ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and School of Marine and Tropical Biology, James Cook University, Townsville, QLD 4811, Australia.
Anim Cogn. 2012 Jul;15(4):559-65. doi: 10.1007/s10071-012-0484-z. Epub 2012 Mar 28.
Predation is known to influence the distribution of behavioural traits among prey individuals, populations and communities over both evolutionary and ecological time scales. Prey have evolved mechanisms of rapidly learning the identity of predators. Chemical cues are often used by prey to assess predation risk especially in aquatic systems where visual cues are unreliable. Social learning is a method of threat assessment common among a variety of freshwater fish taxa, which incorporates chemosensory information. Learning predator identities through social learning is beneficial to naïve individuals as it eliminates the need for direct interaction with a potential threat. Although social learning is widespread throughout the animal kingdom, no research on the use of this mechanism exists for marine species. In this study, we examined the role of social learning in predator recognition for a tropical damselfish, Acanthochromis polyacanthus. This species was found to not only possess and respond to conspecific chemical alarm cues, but naïve individuals were able to learn a predators' identity from experienced individuals, the process of social learning. Fish that learned to associate risk with the olfactory cue of a predator responded with the same intensity as conspecifics that were exposed to a chemical alarm cue from a conspecific skin extract.
捕食行为已知会影响猎物个体、种群和群落的行为特征在进化和生态时间尺度上的分布。猎物已经进化出了快速识别捕食者身份的机制。化学线索通常被猎物用来评估捕食风险，特别是在视觉线索不可靠的水生系统中。社会学习是一种常见于多种淡水鱼类分类群的威胁评估方法，它结合了化学感觉信息。通过社会学习来学习捕食者的身份对天真的个体是有益的，因为它消除了与潜在威胁直接互动的需要。尽管社会学习在动物王国中广泛存在，但对于海洋物种，没有关于这种机制的使用的研究。在这项研究中，我们研究了热带雀鲷 Acanthochromis polyacanthus 对捕食者识别的社会学习作用。这种鱼不仅具有并对同种化学警报线索做出反应，而且天真的个体能够从有经验的个体那里学习捕食者的身份，这就是社会学习的过程。那些学会将风险与捕食者的嗅觉线索联系起来的鱼，其反应与接触同种皮肤提取物的化学警报线索的同种鱼一样强烈。
