SOCIAL INFORMATION AND BIOLOGICAL INVASIONS: CHORUS SONGS ARE MORE ATTRACTIVE TO EUROPEAN STARLINGS IN MORE RECENTLY ESTABLISHED POPULATIONS.

When biological invasions by animals occur, the individuals arriving in novel environments can be confronted with unpredictable or unfamiliar resources and may need social interaction to improve survival in the newly colonized areas. Gathering with conspecifics and using social information about their activities may reveal the location of suitable feeding and breeding sites. This could compensate for the absence of individual information about new habitats and constitute an advantage for new settlers. If a tendency to gather in response to social stimuli is transmitted from one generation to the next, and if the benefit of gathering is lower in long time established populations, there should be behavioural differences in receptivity to social cues in populations with different colonizing histories. We hypothesized that individuals of a social species like the European starling from relatively recently-established populations would be more responsive to social cues than individuals belonging to long-established populations. We conducted playback experiments using a starling chorus to test its acoustic attractiveness to populations of starlings with different colonizing histories. We compared the reaction of individuals from two populations in rural Brittany, western France, established for a long time, with three more recently settled ones: two populations from a propagation front in southern Italy and one urban population from Rennes city in Brittany. Our data supported our hypothesis: individuals from more recent populations were more responsive to the acoustic stimulus, and gave more calls in flight than individuals from populations with an older settlement history. We discuss the different behavioural responses we observed in the different populations and the potential effects of habitat characteristics and starling densities.

Download Full-text

Social eavesdropping allows for a more risky gliding strategy by thermal-soaring birds

Journal of The Royal Society Interface ◽

10.1098/rsif.2018.0578 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 15 (148) ◽

pp. 20180578 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Hannah J. Williams ◽

Andrew J. King ◽

Olivier Duriez ◽

Luca Börger ◽

Emily L. C. Shepard

Keyword(s):

Resource Availability ◽

Personal Information ◽

Social Information ◽

Social Cues ◽

Surrounding Area ◽

Circling Behaviour ◽

Factors Affecting ◽

Critical Resource ◽

Speed Selection ◽

Soaring Birds

Vultures are thought to form networks in the sky, with individuals monitoring the movements of others to gain up-to-date information on resource availability. While it is recognized that social information facilitates the search for carrion, how this facilitates the search for updrafts, another critical resource, remains unknown. In theory, birds could use information on updraft availability to modulate their flight speed, increasing their airspeed when informed on updraft location. In addition, the stylized circling behaviour associated with thermal soaring is likely to provide social cues on updraft availability for any bird operating in the surrounding area. We equipped five Gyps vultures with GPS and airspeed loggers to quantify the movements of birds flying in the same airspace. Birds that were socially informed on updraft availability immediately adopted higher airspeeds on entering the inter-thermal glide; a strategy that would be risky if birds were relying on personal information alone. This was embedded within a broader pattern of a reduction in airspeed (approx. 3 m s −1 ) through the glide, likely reflecting the need for low speed to sense and turn into the next thermal. Overall, this demonstrates (i) the complexity of factors affecting speed selection over fine temporal scales and (ii) that Gyps vultures respond to social information on the occurrence of energy in the aerial environment, which may reduce uncertainty in their movement decisions.

Download Full-text

Circuit and synaptic organization of forebrain-to-midbrain pathways that promote and suppress vocalization

eLife ◽

10.7554/elife.63493 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

Author(s):

Valerie Michael ◽

Jack Goffinet ◽

John Pearson ◽

Fan Wang ◽

Katherine Tschida ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Preoptic Area ◽

Brain Slices ◽

Social Cues ◽

Ultrasonic Vocalizations ◽

Behavioral Effects ◽

Inhibitory Neurons ◽

Boundary Zone ◽

Synaptic Organization ◽

Two Populations ◽

Synaptic Mechanisms

Animals vocalize only in certain behavioral contexts, but the circuits and synapses through which forebrain neurons trigger or suppress vocalization remain unknown. Here, we used transsynaptic tracing to identify two populations of inhibitory neurons that lie upstream of neurons in the periaqueductal gray (PAG) that gate the production of ultrasonic vocalizations (USVs) in mice (i.e. PAG-USV neurons). Activating PAG-projecting neurons in the preoptic area of the hypothalamus (POAPAG neurons) elicited USV production in the absence of social cues. In contrast, activating PAG-projecting neurons in the central-medial boundary zone of the amygdala (AmgC/M-PAG neurons) transiently suppressed USV production without disrupting non-vocal social behavior. Optogenetics-assisted circuit mapping in brain slices revealed that POAPAG neurons directly inhibit PAG interneurons, which in turn inhibit PAG-USV neurons, whereas AmgC/M-PAG neurons directly inhibit PAG-USV neurons. These experiments identify two major forebrain inputs to the PAG that trigger and suppress vocalization, respectively, while also establishing the synaptic mechanisms through which these neurons exert opposing behavioral effects.

Download Full-text

Prologue

Perturbation, Behavioural Feedbacks, and Population Dynamics in Social Animals ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198849834.003.0001 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-4

Author(s):

Daniel Oro

Keyword(s):

Stable State ◽

Western Mediterranean ◽

Ebro Delta ◽

Suitable Habitat ◽

World Population ◽

Ancient Greek ◽

Critical Transitions ◽

Social Species ◽

Long Time ◽

Eventual Collapse

The idea of combining social species, information, perturbations, and nonlinear responses related to dispersal originated naively a long time ago, in the Gulf of Roses in the western Mediterranean. As a kid, I used to spend holidays in a tiny village nearby the ruins of Empuries, a magical place where an ancient Greek colony was founded in 575 BC, later occupied by the Romans. I remember going to the beach where I would place my towel sheltered from the wind behind a large section of the ancient Greek dock built on huge stones. More than 2100 years later, one can still enjoy the mosaics, the temple columns, and the large walls protecting the Roman city from the outside. Once, while visiting this place with my parents, I asked them why that magnificent settlement was abandoned, vanished, and was buried by dust, but I did not get a convincing answer (even now, I would not be able to answer this question if asked by my own kids). Archaeologists believe that the collapse of Empuries was caused by a combination of factors, namely the appearance of other flourishing communities (Barcino and Tarraco, or Barcelona and Tarragona as they are known today) and a perturbed environmental regime, caused by an accumulation of sediments resulting from a nearby river, which disabled the use of the harbour. These factors likely contributed to dispersal, which ended up in the abandonment of the city. In any case, my wonderings about Empuries remained dormant for the next 40 years. But these questions slowly awakened when one of my fieldwork studies monitoring Audouin’s gulls at the Ebro Delta was unexpectedly affected by a perturbation that began in the mid-1990s. This breeding patch, which came to hold almost 75% of the total world population of this once endangered species, has collapsed in recent times, but strikingly it remained apparently resilient for many years (Figure P1). The Ebro Delta shared with Empuries the characteristic of being an exceptionally suitable habitat allowing a population to flourish, prior to eventual collapse. Empuries and the Ebro Delta represent all of the issues I have come to be interested in as a researcher: a social group thriving in a favourable patch, perturbations generating dispersal, and a nonlinear response leading to patch extinction (as a form of a new stable state). Some years ago a reading of Marten Scheffer’s book about critical transitions was also very inspiring. Understanding why Empuries and the Ebro Delta collapsed has intrigued my curiosity over the past several years, and has led me to take the leap in writing this book....

Download Full-text

Terrestrial activity and summer home range of the mole salamander (Ambystoma talpoideum)

Canadian Journal of Zoology ◽

10.1139/z81-047 ◽

1981 ◽

Vol 59 (2) ◽

pp. 315-322 ◽

Cited By ~ 69

Author(s):

Raymond D. Semlitsch

Keyword(s):

South Carolina ◽

Home Range ◽

Home Ranges ◽

Breeding Sites ◽

Carolina Bays ◽

Mole Salamander ◽

Ambystoma Talpoideum ◽

Terrestrial Habitats ◽

Activity Center ◽

Two Populations

The terrestrial activity and summer home range of Ambystoma talpoideum is described in two populations in South Carolina. Emigration of adults from breeding sites occurred from March through May during 1979 and 1980. Adults spent 237–354 days in terrestrial habitats before returning to breeding sites during autumn and early winter. Females spent significantly more time in terrestrial habitats than males. Movement of A. talpoideum into and out of the breeding sites around the perimeter of the Carolina bays was nonrandom. Salamanders used corridors of dense vegetation more frequently than open, grassy shoreline areas. Emigration of individual adults to summer home ranges occurred within several nights and summer home ranges were established 81–261 m from the edge of the bays. Juveniles emigrated significantly shorter distances (12–67 m) than adults. Summer home ranges comprised several focal points of activity or "activity centers." The area of each activity center was relatively constant among individuals (0.02–0.21 m2) when compared with the area of a "minimum polygon" home range (0.11–23.3 m2). Ambystoma talpoideum inhabited burrow systems within each activity center. Burrows ran parallel to the surface of the forest floor and averaged 1.7 cm in diameter and 4.7 cm below the surface.

Download Full-text

LARVAL HABITAT CHARACTERISTICS OF COQUILLETTIDIA PERTURBANS (DIPTERA: CULICIDAE) IN MINNESOTA

The Canadian Entomologist ◽

10.4039/ent1181193-11 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 118 (11) ◽

pp. 1193-1198 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Darold P. Batzer ◽

Robert D. Sjogren

Keyword(s):

Dissolved Oxygen ◽

Water Column ◽

Plant Species ◽

Aquatic Vegetation ◽

Larval Habitat ◽

Habitat Characteristics ◽

Breeding Sites ◽

Organic Debris ◽

Coquillettidia Perturbans ◽

Hennepin County

AbstractLarvae of Coquillettidia pertubans (Walker) are found in some marshes of permanent water with stands of aquatic vegetation. Eighty-six marshes, located within a 400-km2 area of Hennepin County, Minnesota, were examined in the fall of 1984 to determine factors that characterize C. perturbans breeding sites. We found that C. perturbans larvae attached to the roots of primarily Typha species although other plant species were also used. The water in sites with larvae was significantly deeper, lower in dissolved oxygen, and contained a significantly thicker layer of organic debris than sites without larvae. Larvae were associated with sites where Typha had specialized structures called water roots, which grow in the water column. Larvae inhabiting floating mats of vegetation were associated with interior openings within the mats.

Download Full-text

Seasonal changes in larval populations of Leptoconops becquaerti (Kieff.) (Dipt., Ceratopogonidae) in Jamaica, with observations on the ecology

Bulletin of Entomological Research ◽

10.1017/s0007485300003011 ◽

1969 ◽

Vol 59 (1) ◽

pp. 47-64 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

J. R. Linley

Keyword(s):

Moisture Content ◽

Seasonal Changes ◽

Larval Instar ◽

Heavy Rain ◽

Mechanical Action ◽

Breeding Sites ◽

Caribbean Area ◽

Surface Sand ◽

The Caribbean ◽

Two Populations

Seasonal changes in two natural larval populations of Leptoconops becquaerti (Kieff.), a biting sandfly of economic importance in the Caribbean area, are described from studies in 1963–64 near Montego Bay. Aspects of the ecology arising from these observations are included. An attempt is made to relate the seasonal changes in the larval populations to the seasonal distribution of adults, and in addition, a separation is made between the autogenous and anautogenous forms of the insect.Larvae of both autogenous and anautogenous forms lived together in the same breeding sites and did not appear to differ in their spatial distribution. The two populations studied consisted mainly of larvae associated with the small, autogenous form. Drastic reduction in both populations occurred following events such as wave action and heavy rain that had a mechanical action on the sand in which the larvae lived. The distribution of both forms of larvae was dependent upon the surface elevation with respect to the level of free soil water, since this to a large extent, owing to the upward capillary movement of water, governs moisture content of the surface sand. Elevations between about 9 and 17 in. appeared to be the most favourable. Permanent breeding probably does not occur in sand at elevations greater than about 21 in., though temporary breeding may occur at higher elevations if some other source of moisture (e.g., frequent rain) is available.In the autogenous form, a prolonged period was spent in the third larval instar. This was probably induced by some factor associated with lack of moisture in the sand, and appears to be broken (causing completion of development) by an effect of increased moisture content after heavy rain. This phenomenon probably does not occur in the anautogenous form.

Download Full-text

Individual exploration and selective social learning: Balancing exploration-exploitation trade-offs in collective foraging

10.1101/2021.11.10.468137 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ketika Garg ◽

Christopher T. Kello ◽

Paul E Smaldino

Keyword(s):

Social Learning ◽

Social Information ◽

Social Cues ◽

Optimal Combination ◽

Trade Off ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Lévy Walks ◽

Power Law Exponent ◽

Collective Foraging ◽

Exploration Exploitation

Search requires balancing exploring for more options and exploiting the ones previously found. Individuals foraging in a group face another trade-off: whether to engage in social learning to exploit the solutions found by others or to solitarily search for unexplored solutions. Social learning can decrease the costs of finding new resources, but excessive social learning can decrease the exploration for new solutions. We study how these two trade-offs interact to influence search efficiency in a model of collective foraging under conditions of varying resource abundance, resource density, and group size. We modeled individual search strategies as Lévy walks, where a power-law exponent (μ) controlled the trade-off between exploitative and explorative movements in individual search. We modulated the trade-off between individual search and social learning using a selectivity parameter that determined how agents responded to social cues in terms of distance and likely opportunity costs. Our results show that social learning is favored in rich and clustered environments, but also that the benefits of exploiting social information are maximized by engaging in high levels of individual exploration. We show that selective use of social information can modulate the disadvantages of excessive social learning, especially in larger groups and with limited individual exploration. Finally, we found that the optimal combination of individual exploration and social learning gave rise to trajectories with μ ≈ 2 and provide support for the general optimality such patterns in search. Our work sheds light on the interplay between individual search and social learning, and has broader implications for collective search and problem-solving.

Download Full-text

Heterospecific song quality as social information for settlement decisions: an experimental approach in a wild bird

10.1101/748103 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Jennifer Morinay ◽

Jukka T. Forsman ◽

Blandine Doligez

Keyword(s):

Habitat Selection ◽

Habitat Quality ◽

Social Information ◽

Great Tit ◽

Social Cues ◽

Breeding Habitat ◽

Site Quality ◽

Ficedula Albicollis ◽

High Quality ◽

Local Habitat

AbstractAssessing local habitat quality via social cues provided by con- or heterospecific individuals sharing the same needs is a widespread strategy of social information use for breeding habitat selection. However, gathering information about putative competitors may involve agonistic costs. The use of social cues reflecting local habitat quality acquired from a distance, such as acoustic cues, could therefore be favoured. Bird songs are conspicuous signals commonly assumed to reliably reflect producer quality, and thereby local site quality. Birds of different species have been shown to be attracted to breeding sites by heterospecific songs, but whether they can use fine heterospecific song features as information on producer (and by extension habitat) quality remains unknown. We used a playback experiment in a wild population of collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis), a species known to eavesdrop on dominant great tits’ (Parus major) presence and performance, to test whether flycatchers preferred to settle near broadcasts of a high quality great tit song (i.e. song with large repertoire size, long strophes, high song rate), a low quality great tit song or a chaffinch song (control). Among old females, aggressive ones preferred to settle near broadcasts of high quality tit song and avoided broadcasts of low quality tit song, while less aggressive females preferred to settle near broadcasts of low quality tit song. Male personality or age did not influence settlement decisions. Our results show that collared flycatcher females use great tit song quality features as information for settlement decisions, though differently depending on their own competitive ability and/or previous experience with great tit songs. Our study therefore further illustrates the complex condition-dependent use of heterospecific social information for breeding habitat selection.

Download Full-text

Adversity magnifies the importance of social information in decision-making

10.1101/061630 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Alfonso Perez-Escudero ◽

Gonzalo G de Polavieja

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Mathematical Analysis ◽

Social Information ◽

The Other ◽

Adverse Conditions ◽

Social Species ◽

Life Threatening ◽

Low Levels ◽

The Impact ◽

Different Levels

In adverse conditions, individuals follow the majority more strongly. This phenomenon is very general across social species, but explanations have been particular to the species and context, including antipredatory responses, deflection of responsibility, or increase in uncertainty. Here we show that the impact of social information in realistic decision-making typically increases with adversity, giving more weight to the choices of the majority. The conditions for this social magnification are very natural, but were absent in previous decision-making models due to extra assumptionsthat simplified mathematical analysis, like very low levels of stochasticity or the assumption that when one option is good the other one must be bad. We show that decision-making in collectives can quantitatively explain the different impact of social influence with different levels of adversity for different species and contexts, including life-threatening situations in fish and simple experiments in humans.

Download Full-text

No differences between autistic and non-autistic adults in social influence on risky decision-making

10.31234/osf.io/3rsz9 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Lydia Hickman ◽

Connor Keating ◽

Jennifer Cook ◽

Elliot Andrew Ludvig

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Social Influence ◽

Social Information ◽

Risky Choice ◽

Social Cues ◽

Risky Decision Making ◽

Risky Decision ◽

The Social ◽

Comparable Performance ◽

Autistic Adults

Everyday risky decisions are susceptible to influence from a variety of sources, including the social context in which decisions take place. In the general population, people update their risk preferences based on knowledge of choices made by previous participants. In this study, we examined the influence of social information on the risky decision-making of autistic adults, a group in which differences in social processing have been observed. Autistic and non-autistic adults completed a risky decision-making task in the presence of both social and non-social information, either choosing for themselves or someone else on each trial. Notably, the social information comprised tokens that represented preferences of previous participants and was thus devoid of overt social cues such as faces or gestures. The non-social condition comprised a previously validated method where tokens represented “preferences” generated by weighted roulette wheels. Participants significantly shifted their choices when the influence (social or non-social) suggested a less risky choice. There were no group differences in risky decision-making when deciding for oneself compared to others. Interestingly, no differences in the effects of social and non-social influence were found between autistic and non-autistic adults. Considering previous evidence of social influence differences when using overtly social cues, we suggest that the removal of social cues in our paradigm led to comparable performance between the autistic and non-autistic groups. The current study paves the way for future studies investigating a confounding effect of social cues, which will lead to important insight for theories of social influence in autism.

Download Full-text