Department of Zoology , University of Cambridge , Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK.
Faculty of Science, Department of Organismal Animal Physiology , Radboud University Nijmegen , Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
R Soc Open Sci. 2015 Nov 4;2(11):150485. doi: 10.1098/rsos.150485. eCollection 2015 Nov.
In many species, males tend to have lower parental investment than females and greater variance in their reproductive success. Males might therefore be expected to adopt more high-risk, high-return behaviours than females. Next to risk-taking behaviour itself, sexes might also differ in how they respond to information and learn new associations owing to the fundamental link of these cognitive processes with the risk-reward axis. Here we investigated sex differences in both risk-taking and learned responses to risk by measuring male and female rats' (Rattus norvegicus) behaviour across three contexts in an open field test containing cover. We found that when the environment was novel, males spent more time out of cover than females. Males also hid less when exposed to the test arena containing predator odour. By contrast, females explored more than males when the predator odour was removed (associatively learned risk). These results suggest that males are more risk-prone but behave more in line with previous experiences, while females are more risk-averse and more responsive to changes in their current environment. Our results suggest that male and female rats differ in how they cope with risk and highlight that a general link may exist between risk-taking behaviour and learning style.
在许多物种中，雄性的亲代投资往往低于雌性，其生殖成功率的变化也更大。因此，雄性可能会比雌性采取更多的高风险、高回报行为。除了冒险行为本身，由于这些认知过程与风险回报轴有着根本的联系，性别也可能在它们如何响应信息和学习新的关联方面存在差异。在这里，我们通过在一个包含遮蔽物的开阔场地测试中测量雄性和雌性大鼠（Rattus norvegicus）在三个不同环境中的行为，研究了冒险行为和对风险的学习反应中的性别差异。我们发现，当环境是新的时，雄性离开遮蔽物的时间多于雌性。雄性在暴露于含有捕食者气味的测试场地时也隐藏得更少。相比之下，当去除捕食者气味时（联想学习风险），雌性比雄性的探索更多。这些结果表明，雄性更倾向于冒险，但行为更符合以前的经验，而雌性则更厌恶风险，对当前环境的变化更敏感。我们的研究结果表明，雄性和雌性大鼠在应对风险方面存在差异，并且强调了冒险行为和学习方式之间可能存在一般联系。
