Experimental investigation of an evolutionary hypothesis concerning adaptations in stickleback social learning.

研究动物行为的研究人员一直在争论是否所有动物都以大致相似的方式学习，或者是否每个物种都进化出了自己的特殊学习方式。测试一种动物是否已经进化出专门化的最好方法通常是与密切相关的动物物种进行比较，这些动物可能会根据它们所经历的环境条件而进化出相同或不同的特征。研究人员最近对两种密切相关的鱼类（棘鱼）进行的实验室实验研究揭示了棘鱼学习适应的证据，这表明从其他物种学习资源质量的能力已经在易受捕食的物种中进化，以使它们能够安全地觅食。我们计划对刺鱼进行一系列实验，使用来自多个自然种群的鱼，以评估学习专业化是否已经进化到对假设环境条件的响应。这些实验旨在验证一个关于学习的专门形式如何进化的进化假说。这些发现将对研究进化生物学、生态学和动物行为的研究人员产生极大的兴趣。

There has been a long history of debate among researchers studying animal behaviour as to whether all animals learn in a broadly similar way or whether each species has evolved its own specialised way of learning. Often the best way to test whether an animal has evolved specializations is to make comparisons with closely related species of animals, that might be expected to have evolved the same or a different characteristic depending on the environmental conditions they experience. Recent laboratory experimental studies of two closely related species of fish (sticklebacks) by the investigators have revealed evidence for an adaptation in stickleback learning, suggesting that the ability to learn about the quality of resources from others has evolved in species vulnerable to predation to allow them to forage safely. We plan a series of experiments on sticklebacks, using fish drawn from multiple natural populations, to assess whether learning specializations have evolved in response to the hypothesized environmental conditions. The experiments are designed to test an evolutionary hypothesis about how specialized forms of learning evolve.The findings will be of great interest to researchers studying evolutionary biology, ecology and animal behaviour.