Quantity discrimination in female mosquitofish
Quantity discrimination in female mosquitofish
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DOI：
10.1007/s10071-006-0036-5
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发表时间：
2007-01-01
期刊：
影响因子：
2.7
通讯作者：
Bisazza, Angelo
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Agrillo, Christian;Dadda, Marco;Bisazza, Angelo
在过去的几十年里，动物计数和代表不同数量物体的能力受到了极大的关注。关于数字辨别的比较研究的累积证据表明，人类婴儿、非人类灵长类动物和鸟类之间存在明显的相似之处，这与两种截然不同且广泛存在的机制的假设是一致的，一种是精确计算小数字，另一种是近似量化大数字。我们研究了在远亲物种蚊子中区分不同数量的能力，方法是利用怀孕的雌性蚊子自发选择加入大群雌性来保护自己免受雄性性骚扰。在一次实验中，我们发现雌性能够以1：2的数字比例(2对4，4对8和8对16条鱼)区分两个鱼群，但无法区分2：3的比例(8对12条鱼)。在第二个实验中，我们研究了区分不同元素的浅滩的能力；当配对数量为2对3或3对4时，雌性能够选择较大的浅滩，但不能选择4对5或5对6。我们的研究表明，鱼类的数字能力与其他被研究的非语言生物的数字能力相当；结果与脊椎动物存在两个不同的数量辨别系统的假设一致。
The ability in animals to count and represent different numbers of objects has received a great deal of attention in the past few decades. Cumulative evidence from comparative studies on number discriminations report obvious analogies among human babies, non-human primates and birds and are consistent with the hypothesis of two distinct and widespread mechanisms, one for counting small numbers (< 4) precisely, and one for quantifying large numbers approximately. We investigated the ability to discriminate among different numerosities, in a distantly related species, the mosquitofish, by using the spontaneous choice of a gravid female to join large groups of females as protection from a sexually harassing male. In one experiment, we found that females were able to discriminate between two shoals with a 1:2 numerosity ratio (2 vs. 4, 4 vs. 8 and 8 vs. 16 fish) but failed to discriminate a 2:3 ratio (8 vs. 12 fish). In the second experiment, we studied the ability to discriminate between shoals that differed by one element; females were able to select the larger shoal when the paired numbers were 2 vs. 3 or 3 vs. 4 but not 4 vs. 5 or 5 vs. 6. Our study indicates that numerical abilities in fish are comparable with those of other non-verbal creatures studied; results are in agreement with the hypothesis of the existence of two distinct systems for quantity discrimination in vertebrates.