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

长期以来，研究动物行为的研究人员一直在争论，是否所有动物的学习方式都大致相同，或者每个物种是否都进化出了自己的特殊学习方式。通常，测试一种动物是否进化出专门化的最好方法是与密切相关的动物物种进行比较，根据它们所经历的环境条件，这些动物可能进化出相同或不同的特征。研究人员最近对两种关系密切的鱼类(刺鱼)进行的实验室实验研究揭示了刺鱼学习中的适应证据，表明从其他物种那里了解资源质量的能力已经在易受捕食的物种中进化，从而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来评估学习专业化是否随着假设的环境条件而演变。这些实验旨在检验关于特殊学习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.