Interactions between learning and non-learning plasticity in the beadlet sea anenome Actinia equina: A multidimensional reaction norm approach.

珠状海葵海葵中学习和非学习可塑性之间的相互作用：一种多维反应规范方法。

• 批准号: BB/Y002474/1
• 负责人: Mark Briffa
• 金额: $ 60.73万
• 依托单位: Plymouth University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=BB%2FY002474%2F1
• 关键词: Interactions; between; learning; non; plasticity

Learning is widespread in animals and is thought to have evolved because it enables them to change the way they behave on the basis of new information. For example, when an animal encounters a new event it will often respond by hiding. But if that event is experienced multiple times and turns out not to be dangerous, the animal will gradually reduce the amount of time it hides for, each time the same event is encountered. This simple form of learning is called habituation and the benefit of habituating is that it reduces the amount of time spent hiding needlessly. Instead, that time can be used for other important activities such as searching for food or mates. While habituation has been well documented in an array of species, important gaps in our knowledge of this process, and its evolutionary causes, remain. First, animals also adjust their behaviour in the absence of learning, for example by hiding for longer if a threat like a predator is present. These types of changes are known as behavioural plasticity. At present, little is known about how learning to habituate could be affected by non-learned plasticity. We would expect plasticity to affect learning because both are dependent on an animal's ability to process information about external conditions. For instance, habituation might occur more slowly (a slower decline in hiding times across repeated exposures to a stimulus that turns out to be non-harmful) if additional risks such as a predator are also present. Equally, habituation might occur more rapidly when the rewards of emerging from hiding, such as the presence of food, are higher. Additionally, habituation might be less likely when the intervals between repeated stimulation are longer, due to the process of 'forgetting'. Interestingly, forgetting might be as beneficial as learning because it would prevent habituation in the absence of relevant information. Our first objective is to understand how habituation is affected by risk, reward and the timing of learning opportunities. Second, it is known that individuals differ in their behaviour including in their pattern of learning (e.g. how quickly they habituate) but we do not know if they differ in how habituation is affected by additional conditions such as those discussed above. Here, we will test for such differences and, where present, determine what proportion of those differences can be explained by genetic variation. If differences in learning pattern (and how it is affected by additional conditions) are present, between individuals and genotypes, this would show that learning can be subject to evolution by natural selection. We will investigate these questions in a sea anemone, a member of the cnidarian phylum, which also includes jellyfish and corals. Hiding behaviour is easy to study in these animals because they retract their feeding tentacles when physically disturbed (in this case using a water jet), and the duration of this hiding response can be repeatedly stimulated and automatically measured using an artificial intelligence system to analyse video footage. Cnidarians are also an important group of animals as they occupy the same level in the evolutionary tree of life as more complex 'bilateral' species such as vertebrates, insects and molluscs. Therefore, any patterns of learning present in cnidarians could be ancient, having evolved independently of the central nervous systems seen in more complex animals. Furthermore, the insights about learning in these simple animals could then be applied to studies of more complex and captive species where we want to devise conditions that optimise habituation for reasons of animal welfare and production. In summary, we will study the conditions that affect habituation in sea anemones to gain insights into the evolution of learning and provide practical knowledge that can then be adapted to study and manipulate learning in more complex animals.

学习在动物中是广泛的，被认为是进化的，因为它使他们能够根据新信息来改变他们的行为方式。例如，当动物遇到一个新事件时，它通常会通过藏匿来做出响应。但是，如果该事件经历了多次，事实证明并不危险，则该动物将逐渐减少其隐藏的时间，每次遇到相同的事件时。这种简单的学习形式称为习惯，习惯的好处是，它减少了不必要的隐藏时间。相反，该时间可以用于其他重要活动，例如寻找食物或伴侣。虽然习惯在一系列物种中得到了充分记录，但我们对这一过程的了解及其进化原因的重要差距仍然存在。首先，在没有学习的情况下，动物还可以调整其行为，例如，如果存在像捕食者这样的威胁，则可以躲藏更长的时间。这些类型的变化称为行为可塑性。目前，关于如何学习如何受到非学习可塑性的影响，知之甚少。我们希望可塑性会影响学习，因为两者都取决于动物处理有关外部条件的信息的能力。例如，如果还存在诸如捕食者之类的额外风险，那么习惯可能会更慢地发生（反复暴露于刺激的刺激下，隐藏时间的下降速度较慢）。同样，习惯可能会更快地发生，当藏身之类的藏匿所带来的回报（例如食物的存在）较高时。另外，由于“忘记”的过程，重复刺激之间的间隔更长时，习惯可能会较小。有趣的是，忘记可能与学习一样有益，因为它会在没有相关信息的情况下阻止习惯。我们的第一个目标是了解习惯如何受风险，回报和学习机会时机的影响。其次，众所周知，个人的行为有所不同，包括学习模式（例如，他们习惯的速度），但我们不知道他们在习惯受到其他条件（例如上面讨论的条件）影响方面是否有所不同。在这里，我们将测试这种差异，并且在存在的地方确定这些差异的比例可以通过遗传变异来解释。如果学习模式的差异（以及如何受到其他条件的影响），那么在个人和基因型之间，这将表明学习可以通过自然选择的进化。我们将在海葵（海洋海葵）中调查这些问题，这也包括水母和珊瑚。隐藏行为在这些动物中很容易研究，因为它们在物理干扰时（在这种情况下使用水喷射）缩回喂食触角，并且可以反复刺激这种隐藏反应的持续时间，并使用人工智能系统自动测量以分析视频镜头。 Cnidarians也是一群重要的动物，因为它们在生命的进化树中占据了与脊椎动物，昆虫和软体动物等更复杂的“双侧”物种相同的水平。因此，在Cnidarians中存在的任何学习模式都可能是古老的，它独立于更复杂的动物中的中枢神经系统发展。此外，关于这些简单动物学习的见解可以应用于对更复杂和圈养的物种的研究，我们想设计出出于动物福利和生产的原因优化习惯的条件。总而言之，我们将研究影响海葵习惯的条件，以深入了解学习的演变，并提供实用知识，然后可以将其调整以研究和操纵更复杂的动物中的学习。