Larger groups of passerines are more efficient problem solvers in the wild
Larger groups of passerines are more efficient problem solvers in the wild
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.1111560108
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发表时间：
2011-09-20
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Quinn, John L.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Morand-Ferron, Julie;Quinn, John L.
群体生活通常有助于生物体应对充满挑战的环境条件。尽管这是人类已知的现象，但最近的研究结果表明，动物群体生活的好处通常可能是提高创新解决问题的效率。然而，这种好处从未在自然环境中得到证实，而且提高效率的机制在很大程度上也是未知的。我们检查了大山雀和蓝山雀在自动化设备上解决问题的表现，发现效率随着鸡群规模的增加而提高。当将分析限制在天真的个体时，这种关系成立，表明较大的群体可以提高创新效率。除了幼稚鸟群大小的影响之外，至少一只有经验的鸟的存在还增加了解决问题的频率，并且较大的鸟群更有可能包含有经验的鸟。这些发现为非人类动物的“能力库”假说提供了经验证据。个体之间的成功概率也存在差异，这是能力池假设的必要条件。当与大量同伴一起觅食以及使用位于保护性树木覆盖范围附近而不是远离的设备时，解决者成功的可能性更高，这表明减少捕食风险对解决问题的效率有一定的作用。与传统的群体生活理论相反，加入较大群体的个体受益于较高的种子摄入量，这表明群体生活通过提高解决问题的效率促进了对新食物来源的开发。我们的研究结果表明，生态和社会因素通过降低捕食风险和增加能力库来调节自然种群的创新。
Group living commonly helps organisms face challenging environmental conditions. Although a known phenomenon in humans, recent findings suggest that a benefit of group living in animals generally might be increased innovative problem-solving efficiency. This benefit has never been demonstrated in a natural context, however, and the mechanisms underlying improved efficiency are largely unknown. We examined the problem-solving performance of great and blue tits at automated devices and found that efficiency increased with flock size. This relationship held when restricting the analysis to naive individuals, demonstrating that larger groups increased innovation efficiency. In addition to this effect of naive flock size, the presence of at least one experienced bird increased the frequency of solving, and larger flocks were more likely to contain experienced birds. These findings provide empirical evidence for the "pool of competence" hypothesis in nonhuman animals. The probability of success also differed consistently between individuals, a necessary condition for the pool of competence hypothesis. Solvers had a higher probability of success when foraging with a larger number of companions and when using devices located near rather than further from protective tree cover, suggesting a role for reduced predation risk on problem-solving efficiency. In contrast to traditional group living theory, individuals joining larger flocks benefited from a higher seed intake, suggesting that group living facilitated exploitation of a novel food source through improved problem-solving efficiency. Together our results suggest that both ecological and social factors, through reduced predation risk and increased pool of competence, mediate innovation in natural populations.