Dissertation Research: foraging decisions and social learning in a Neotropical bat

这个项目的重点是动物如何整合来自多个来源的信息，以决定吃什么。关于食物类型的信息来源之一是观察其他人的行为。通过观察其他个体获得的信息(社会信息)往往会影响动物的觅食决定。环境变化是另一种类型的信息，通常要求动物在饮食中加入新的猎物，而关于新猎物质量的社会信息可能对觅食成功和生存至关重要。人们对动物利用社会信息获取新猎物的条件知之甚少。这项建议描述了两个行为实验，以确定吃青蛙的蝙蝠何时利用社会观察来学习新的猎物线索。新热带流唇蝙蝠，圆唇蝙蝠，通过接近它们的叫声来定位青蛙，并可以通过观察其他个体的觅食来学习接近新的线索。这个项目将研究觅食成功如何影响对新食物类型的学习。调查人员将培训来自不同背景的本科生进行行为实验的方法。初步结果表明，蝙蝠有选择地结合从个人经验中获得的信息来使用社会信息。长期以来，社会学习一直令生物学家着迷，因为它是文化的基础，而文化是人类行为的核心。要了解动物文化的潜力，有必要了解动物何时利用社会观察来学习新的行为。

This project focuses on how animals integrate information from many sources to make decisions about what to eat. One source of information about food types comes from observing the behavior of others. Information acquired by observing other individuals (social information) often influences animal foraging decisions. Environmental variation is another type of information that often requires animals to include novel prey in their diets, and social information about the quality of novel prey may be crucial for foraging success and survival. Little is known about the conditions under which animals use social information to access novel prey. This proposal describes two behavioral experiments to determine when frog-eating bats use social observation to learn novel prey cues. The Neotropical fringe-lipped bat, Trachops cirrhosus, localizes frogs by approaching their calls, and can learn to approach novel cues by observing other individuals foraging. This project will examine how foraging success affects learning about novel food types. The investigators will train undergraduates from diverse backgrounds in methods for conducting behavioral experiments. Preliminary results indicate that bats use social information selectively in combination with information gained from personal experience. Social learning has long fascinated biologists because it is the basis of culture, which is so central to human behavior. To understand the potential for animal culture, it is necessary to know when animals use social observation to learn novel behaviors.