Social learning of foraging sites and escape routes in wild Trinidadian guppies

By Simon M. Reader, Jeremy Kendal, Kevin N. Laland. 2003

147 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We describe two field experiments with wild guppies, Poecilia reticulata, in Trinidad that demonstrated that guppies can acquire foraging and predator escape-response information from conspecifics. In the foraging experiment, subjects were presented with two distinctly marked feeders in their home rivers. One feeder contained a conspecific shoal in a transparent container. Guppies preferred to enter the feeder containing this artificial shoal over the other feeder. In a test phase, the artificial shoal was removed and the feeders replaced at the testing site after a 5-min delay. More guppies entered the feeder that had contained the artificial shoal over the other feeder, a difference that can be explained only by the fish learning the characteristics or location of the feeder during the training phase. We suggest that subjects acquired a foraging patch preference through a propensity to approach feeding conspecifics, a local enhancement process. In the predator escape-response experiment, naive ‘observer’ guppies could avoid an approaching trawl net by escaping through either a hole to which ‘demonstrator’ guppies had been trained or through an alternative hole. When the demonstrators were present, the naive observers escaped more often and more rapidly by the demonstrated route than the alternative route. When the demonstrators were removed, observers maintained a route preference according to the training of their demonstrators, which suggests that the observers had learned an escape route through following or observing their more knowledgeable conspecifics. Thus, both experiments reveal that guppies can socially learn in the wild. Copyright 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.

Subfields: Developmental Biology, Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a853b5d7da345845d4fa60460577ffa23a4636b2

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Citations in the corpus

Individual personality traits influence group exploration in a feral guppy population (2014, background): “Because information is distributed unevenly within groups of social animals, these leaders are often highly motivated, informed individuals with knowledge of a particular migration route or the location of a reliable food source (Lachlan et al. 1998; Reebs 2000; Reader et al. 2003).”
Consensus decision making in human crowds (2008, background): “Reader et al. (2003) found that four demonstrator guppies, P. reticulata, could guide four na€ ive conspecifics through a hole to escape an oncoming trawl net.”
The role of conformity in foraging when personal and social information conflict (2004, background): “, 1998; Laland and Williams, 1997, 1998) and wild populations of the guppy (Reader et al., 2003).”
Can environmental heterogeneity explain individual foraging variation in wild bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops sp.)? (2007, unknown): “…foraging behaviors has been well documented in a number of non-cetacean species in captivity (e.g., Palameta and Lefebvre 1985; Aisner and Terkel 1992; Laland and Williams 1997; Galef 2003) and in the field (Reader et al. 2003), but such experimental techniques are not feasible for wild cetaceans.”
Schooling and learning: early social environment predicts social learning ability in the guppy, Poecilia reticulata (2008, unknown): “(Reader et al. 2003).”
Social influences on female mate choice in the guppy, Poecilia reticulata: Generalized and repeatable trait-copying behaviour (2005, background): “Lastly, individual guppies possess relatively good cognitive and learning abilities (Dugatkin & Alfieri 1991; Laland & Reader 1999), and have been shown to socially transmit information about foraging behaviour, foraging sites and escape routes (Laland & Williams 1997; Reader & Laland 2000; Reader e”