scholarly journals Immature wild orangutans acquire relevant ecological knowledge through sex-specific attentional biases during social learning

PLoS Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. e3001173
Author(s):  
Beatrice Ehmann ◽  
Carel P. van Schaik ◽  
Alison M. Ashbury ◽  
Julia Mörchen ◽  
Helvi Musdarlia ◽  
...  

As a part of growing up, immature orangutans must acquire vast repertoires of skills and knowledge, a process that takes several years of observational social learning and subsequent practice. Adult female and male orangutans show behavioral differences including sex-specific foraging patterns and male-biased dispersal. We investigated how these differing life trajectories affect social interest and emerging ecological knowledge in immatures. We analyzed 15 years of detailed observational data on social learning, associations, and diet repertoires of 50 immatures (16 females and 34 males), from 2 orangutan populations. Specific to the feeding context, we found sex differences in the development of social interest: Throughout the dependency period, immature females direct most of their social attention at their mothers, whereas immature males show an increasing attentional preference for individuals other than their mothers. When attending to non-mother individuals, males show a significant bias toward immigrant individuals and a trend for a bias toward adult males. In contrast, females preferentially attend to neighboring residents. Accordingly, by the end of the dependency period, immature females show a larger dietary overlap with their mothers than do immature males. These results suggest that immature orangutans show attentional biases through which they learn from individuals with the most relevant ecological knowledge. Diversifying their skills and knowledge likely helps males when they move to a new area. In sum, our findings underline the importance of fine-grained social inputs for the acquisition of ecological knowledge and skills in orangutans and likely in other apes as well.

Author(s):  
Kevin N. Laland

This chapter provides a brief overview of the evidence for social learning in animals, demonstrating the ubiquity of copying in nature. It explains that learning from others is an extremely prevalent trick that animals rely on to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to earn a living in a tough and unforgiving world. All kinds of creatures exploit the wisdom others have accrued, and that wisdom is absolutely vital to the animal's survival. This chapter presents examples from some of the better-studied functional domains in some of the most intensively researched animal systems on the myriad of different ways in which animals exploit information provided by others. However, it also points out that social learning is so useful that it crops up in contexts that are far less intuitive, including some instances in which science has yet to understand the function of the transmitted behavior. Copying is everywhere in nature, where animals regularly invent new solutions to problems, and these innovations often spread through the population, sometimes generating behavioral differences akin to cultures.


Author(s):  
Katharina J. Rohlfing ◽  
Iris Nomikou

Research findings indicate that synchrony between events in two different modalities is a key concept in early social learning. Our longitudinal pilot study with 14 mother–child dyads is the first to support the idea that synchrony between action and language as a form of responsive behaviour in mothers relates to later language acquisition in their children. We conducted a fine-grained coding of multimodal behaviour within the dyad during an everyday diapering activity when the children were three and six months old. When the children attained 24 months, their mothers completed language surveys; this data was then related to the dyadic measures in early interaction. We propose a ‘role-switching’ model according to which it is important for three-month-olds to be exposed to multimodal input for a great deal of time, whereas for six-month-old infants, the mother should respond to the infant’s attention and provide multimodal input when her child is gazing at her.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 175-194
Author(s):  
Thomas Smith ◽  
George Holmes ◽  
Jouni Paavola

Biodiversity loss presents a serious business risk, particularly for natural resource–based sectors. Improved ecological knowledge has been identified as a means to change perceptions and motivate operational reform regarding biodiversity, but the processes by which businesses gain such knowledge remain unclear. One possible process is to use social learning. Social learning describes processes of ecological knowledge transfer and identifies essential components of successful learning processes. Social learning is applied to forestry and salmon farming in Chile. The role of the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) as a “bridging organisation,” prompting learning by forestry firms, contrasts with the absence of such an organisation in salmon farming. This article demonstrates how even with improved ecological knowledge firms may not fully transform operations, instead seeking to protect core activities from substantive reform. The article reflects on potential applications of social learning to other socioecological contexts, and areas for future research regarding business and biodiversity.


2001 ◽  
Vol 79 (1) ◽  
pp. 171-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher S Rosenberry ◽  
Mark C Conner ◽  
Richard A Lancia

Sexual competition and aggression by adult females have been hypothesized to prompt dispersal by male white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). We observed behavioral interactions of 21 yearling males (14 dispersers and 7 nondispersers) at Chesapeake Farms during the early part of the breeding season prior to actual breeding. Interactions with adult males and females constituted a small portion of all interactions and yearling males were similarly subordinate to adults. Dispersers participated in breeding-season behaviors with yearling males more often than nondispersers did (P = 0.005), and tended to be more subordinate than nondispersers (P = 0.095). Behavioral differences related to sexual competition with other yearlings appeared to be correlated with dispersal by yearling males at Chesapeake Farms. We recommend that both sexual competition and aggression by adult females be considered in future attempts to understand the dispersal behavior of white-tailed deer.


Urban Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 365-383 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva K Andersson ◽  
Bo Malmberg

Will the consequences of residential segregation, that is, spatial concentration of marginalised populations on the one hand, and spatial concentration of affluent populations on the other hand, generate a situation where individual life trajectories are influenced by where individuals grow up? Our aim is to analyse how poverty risks and early income career at adult age are influenced by different neighbourhood contexts in early youth. We use Swedish longitudinal register data, and follow individuals born in 1980 until 2012. Residential context is measured in 1995 at age 15 by expanding a buffer around the residential locations of each individual and, by computing statistical aggregates of different socio-demographic variables for that population. The results show that poverty risks increase for individuals growing up in areas characterised by high numbers of social allowance recipients living nearby, whereas elite geographical context is favourable for both women’s and men’s future income.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Keerthipriya ◽  
S. Nandini ◽  
T. N. C. Vidya

We present a detailed study of male associations in the Asian elephant, using 6 years of data on identified, non-musth males. Adult males spent greater proportions of their time solitarily than in mixed-sex or in all-male groups. Old (over 30 years) males were sighted more frequently with their age-peers and less frequently with young (15–30 years) males than expected at random in all-male groups. Young males were not sighted more frequently with old males than with young males, and did not disproportionately initiate associations with old males. These results suggest that male associations, in the absence of females, may allow for old non-musth males to test strengths against age-peers. Social learning from older individuals did not seem to be important in male associations, unlike that observed in the African savannah elephant. We also found a constraint on the sizes of all-male groups, similar to that seen in female groups in our study population, and all-male groups were rarer and smaller than those in African savannah elephant. Although male associations were weak, most males had a significant top associate, with whom their association was the strongest, in female absence. In mixed-sex groups, male associations occurred at random, suggesting that males were tracking female groups independently. Differences in male social organization from that of the related African savannah elephant that occupies a similar niche possibly arise from differences in ecology.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charley M. Wu ◽  
Mark K. Ho ◽  
Benjamin Kahl ◽  
Christina Leuker ◽  
Björn Meder ◽  
...  

AbstractA key question individuals face in any social learning environment is when to innovate alone and when to imitate others. Previous simulation results have found that the best performing groups exhibit an intermediate balance, yet it is still largely unknown how individuals collectively negotiate this balance. We use an immersive collective foraging experiment, implemented in the Minecraft game engine, facilitating unprecedented access to spatial trajectories and visual field data. The virtual environment imposes a limited field of view, creating a natural trade-off between allocating visual attention towards individual innovation or to look towards peers for social imitation. By analyzing foraging patterns, social interactions (visual and spatial), and social influence, we shine new light on how groups collectively adapt to the fluctuating demands of the environment through specialization and selective imitation, rather than homogeneity and indiscriminate copying of others.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Keerthipriya ◽  
S. Nandini ◽  
T.N.C. Vidya

AbstractWe present a detailed study of male associations in a roving species, the Asian elephant, using six years of data on identified, nonmusth males. Adult males spent greater proportions of their time solitarily than in mixed-sex or in all-male groups. Old (over 30 years) males were sighted more frequently with their age-peers and less frequently with young (15-30 years) males than expected at random in all-male groups. Young males were not sighted more frequently with old males than with young males, and did not disproportionately initiate associations with old males. These results suggest that male associations, in the absence of females, primarily allow for old nonmusth males to test strengths against age-peers. Social learning from older individuals did not seem to be important in male associations, unlike that observed in African savannah elephants. We also found a constraint on the sizes of all-male groups, similar to that seen in female groups in our study population, and with male group sizes being smaller than that of African savannah elephants. However, most males had a significant top associate in female absence. In mixed-sex groups, male associations occurred at random, suggesting that males were tracking female groups independently. Thus, we find some differences in male social organisation compared to the phylogenetically related African savannah elephant that occupies a similar niche, and suggest that ecological factors might have shaped the differences in these male societies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (19) ◽  
pp. 8088
Author(s):  
Maurizio Sajeva ◽  
Marjo Maidell ◽  
Jonne Kotta

While the specialisation of science is important for understanding specific systems, the isolation of scientific schools in their disciplinary silos makes it harder to understand the interactions within and between systems and limits the wisdom about the whole systems’ sustainability. Science integration and its practical implementation is a key factor of success for sustainable development. The aim of this paper is to present a participatory geospatial toolkit developed during the BONUS MARES project that enables science integration and knowledge transfer informing SDGs based governance and decision making. This was realized through the Eco-GAME (Governance Assessment Matrix Exercise) framework, trans-disciplinary social learning for the meta-evaluation of existing knowledge about human-nature systems interaction—manifested through ecosystem services. The Eco-GAME was applied to a participatory geospatial toolkit that translates complex ecological knowledge on ecosystems, ecosystem functions, and services produced into more usable forms to inform evidence-based decision-making in pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is the first attempt, in the context of geospatial applications, to support dynamic interaction, trans-disciplinary social-learning, and multi-dimensional appreciation of ecosystem services for integrating ecological, non-economic and economic knowledge and methods. The toolkit is being implemented in the MAREA project.


2011 ◽  
Vol 189-193 ◽  
pp. 3377-3382
Author(s):  
Hong Yun Zhao ◽  
Bo Chen ◽  
Li Zhou ◽  
Guo Dong Wang

Focusing on the need of actual production, physical analogue experiments were done on the 400MPa ultra fine grained steel under different welding heat circulations. The experiment results showed that grains growing up and performance dropping was inevitable, the coarsening temperature range was 1000~1200 ; where the heating temperature was 800 in the Heat Affected Zone, the soften was the most obvious, but when the cooling rate t8/5<10s, the soften disappeared; speeding up the cooling rate could improve the microstructure of the Heat-affected Zone effectively and made the mechanical properties of the joint better than that of the base metal.


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