Understanding geographic range expansions in human-dominated landscapes: does behavioral flexibility modulate flexibility in foraging and social behavior?

The fascinating diversity of social behavior displayed by animals has long attracted the attention of researchers from different disciplines. Despite the common interest in the topic, some disciplines have focused more on the ultimate (functional) explanations for social interactions while others have mainly focused on the proximate (mechanistic) explanations for these behaviors. However, in order to understand how natural selection shapes the mechanisms underlying social behavior, it is necessary to use an integrative approach examining both mechanistic and functional explanations for behavior. The aim of my Ph.D. project was to understand the proximate and ultimate causes of social behavior variation in the Caribbean cleaning goby Elacatinus prochilos. First, I used an integrative approach that combined ecological, behavioral, cognitive and brain morphology data in order to unveil the potential mechanisms underlying the behavioral phenotypic variation observed in the system. Second, I used a within and between species comparative approach for investigating how brain measurements vary across closely related species with different habitat-feeding phenotypes. Individuals in the species Elacatinus prochilos may adopt two habitat-feeding phenotypes: cleaning or sponge-dwelling. Cleaning gobies, in general, are flexible in their habitat use and obtain most of their food by eating ectoparasites off other reef fish species. In contrast, sponge-dwelling gobies live in groups of up to 70 individuals and do express a clear size-based hierarchy. In the general introduction, I provide some background data that revealed the differences in habitat use, social behavior and group structure between the two phenotypes. In the first chapter, I exposed individuals from both phenotypes to standardized group conditions in the laboratory and asked whether the differences in their natural social and ecological environment impose constraints on adult behavioral flexibility. In the second chapter, I tested whether the habitat-feeding phenotype differences predicted learning performance in two discriminatory two-choice tasks that differed with respect to the relevant cues available to identify the correct choice. In the third and final chapter, I compared the brain structure of the two E. prochilos phenotypes to that of two other species in the genera that also differ in the habitat-feeding mode: the obligatory cleaner Elacatinus evelynae and the obligatory sponge-dwelling Elacatinus chancei. Surprisingly, I did not find any strong evidence that the differences between E. prochilos phenotypes are related to differences in habitat preference, social decision rules, associative learning skills, and brain structure. This means that at this moment, I cannot answer the question of how the differences between phenotypes work. Since I could not find differences in the mechanisms, or in brain structure, it is also currently impossible to answer what differentiation in mechanisms drove the evolution of a sponge-dwelling clade versus a coral-dwelling cleaning clade. However, I found differences in brain areas related to the visual/lateral line sensory axis between the obligatory cleaning versus the obligatory sponge-dwelling species, which revealed independent changes in functionally correlated brain areas that might be ecologically adaptive. In conclusion, the results of my study provide a challenge for various concepts that link individual experience to constraints in behavioral flexibility. Understanding why the gobies are an apparent exception will be the major challenge for future research.

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Long-term effects of maternal cannabis vapor exposure on emotional reactivity, social behavior, and behavioral flexibility in offspring

Neuropharmacology ◽

10.1016/j.neuropharm.2020.108288 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 179 ◽

pp. 108288

Author(s):

Halle V. Weimar ◽

Hayden R. Wright ◽

Collin R. Warrick ◽

Amanda M. Brown ◽

Janelle M. Lugo ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Social Behavior ◽

Emotional Reactivity ◽

Behavioral Flexibility ◽

Long Term Effects

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Do the more flexible individuals rely more on causal cognition? Observation versus intervention in causal inference in great-tailed grackles

10.31234/osf.io/z4p6s ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Aaron Blaisdell ◽

Benjamin Seitz ◽

Carolyn Rowney ◽

Melissa Folsom ◽

Maggie MacPherson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Causal Inference ◽

Behavioral Flexibility ◽

Color Discrimination ◽

Geographic Range ◽

Multiple Test ◽

Change Behavior ◽

Key Factor ◽

Puzzle Box ◽

Flexibility Measures ◽

Causal Cognition

Behavioral flexibility, the ability to change behavior when circumstances change based on learning from previous experience, is thought to play an important role in a species’ ability to successfully adapt to new environments and expand its geographic range. However, it is possible that causal cognition, the ability to understand relationships beyond their statistical covariations, could play a significant role in rapid range expansions by allowing one to learn faster by making better predictions about outcomes and by exerting more control over events. We aim to determine whether great-tailed grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus), a species that is rapidly expanding its geographic range, use causal inference and whether this ability relates to their behavioral flexibility (flexibility measured in these individuals by Logan et al. 2019: reversal learning of a color discrimination and solution switching on a puzzle box). We found that grackles showed no evidence of making causal inferences when given the opportunity to intervene on observed events using a touchscreen apparatus, and that performance on the causal cognition task did not correlate with behavioral flexibility measures. This could indicate that causal cognition is not implicated as a key factor involved in a rapid geographic range expansion, though we suggest further exploration of this hypothesis using larger sample sizes and multiple test paradigms before considering this a robust conclusion.

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Cerebellum size is positively correlated with geographic distribution range in anurans

Animal Biology ◽

10.1163/15707563-17000121 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 68 (3) ◽

pp. 309-320 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Chun Lin Zhao ◽

Long Jin ◽

Mao Jun Zhong ◽

Feng Xie ◽

Jian Ping Jiang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Brain Size ◽

Behavioral Flexibility ◽

Brain Regions ◽

Geographic Range ◽

Phylogenetic Comparative Methods ◽

Animal Kingdom ◽

Geographic Ranges ◽

Unpredictable Environments ◽

Energetic Constraints ◽

The Relationship

AbstractThe ‘cognitive buffer’ hypothesis predicts that the costs of relatively large brains are compensated for later in life by the increased benefits of large brains providing a higher chance of survival under changing environments through flexible behaviors in the animal kingdom. Thus, animals that live in a larger range (with a higher probability of environmental variation) are expected to have larger brains than those that live in a restricted geographic range. Here, to test the prediction of the ‘cognitive buffer’ hypothesis that larger brains should be expected to occur in species living in geographic ranges of larger size, we analyzed the relationship between the size of the geographic range and brain size and the size of various brain regions among 42 species of anurans using phylogenetic comparative methods. The results show that there is no correlation between relative brain size and size of the species’ geographic range when correcting for phylogenetic effects and body size. Our findings suggest that the effects of the cognitive buffer and the energetic constraints on brains result in non-significant variation in overall brain size. However, the geographic range is positively correlated with cerebellum size, but not with optic tecta, suggesting that species distributed in a wider geographic range do not exhibit larger optic tecta which would provide behavioral flexibility to allow for an early escape from potential predators and discovery of new food resources in unpredictable environments.

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Behavioral flexibility is manipulatable and it improves flexibility and problem solving in a new context

10.32942/osf.io/5z8xs ◽

2022 ◽

Author(s):

Corina J Logan ◽

Aaron Blaisdell ◽

Zoe Johnson-Ulrich ◽

Dieter Lukas ◽

Maggie MacPherson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Learning Strategies ◽

Reversal Learning ◽

Learning Strategy ◽

Bird Species ◽

Behavioral Flexibility ◽

Geographic Range ◽

Separate Analysis ◽

Learning Rates ◽

Threatened And Endangered Species ◽

Multi Access

Behavioral flexibility, the ability to adapt behavior to new circumstances, is thought to play an important role in a species' ability to successfully adapt to new environments and expand its geographic range. However, flexibility is rarely directly tested in species in a way that would allow us to determine how flexibility works and predictions a species' ability to adapt their behavior to new environments. We use great-tailed grackles (a bird species) as a model to investigate this question because they have rapidly expanded their range into North America over the past 140 years. We attempted to manipulate grackle flexibility using colored tube reversal learning to determine whether flexibility is generalizable across contexts (touchscreen reversal learning and multi-access box), whether it is repeatable within individuals and across contexts, and what learning strategies grackles employ. We found that we were able to manipulate flexibility: birds in the manipulated group took fewer trials to pass criterion with increasing reversal number, and they reversed a color preference in fewer trials by the end of their serial reversals compared to control birds who had only one reversal. Flexibility was repeatable within individuals (reversal), but not across contexts (from reversal to multi-access box). The touchscreen reversal experiment did not appear to measure what was measured in the reversal learning experiment with the tubes, and we speculate as to why. One third of the grackles in the manipulated reversal learning group switched from one learning strategy (epsilon-decreasing where they have a long exploration period) to a different strategy (epsilon-first where they quickly shift their preference). A separate analysis showed that the grackles did not use a particular strategy earlier or later in their serial reversals. Posthoc analyses using a model that breaks down performance on the reversal learning task into different components showed that learning to be attracted to an option (phi) more consistently correlated with reversal performance than the rate of deviating from learned attractions that were rewarded (lambda). This result held in simulations and in the data from the grackles: learning rates in the manipulated grackles doubled by the end of the manipulation compared to control grackles, while the rate of deviation slightly decreased. Grackles with intermediate rates of deviation in their last reversal, independently of whether they had gone through the serial reversal manipulation, solved fewer loci on the plastic and wooden multi-access boxes, and those with intermediate learning rates in their last reversal were faster to attempt a new locus on both multi-access boxes. This investigation allowed us to make causal conclusions rather than relying only on correlations: we manipulated reversal learning, which caused changes in a different flexibility measure (multi-access box switch times) and in an innovativeness measure (multi-access box loci solved), as well as validating that the manipulation had an effect on the cognitive ability we think of as flexibility. Understanding how behavioral flexibility causally relates to other traits will allow researchers to develop robust theory about what behavioral flexibility is and when to invoke it as a primary driver in a given context, such as a rapid geographic range expansion. Given our results, flexibility manipulations could be useful in training threatened and endangered species in how to be more flexible. If such a flexibility manipulation was successful, it could then change their behavior in this and other domains, giving them a better chance of succeeding in human modified environments.

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FIT – Do Something Different

Swiss Journal of Psychology ◽

10.1024/1421-0185/a000035 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 70 (1) ◽

pp. 25-34 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Ben (C) Fletcher ◽

Jill Hanson ◽

Nadine Page ◽

Karen Pine

Keyword(s):

Weight Loss ◽

Longitudinal Studies ◽

Behavioral Intervention ◽

Behavioral Flexibility ◽

Calorie Intake ◽

Life Skill ◽

Behavioral Repertoire ◽

Additional Weight

Two 3-month longitudinal studies examined weight loss following a 1-month behavioral intervention (FIT-DSD) focusing on increasing participants’ behavioral flexibility and breaking daily habits. The goal was to break the distal habits hypothesized as playing a role in unhealthy dietary and activity behaviors. The FIT-DSD intervention required participants to do something different each day and to engage in novel weekly activities to expand their behavioral repertoire. These activities were not food- or exercise-related. In Study 1, the FIT-DSD program was compared with a control condition where participants engaged in daily tasks not expected to influence behavioral flexibility. Study 2 used an active or quasicontrol group in which half the participants were also on food diets. Measures in both studies were taken pre-, post-, and post-postintervention. In Study 1, FIT-DSD participants showed greater weight loss that continued post-postintervention. In Study 2, all participants on the FIT-DSD program lost weight, weight loss continued post-postintervention, and participants who were also dieting lost no additional weight. A dose relationship was observed between increases in behavioral flexibility scores and weight loss, and this relationship was mediated by calorie intake. Corresponding reductions in BMI were also present. Increasing behavioral flexibility may be an effective approach for tackling obesity and also provides affective and potential life-skill benefits.

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