scholarly journals Individual- and population-level drivers of consistent foraging success across environments

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lysanne Snijders ◽  
Ralf H. J. M. Kurvers ◽  
Stefan Krause ◽  
Indar W. Ramnarine ◽  
Jens Krause
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Natural Selection ◽  
Sex Ratio ◽  
Field Experiment ◽  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Foraging Success ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
The Individual

AbstractIndividual foraging is under strong natural selection. Yet, whether individuals differ consistently in their foraging success across environments, and which individual and population-level traits might drive such differences, is largely unknown. We addressed this question in a field experiment, conducting over 1,100 foraging trials with nine subpopulations of guppies, Poecilia reticulata, translocating them across environments in the wild. A-priori, we determined the individual social phenotypes. We show that individuals consistently differed in reaching food, but not control, patches across environments. Social individuals reached more food patches than less social ones and males reached more food patches than females. Overall, individuals were, however, more likely to join females at patches than males, which explains why individuals in subpopulations with relatively more females reached, on average, more food patches. Our results provide rare evidence for individual differences in foraging success across environments, driven by individual and population level (sex ratio) traits.

scholarly journals Phenotypic plasticity of labile traits in the wild

2013 ◽  
Vol 59 (4) ◽  
pp. 485-505 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon E. Brommer
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Phenotypic Plasticity ◽  
Statistical Approach ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
Quantitative Genetic ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Quantitative Genetic Parameters

Abstract Individual-based studies allow quantification of phenotypic plasticity in behavioural, life-history and other labile traits. The study of phenotypic plasticity in the wild can shed new light on the ultimate objectives (1) whether plasticity itself can evolve or is constrained by its genetic architecture, and (2) whether plasticity is associated to other traits, including fitness (selection). I describe the main statistical approach for how repeated records of individuals and a description of the environment (E) allow quantification of variation in plasticity across individuals (IxE) and genotypes (GxE) in wild populations. Based on a literature review of life-history and behavioural studies on plasticity in the wild, I discuss the present state of the two objectives listed above. Few studies have quantified GxE of labile traits in wild populations, and it is likely that power to detect statistically significant GxE is lacking. Apart from the issue of whether it is heritable, plasticity tends to correlate with average trait expression (not fully supported by the few genetic estimates available) and may thus be evolutionary constrained in this way. Individual-specific estimates of plasticity tend to be related to other traits of the individual (including fitness), but these analyses may be anti-conservative because they predominantly concern stats-on-stats. Despite the increased interest in plasticity in wild populations, the putative lack of power to detect GxE in such populations hinders achieving general insights. I discuss possible steps to invigorate the field by moving away from simply testing for presence of GxE to analyses that ‘scale up’ to population level processes and by the development of new behavioural theory to identify quantitative genetic parameters which can be estimated.

Causation and laws in biology

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohan Matthen
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Subject Area ◽  
Structural Determinants ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Philip Kitcher ◽  
Biological Laws ◽  
Physical Laws

Physicalism appears to undermine the autonomy of ‘special sciences’ such as biology, and to leave little room for proprietary biological laws or causation. Mendel’s ‘Laws’ are so-called because they are fundamental to the subject-area, but since they describe causal processes that are wholly physical in nature, they seem to reduce to physical laws, given certain propositions about the composition of DNA. The same goes for other principles of the biological sciences. This argument has been challenged by Hilary Putnam, on the grounds that good explanations, for instance in mathematical terms, could range more widely than any given physical realization. Putnam argues that mathematics could thus have an autonomous role in science despite physicalism. Putnam’s insight has been applied to classical genetics by Philip Kitcher. A gene is a unit of inheritance that passes unchanged from parent to offspring according to certain rules. It is these rules that are essential to understanding inheritance, not details of interaction in the DNA substrate. Putnam and Kitcher here employ a notion similar to Aristotle’s ‘formal causes’ – functional and structural determinants of biological characteristics that are somewhat independent of material constitution. There are other conceptions of laws to be found in philosophy of science. Some think that they are propositions with the capacity to impart axiomatic structure to what is known about a domain. The principle of natural selection plays this role in biology, though it is a priori. Again, some think that laws are necessary truths: on cladistic systems of classification, the proposition that the common raven is a bird is arguably a law under this understanding. The nature of causal patterns in natural selection has been a matter of some discussion recently. The view that individual-level causes are sufficient to explain selection-outcomes is tempting to the reductionist, but distorts the explanatory aims of evolutionary theory. Clearly, evolutionary theory requires population-level causes. On the other hand, it has been questioned whether natural selection itself should be understood as a ‘force’ acting on a population, somewhat in the same manner as gravitation acts on a body. Statistical views of natural selection seek alternatives to this way of understanding selection. Finally, what are biological entities? Some ontologies admit no priority among collections of atoms – the argument is that an organism, for instance, is nothing more than such a collection. Many biologists, however, treat of composite entities as internally organized complex systems. On this view, cells, organisms, populations, and ecosystems have privileged ontological status.

scholarly journals The efficacy of natural selection in producing optimal sex ratio adjustments in a fig wasp species

2020 ◽  
Vol 287 (1934) ◽  
pp. 20201377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaco M. Greeff ◽  
Karina Pentz ◽  
Marié Warren
Keyword(s):  
Natural Selection ◽  
Sex Ratio ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Fig Wasp ◽  
Fig Wasps ◽  
Wasp Species ◽  
Local Mate ◽  
Sex Ratio Adjustment ◽  
Dual Mechanism

Ever since Darwin's discovery of natural selection, we expect traits to evolve to increase organisms' fitness. As a result, we can use optimization models to make a priori predictions of phenotypic variation, even when selection is frequency-dependent. A notable example is the prediction of female-biased sex ratios resulting from local mate competition (LMC) and inbreeding. LMC models incorporate the effects of LMC and inbreeding. Fig wasp sex ratio adjustments fit LMC predictions well. However, the appropriateness of LMC models to fig wasps has been questioned, and the role that a coincidental by-product plays in creating the apparent fit has been clearly illustrated. Here, we show that the sex ratio adjustments of a fig wasp are the result of a dual mechanism. It consists of a standard facultative LMC response favoured by natural selection, as well as a mechanism that may be the result of selection, but that could also be a coincidental by-product. If it is a by-product, the fitness increase is coincidental and natural selection's role was limited to fine-tuning it for higher fitness returns. We further document a case of an apparent fitness-reducing sex ratio adjustment. We conclude that the use of the adaptationist approach demands that our understanding of traits must be remodelled continually to rectify spurious assumptions.

What’s your problem? And how might we deepen it?

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Boyd
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Costs And Benefits ◽  
Evolutionary Anthropology ◽  
Art Making ◽  
Personality Psychology ◽  
Human Universals ◽  
Multiple Levels ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Case Basis

Literary studies need not always incorporate evolution but should always be at least compatible with the most powerful theory for explaining life. Evolution can open up new questions (like: why are we art-making, storytelling, versifying animals?), suggest new principles (like: always take into consideration the costs and benefits of creating or engaging in literary works), and offer new explanations of the life art represents and the effects it elicits (in sociality or emotion, say). These insights need not be restricted to human universals – evolutionary anthropology and evolutionary personality psychology investigate societal and individual differences – and can help explain at multiple levels, the global, the local, the individual, the work or the detail. Evolutionary considerations should not be required a priori but incorporated on a case-by-case basis, where they can almost always add explanatory depth.

scholarly journals Females facilitate male patch discovery in a wild fish population

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lysanne Snijders ◽  
Ralf H. J. M. Kurvers ◽  
Stefan Krause ◽  
Alan N. Tump ◽  
Indar W. Ramnarine ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Fish Population ◽  
Sex Composition ◽  
Novel Food ◽  
Adaptive Value ◽  
The Social ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Socially Responsive ◽  
Social Association

AbstractWhen individuals are more socially responsive to one sex than the other, the benefits they get from foraging socially are likely to depend on the sex composition of the social environment. We tested this hypothesis by performing experimental manipulations of guppy, Poecilia reticulata, sex compositions in the wild. Males found fewer novel food patches in the absence of females than in mixed-sex compositions, while female patch discovery did not differ between compositions. We argue that these results were driven by sex-dependent mechanisms of social association: Markov chain-based fission-fusion modeling revealed that males reduced sociality when females were absent, while less social individuals found fewer patches. Females were similarly social with or without males. Finally, males, but not females, preferred to join females over males at patches. Our findings reveal the relevance of considering how individual and population-level traits interact in shaping the adaptive value of social living in the wild.

scholarly journals Causal evidence for the adaptive benefits of social foraging in the wild

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lysanne Snijders ◽  
Stefan Krause ◽  
Alan N. Tump ◽  
Michael Breuker ◽  
Chente Ortiz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Social Benefit ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
Social Foraging ◽  
Foraging Success ◽  
Causal Inferences ◽  
The Social ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
To Come

Sociality is a fundamental organizing principle across taxa, thought to come with a suite of adaptive benefits. However, making causal inferences about these adaptive benefits requires experimental manipulation of the social environment, which is rarely feasible in the field. Here we manipulated the number of conspecifics in Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) in the wild, and quantified how this affected a key benefit of sociality, social foraging, by investigating several components of foraging success. As adaptive benefits of social foraging may differ between sexes, we studied males and females separately, expecting females, the more social and risk-averse sex, to benefit more from conspecifics than males. Conducting over 1,600 foraging trials, we found that in both sexes, increasing the number of conspecifics led to faster detection of novel food patches and a higher probability of feeding following detection of the patch, resulting in greater individual resource consumption. The slope of the latter relationship differed between the sexes, with males unexpectedly exhibiting a stronger social benefit. Our study provides rare causal evidence for the adaptive benefits of social foraging in the wild, and highlights that sex differences in sociality do not necessarily imply an unequal ability to profit from the presence of others.

Psychology, conceptual confusion, and disquieting situationism: Response to Lamiell (2018)

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-260 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konrad Banicki
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Population Level ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Research Paradigm ◽  
Personality Psychology ◽  
Interdisciplinary Project ◽  
Level Data ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Conceptual Confusion

In response to Lamiell’s (2018) commentary arising from my claim that both character and personality belong to “the discourse of individual differences” (Banicki, 2017, p. 56) some further clarifications are provided. At first, an interdisciplinary project lying behind my original article is sketched and the phrase “ individual differences” elucidated as having a non-technical meaning far broader than that connected with individual differences as a specific psychological research paradigm. Then, in turn, Lamiell’s criticism of the notion that the latter can serve as a sole ground for personality psychology is briefly summarised. An attempt is made to simultaneously emphasise the conceptual and logical depth of this criticism and to put into question some of its far-reaching consequences concerning the applicability (or lack thereof) of population-level data at the level of the individual. Finally, a concise remark is made about a specifically philosophical (rather than technically psychological or even psychometrical) approach to the situationism debate.

scholarly journals Causal evidence for the adaptive benefits of social foraging in the wild

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lysanne Snijders ◽  
Stefan Krause ◽  
Alan N. Tump ◽  
Michael Breuker ◽  
Chente Ortiz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Poecilia Reticulata ◽  
Social Benefit ◽  
Experimental Manipulation ◽  
Social Foraging ◽  
Foraging Success ◽  
Causal Inferences ◽  
The Social ◽  
In The Wild ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
To Come

AbstractSociality is a fundamental organizing principle across taxa, thought to come with a suite of adaptive benefits. However, making causal inferences about these adaptive benefits requires experimental manipulation of the social environment, which is rarely feasible in the field. Here we manipulated the number of conspecifics in Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) in the wild, and quantified how this affected a key benefit of sociality, social foraging, by investigating several components of foraging success. As adaptive benefits of social foraging may differ between sexes, we studied males and females separately, expecting females, the more social and risk-averse sex in guppies, to benefit more from conspecifics. Conducting over 1600 foraging trials, we found that in both sexes, increasing the number of conspecifics led to faster detection of novel food patches and a higher probability of feeding following detection of the patch, resulting in greater individual resource consumption. The extent of the latter relationship differed between the sexes, with males unexpectedly exhibiting a stronger social benefit. Our study provides rare causal evidence for the adaptive benefits of social foraging in the wild, and highlights that sex differences in sociality do not necessarily imply an unequal ability to profit from the presence of others.

scholarly journals Communities and the individual: Beyond the liberal–communitarian divide

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 392-401
Author(s):  
Volker Kaul
Keyword(s):  
Personal Autonomy ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Significant Others ◽  
The Self ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Self And Identity ◽  
Default Position ◽  
The Individual

Liberalism believes that individuals are endowed a priori with reason or at least agency and it is up to that reason and agency to make choices, commitments and so on. Communitarianism criticizes liberalism’s explicit and deliberate neglect of the self and insists that we attain a self and identity only through the effective recognition of significant others. However, personal autonomy does not seem to be a default position, neither reason nor community is going to provide it inevitably. Therefore, it is so important to go beyond the liberal–communitarian divide. This article is analysing various proposals in this direction, asks about the place of communities and the individual in times of populism and the pandemic and provides a global perspective on the liberal–communitarian debate.

Individual Uniqueness in the Neonatal Functional Connectome

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Qiushi Wang ◽  
Yuehua Xu ◽  
Tengda Zhao ◽  
Zhilei Xu ◽  
Yong He ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Individual Identification ◽  
Imaging Data ◽  
Functional Connectome ◽  
Middle Range ◽  
Human Connectome Project ◽  
The Individual ◽  
And Behavior ◽  
Identification Analysis ◽  
The Brain

Abstract The functional connectome is highly distinctive in adults and adolescents, underlying individual differences in cognition and behavior. However, it remains unknown whether the individual uniqueness of the functional connectome is present in neonates, who are far from mature. Here, we utilized the multiband resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data of 40 healthy neonates from the Developing Human Connectome Project and a split-half analysis approach to characterize the uniqueness of the functional connectome in the neonatal brain. Through functional connectome-based individual identification analysis, we found that all the neonates were correctly identified, with the most discriminative regions predominantly confined to the higher-order cortices (e.g., prefrontal and parietal regions). The connectivities with the highest contributions to individual uniqueness were primarily located between different functional systems, and the short- (0–30 mm) and middle-range (30–60 mm) connectivities were more distinctive than the long-range (>60 mm) connectivities. Interestingly, we found that functional data with a scanning length longer than 3.5 min were able to capture the individual uniqueness in the functional connectome. Our results highlight that individual uniqueness is present in the functional connectome of neonates and provide insights into the brain mechanisms underlying individual differences in cognition and behavior later in life.

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