Social recognition is context dependent in single male prairie voles.
Social recognition is context dependent in single male prairie voles.
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单身雄性草原田鼠的社会认知取决于环境。
DOI：
10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.09.015
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发表时间：
2013
期刊：
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Ophir,AlexanderG
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Zheng,Da-Jiang;Foley,Lauren;Rehman,Asad;Ophir,AlexanderG
亮点我们测试了雄性草原田鼠是否能够识别相同的个体。单身雄性田鼠学会了识别其他雄性田鼠，但不识别雌性田鼠。社会识别在不同的领土背景下没有差异。地域背景可能会增加个体在社会认知上的差异。自然历史可能会以一种依赖于背景的方式影响社会认知。单身雄性田鼠可能会受益于在建立和保卫边界时了解邻近雄性的身份。同样，如果这会带来更多的生育机会，男性应该区别对待女性个体。情境社交线索可能会改变学习同一性的价值。知道闯入动物领地的竞争者的身份可能比知道动物侵入其领地的个人的身份更重要。因此，社会和环境背景可能会在许多方面影响社会认可度。在这里，我们测试了社会一夫一妻制的单一雄性草原田鼠的社会认可度。在实验1中，我们测试了对男性或女性同种特征的识别，发现男性区分不同的男性，而不是不同的女性。在实验2中，我们询问了当雄性在自己的笼子(熟悉的)、干净的笼子(中立的)或在另一只雄性的家笼子(不熟悉的)中被测试时，对雄性的识别是否会受到影响。尽管焦点雄性在所有三种情境中都会区分雄性同种个体，但当雄性在家中接受测试时(在熟悉的社交线索存在的情况下)，与缺乏社交线索的情境(中性)相比，个体在识别上的差异较小。实验1表明，选择性压力可能促进了雄性的领地行为和不分青红皂白的配偶选择。实验2表明，同种线索的存在提高了社会认知度，而主场优势可能延伸到社会认知上。综上所述，我们的结果表明，社会认可度取决于社会背景，可能还取决于地域背景。
HighlightsWe tested whether male prairie voles can recognize conspecific individuals.Single males learned to recognize other males but not females.Social recognition did not differ across different territorial contexts.Territorial context may increase individual variation in social recognition.Natural history may influence social cognition in a context-dependent fashion.Single males might benefit from knowing the identity of neighbouring males when establishing and defending boundaries. Similarly, males should discriminate between individual females if this leads to more reproductive opportunities. Contextual social cues may alter the value of learning identity. Knowing the identity of competitors that intrude into an animal's territory may be more salient than knowing the identity of individuals on whose territory an animal is trespassing. Hence, social and environmental context could affect social recognition in many ways. Here we test social recognition of socially monogamous single male prairie voles, Microtus ochrogaster. In experiment 1 we tested recognition of male or female conspecifics and found that males discriminated between different males but not between different females. In experiment 2 we asked whether recognition of males is influenced when males are tested in their own cage (familiar), in a clean cage (neutral) or in the home cage of another male (unfamiliar). Although focal males discriminated between male conspecifics in all three contexts, individual variation in recognition was lower when males were tested in their home cage (in the presence of familiar social cues) compared to when the context lacked social cues (neutral). Experiment 1 indicates that selective pressures may have operated to enhance male territorial behaviour and indiscriminate mate selection. Experiment 2 suggests that the presence of a conspecific cue heightens social recognition and that home-field advantages might extend to social cognition. Taken together, our results indicate social recognition depends on the social and possibly territorial context.