Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester UK.
Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health, University of Manchester, Manchester UK.
Proc Biol Sci. 2020 Feb 26;287(1921):20192770. doi: 10.1098/rspb.2019.2770. Epub 2020 Feb 19.
Social learning occurs when animals acquire knowledge or skills by observing or interacting with others and is the fundamental building block of culture. Within populations, some individuals use social learning more frequently than others, but why social learning phenotypes differ among individuals is poorly understood. We modelled the evolution of social learning frequency in a system where foragers compete for resources, and there are many different foraging options to learn about. Social learning phenotypes diverged when some options offered much better rewards than others and expected rewards changed moderately quickly over time. When options offered similar rewards or when rewards changed slowly, a single social learning phenotype evolved. This held for fixed and simple conditional social learning rules. Sufficiently complex conditional social learning rules prevented the divergence of social learning phenotypes under all conditions. Our results explain how competition can promote the divergence of social learning phenotypes.
社会学习是指动物通过观察或与他人互动来获得知识或技能，它是文化的基本组成部分。在种群中，一些个体比其他个体更频繁地使用社会学习，但为什么个体之间的社会学习表型存在差异却知之甚少。我们在一个觅食者竞争资源的系统中模拟了社会学习频率的进化，在这个系统中，有许多不同的觅食选择可以学习。当某些选择提供的回报明显优于其他选择，并且预期回报随时间适度快速变化时，社会学习表型就会发生分歧。当选择提供相似的回报或回报变化缓慢时，就会出现单一的社会学习表型。对于固定的和简单的条件性社会学习规则，这是成立的。当条件性社会学习规则足够复杂时，在所有条件下都可以防止社会学习表型的分歧。我们的研究结果解释了竞争如何促进社会学习表型的分化。
