Sims Paul Q, Reader Simon M
Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205 Dr. Penfield Ave., Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Department of Biology, McGill University, 1205 Dr. Penfield Ave., Montréal, Québec, Canada.
Behav Processes. 2021 Nov;192:104475. doi: 10.1016/j.beproc.2021.104475. Epub 2021 Aug 8.
Individuals often face unpredictable and harsh environments, presenting them with novel ecological problems. Behaviour can provide an adaptive response in such conditions and where these conditions vary between populations, we may predict development and evolution to shape differences in behaviour such as exploration, innovation, and learning, as well as other traits. Here, we compared in the wild the maze swimming performance of groups of female guppies from two Trinidadian populations that differ in numerous ecological characteristics, the Upper and Lower Aripo river. Compared to Upper Aripo fish, Lower Aripo fish were slower to complete the maze, our measure of propensity to innovate, and scored lower on a combined measure of activity and exploration. More active-exploratory groups were faster to complete the maze, but only in the Lower Aripo. We found no evidence for learning the maze. Our results suggest that activity-exploratory and innovative propensities can vary between populations, as can predictors of innovation. These findings are consistent with high predation risk shaping decreased activity-exploratory propensities, but further population comparisons are required to reliably determine the drivers of the observed population difference. Our results emphasize that individual and population differences in activity-exploration and innovation can be shaped by numerous factors.
个体常常面临不可预测且恶劣的环境，这给他们带来了新的生态问题。行为可以在这种情况下提供适应性反应，并且当这些情况在不同种群之间存在差异时，我们可以预测发育和进化会塑造行为上的差异，比如探索、创新和学习，以及其他特征。在此，我们在野外比较了来自特立尼达两个种群的雌性孔雀鱼群体的迷宫游泳表现，这两个种群在许多生态特征上存在差异，即上阿里波河和下阿里波河的种群。与上阿里波河的鱼相比，下阿里波河的鱼完成迷宫的速度较慢，我们将其作为创新倾向的衡量指标，并且在活动和探索的综合衡量指标上得分较低。更活跃探索的群体完成迷宫的速度更快，但仅在下阿里波河的种群中如此。我们没有发现学习迷宫的证据。我们的结果表明，活动探索和创新倾向在不同种群之间可能存在差异，创新的预测因素也可能如此。这些发现与高捕食风险导致活动探索倾向降低相一致，但需要进一步进行种群比较才能可靠地确定观察到的种群差异的驱动因素。我们的结果强调，活动探索和创新方面的个体和种群差异可能受到多种因素的影响。
