当前位置: X-MOL 学术Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol. › 论文详情
Our official English website, www.x-mol.net, welcomes your feedback! (Note: you will need to create a separate account there.)
Thinking outside the box: problem-solving in free-living lizards
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology ( IF 2.3 ) Pub Date : 2020-06-01 , DOI: 10.1007/s00265-020-02852-x
Levi Storks , Manuel Leal

Abstract Despite evidence that organisms are more likely to exhibit their full range of cognitive abilities under conditions found in nature, studies evaluating cognition under such conditions remain rare, particularly in vertebrate species. Here, we conducted an experiment to evaluate problem-solving and motor self-regulation in free-living arboreal lizards, Anolis sagrei , under natural conditions. We presented lizards with a novel detour problem which challenged individuals to circumvent a transparent barrier in order to obtain a food reward. Individuals varied in their ability to solve the detour problem. Furthermore, those that solved the problem were able to improve their performance across trials by modifying the natural response of attempting to strike the reward through the transparent barrier, providing evidence of motor self-regulation. Solving the problem required individuals to modify their typical foraging behavior, as approaching the prey in a single burst of movement that culminated with an attack was an unsuccessful strategy. Contrary to expectations, our findings provide evidence of motor self-regulation in a visually oriented, sit-and-wait predator under natural conditions, suggesting motor self-regulation is not limited by foraging strategy. Our results also underscore the need to evaluate the cognitive abilities of free-living organisms in the wild, particularly for taxa that perform poorly under laboratory conditions. Significance statement Studies of animal cognition have a long history in animal behavior, which, in vertebrate species, has been dominated by experiments conducted under controlled laboratory conditions. Here, we showed that experiments can be taken “outside the box,” from the laboratory into natural conditions, and by doing so overcome some of the obstacles that have hindered our ability to study cognition in species unlikely to remain motivated when removed from the wild. We implemented a modified version of the cylinder task, which provided the stimuli needed for a visually oriented, sit-and-wait foraging lizard to participate in the experiments. Individuals of Anolis sagrei learned to solve the task by modifying what was previously described as a stereotyped prey capture behavior. In addition, individuals decreased the number of times they attempted to strike the prey through the transparent barrier. These findings provide further evidence of behavioral flexibility in anoles and new evidence of motor self-regulation. The latter demonstrates the need to extend our current understanding of potential forces favoring the evolution of cognition beyond those that have been proposed in birds and mammals. More generally, our findings demonstrate the importance of using experimental paradigms that are rooted in an understanding of the natural history of the species of interest.

中文翻译:

跳出框框思考:在自由生活的蜥蜴中解决问题

摘要 尽管有证据表明生物体在自然界中发现的条件下更有可能表现出其全方位的认知能力,但在这种条件下评估认知能力的研究仍然很少,特别是在脊椎动物物种中。在这里,我们进行了一项实验,以评估自然条件下自由生活的树栖蜥蜴 Anolis sagrei 的问题解决和运动自我调节能力。我们向蜥蜴提出了一个新的绕行问题,该问题挑战个体绕过透明障碍以获得食物奖励。个人解决绕行问题的能力各不相同。此外,那些解决问题的人能够通过修改试图通过透明屏障获得奖励的自然反应来提高他们在试验中的表现,提供运动自我调节的证据。解决这个问题需要个体改变他们典型的觅食行为,因为在以攻击告终的单次运动爆发中接近猎物是一种不成功的策略。与预期相反,我们的研究结果提供了自然条件下视觉导向、坐等捕食者运动自我调节的证据,表明运动自我调节不受觅食策略的限制。我们的结果还强调需要评估野外自由生活生物的认知能力,特别是对于在实验室条件下表现不佳的分类群。意义声明 动物认知研究在动物行为方面有着悠久的历史,在脊椎动物中,动物行为的研究主要是在受控实验室条件下进行的实验。这里,我们表明,实验可以“跳出常规”,从实验室进入自然条件,并通过这样做克服了一些阻碍我们研究认知能力的障碍,这些障碍在从野外移出时不太可能保持积极性。我们实施了圆柱体任务的修改版本,它提供了视觉导向、坐等觅食蜥蜴参与实验所需的刺激。Anolis sagrei 的个体学会了通过修改先前描述为刻板的猎物捕获行为来解决任务。此外,个体减少了试图穿过透明屏障攻击猎物的次数。这些发现提供了 anoles 行为灵活性的进一步证据和运动自我调节的新证据。后者表明需要扩展我们目前对有利于认知进化的潜在力量的理解,而不是在鸟类和哺乳动物中提出的那些力量。更一般地说,我们的发现证明了使用植根于对感兴趣物种的自然历史的理解的实验范式的重要性。
更新日期:2020-06-01
down
wechat
bug