotated with functions in anesthesia-resistant memory (GO:0007615, P = 3.6e-5) and long-term memory (GO:0007616, P = 0.009) are enriched among socially responsive genes.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic neurogenomic responses to social interactions and dominance outcomes in female paper wasps

Jernigan

Zaba

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Social interactions have large effects on individual physiology and fitness. In the immediate sense, social stimuli are often highly salient and engaging. Over longer time scales, competitive interactions often lead to distinct social ranks and differences in physiology and behavior. Understanding how initial responses lead to longer-term effects of social interactions requires examining the changes in responses over time. Here we examined the effects of social interactions on transcriptomic signatures at two points, at the end of a 45-minute interaction and 4 hours later, in female P. fuscatus paper wasp foundresses. Female P. fuscatus have variable facial patterns that are used for visual individual recognition, so we separately examined the transcriptional dynamics in the optic lobe and the central brain. Results demonstrate much stronger transcriptional responses to social interactions in the central brain compared to the optic lobe. Differentially regulated genes in response to social interactions are enriched for memory-related transcripts. Comparisons between winners and losers of the encounters revealed similar overall transcriptional profiles at the end of an interaction, which significantly diverged over the course of 4 hours, with losers showing changes in expression levels of genes associated with aggression and reproduction in paper wasps. On nests, subordinate foundresses are less aggressive, do more foraging and lay fewer eggs compared to dominant foundresses and we find losers shift expression of many genes, including vitellogenin, related to aggression, worker behavior, and reproduction within hours of losing an encounter. These results highlight the early neurogenomic changes that likely contribute to behavioral and physiological effects of social status changes in a social insect.

show abstract

Wasps Use Social Eavesdropping to Learn about Individual Rivals

Abstract: Highlights d Wasps learn about new individuals by observation alone d Wasps watched fights, then interacted with the same or a different fighter d Wasps were less aggressive to individuals they observed fight well

Cited by 48 publications

References 30 publications

Aggression heuristics underlie animal dominance hierarchies and provide evidence of group-level social information

Aggression heuristics underlie animal dominance hierarchies and provide evidence of group-level social information

Critical periods shaping the social brain: A perspective from Drosophila

Dynamic neurogenomic responses to social interactions and dominance outcomes in female paper wasps

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About