Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Kennesaw State University, 370 Paulding Ave NW, MD #1202, Kennesaw, GA, 30144, USA.
Department of Biology, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, USA.
Learn Behav. 2022 Sep;50(3):306-316. doi: 10.3758/s13420-022-00532-6. Epub 2022 Jun 9.
Central place foraging field crickets are an ideal system for studying the adaptive value of learning and memory, but more research is needed on ecologically relevant cognition in these invertebrates. Here, we test the visuospatial place learning of Texas field crickets (Gryllus texensis) in a radial arm maze. Our study expands previous work on G. texensis cognition for accuracy measures and extends our previous findings on females to both sexes. Additionally, our study examines whether crickets use intra- or extra-maze cues to locate a food reward using a maze rotation that puts the cues in conflict. We found that male and female crickets improved performance over trials when measured by accuracy variables but not latency variables. Thigmotaxis negatively impacted performance in both sexes. In a reward-absent trial, both male and female crickets demonstrated place memory. When intra- and extra-maze cues conflicted during a rotation trial, crickets' performance was not better than chance. Our rotation results suggest that crickets may experience reciprocal overshadowing of conflicting cues - a result most often seen in other taxa with conflicting multi-modal cues. We conclude that crickets do not rely solely on: (1) a single-cue association, (2) route-following, or (3) their own scent cues to navigate the maze. Instead, male and female Texas field crickets seem to learn the location of the reward using a combination of proximal and distal cues. The possibility to test large numbers of wild-caught or laboratory-reared individuals opens the door to future investigations on the evolutionary ecology of visuospatial learning in these invertebrates.
中央觅食地蟋蟀是研究学习和记忆适应价值的理想系统，但需要更多关于这些无脊椎动物与生态相关认知的研究。在这里，我们在放射臂迷宫中测试了德克萨斯蟋蟀（Gryllus texensis）的视空间位置学习能力。我们的研究扩展了之前关于 G. texensis 认知的准确性测量，并将之前关于雌性蟋蟀的发现扩展到了两性。此外，我们的研究还检查了蟋蟀是否使用内或外迷宫线索来定位食物奖励，使用一种使线索冲突的迷宫旋转。我们发现，雄性和雌性蟋蟀在准确性变量上的表现随着试验次数的增加而提高，但在潜伏期变量上没有提高。触性反应对两性的表现都有负面影响。在没有奖励的试验中，雄性和雌性蟋蟀都表现出了位置记忆。当内、外迷宫线索在旋转试验中发生冲突时，蟋蟀的表现并不比随机更好。我们的旋转结果表明，蟋蟀可能会经历冲突线索的相互遮蔽——这是在具有冲突多模态线索的其他分类群中最常见的结果。我们得出结论，蟋蟀不能仅仅依靠：（1）单一线索关联，（2）路线跟随，或（3）自己的气味线索来在迷宫中导航。相反，雄性和雌性德克萨斯蟋蟀似乎使用近端和远端线索的组合来学习奖励的位置。可以测试大量野生或实验室饲养个体的可能性为未来研究这些无脊椎动物的视空间学习进化生态学打开了大门。
