scholarly journals Role of immigrants and muzzle contacts in the uptake of a novel food by wild vervet monkeys

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pooja Dongre ◽  
Charlotte Canteloup ◽  
Gaëlle Lanté ◽  
Mathieu Cantat ◽  
Erica van de Waal

The entry into and uptake of information in social groups is critical for behavioural adaptation by long-lived species in rapidly changing environments. We exposed five groups of wild vervet monkeys to a novel food to investigate innovation of processing and consuming it. We observed whether dispersing males could introduce this innovation into groups and compare uptake between groups. We report that immigrant males innovated in two groups, and an infant innovated in one group. In two other groups, immigrant males imported the innovation from another group. Uptake of the novel food was fastest in groups where immigrant males ate first and younger individuals were most likely to acquire the novel food. We also investigated the role of muzzle contact behaviour in information seeking around the novel food. Muzzle contacts decreased in frequency over repeated exposures to the novel food, were targeted towards knowledgeable adults the most, and juveniles and naïve individuals initiated the most. Knowledgeable adult males were targeted but rarely initiated muzzle contacts, whereas knowledgeable adult females were targeted and initiated them, emphasising an adult sex difference in seeking social information. We highlight the potential of immigrants as vectors of information, enabling rapid behavioural adaptation and population level culture.

1996 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 493 ◽  
Author(s):  
P Valsecchi ◽  
GR Singleton ◽  
WJ Price

The role of social transmission in directing food preference was assessed in adult wild mice living in seminatural outdoor enclosures located in south-eastern Australia. We first examined whether mice recently fed one novel food and then released back into the enclosure (demonstrator mice) influenced the food preference of mice presented with a choice between that novel food and one other novel food. Then we examined the food preference of mice presented with a novel food and their staple food, after demonstrator mice were fed with the novel food and returned to the enclosure. The main results were as follows: (i) mice given a choice between two novel foods, in the presence of demonstrator mice, consumed significantly more of the novel food to which demonstrator mice had been exposed; and (ii) mice given a choice of one novel food and their staple food, in the presence of demonstrator mice that had been exposed to the novel food, ate similar amounts of the two foods. The adaptive value of different strategies of food selection is discussed.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica M. Sheffer ◽  
Gabriele Uhl ◽  
Stefan Prost ◽  
Tillmann Lueders ◽  
Tim Urich ◽  
...  

Many ecological and evolutionary processes in animals depend upon microbial symbioses. In spiders, the role of the microbiome in these processes remains mostly unknown. We compared the microbiome between populations, individuals, and tissue types of a range-expanding spider, using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Our study is one of the first to go beyond targeting known endosymbionts in spiders and characterizes the total microbiome across different body compartments (leg, prosoma, hemolymph, book lungs, ovaries, silk glands, midgut, and fecal pellets). Overall, the microbiome differed significantly between populations and individuals, but not between tissue types. The microbiome of the wasp spider Argiope bruennichi features a novel dominant bacterial symbiont, which is abundant in every tissue type in spiders from geographically distinct populations and that is also present in offspring. The novel symbiont is affiliated with the Tenericutes, but has low sequence identity (<85%) to all previously named taxa, suggesting that the novel symbiont represents a new bacterial clade. Its presence in offspring implies that it is vertically transmitted. Our results shed light on the processes that shape microbiome differentiation in this species and raise several questions about the implications of the novel dominant bacterial symbiont on the biology and evolution of its host.


2021 ◽  
Vol 75 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Csaba Moskát ◽  
David M. Taylor ◽  
Márk E. Hauber

Abstract The obligate brood parasitic common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is best known for its two-note “cu-coo” call, which is uttered repeatedly by adult males during the breeding season. This call advertises the male’s claim for his territory. A rare, aberrant version (“cu-kee”) was discovered in a population of cuckoos in central Hungary. In a playback experiment, we simulated conspecific territorial intrusions using either aberrant call sequences or normal calls (as control). Cuckoos responded to both calls similarly by approaching the speaker, flying around it several times, and perching on nearby trees. To identify the role of each note of these cuckoo calls, we also played sequences of the first (“cu”) or second (“coo” or “kee”) notes of the calls. Territorial males responded to first notes at similarly high frequencies as to each of the full calls, whereas responses toward either second note type were nearly absent. Thus, the first notes of both typical and aberrant cuckoo calls contain sufficient information to recognize conspecific males and the novel calls did not reduce the efficiency of male-male communication in cuckoos because the aberration occurred in the less functional second note. Significance statement Birds use songs and calls to communicate with each other, including advertising their territories to keep competitors away. However, when the acoustic signal is atypical and distorted, the receiver individual may not process it correctly. Common cuckoos recognize a territorial intruder by their well-known “cu-coo” calls. We studied a rare, aberrant version of the common cuckoo call (“cu-kee”), which differed from the normal call in the second note of the two-partite call. However, cuckoos responded similarly to both of the normal and aberrant calls in a playback experiment. When the first or second parts of the different calls were played separately, only the first part of the cuckoo calls was effective in eliciting territorial defence. Consequently, the aberrant second note did not reduce cuckoos’ communication efficiency.


1989 ◽  
Vol 257 (5) ◽  
pp. R1075-R1082
Author(s):  
N. Tomoyasu ◽  
N. J. Kenney

The role of palatability, novelty, and food aversion in determining changes of food choice after ablation of the area postrema and caudal-medial aspect of the nucleus of the solitary tract (AP/cmNTS) is examined through a series of studies utilizing 24-h, two-food choice tests. On test days, the food that the animal has ingested since the time of lesioning or sham surgery is presented along with a novel food that varies in palatability. The results indicate that postlesion diet history is the major determinant of food choice by lesioned rats. Lesioned rats consistently take less of their familiar postlesion food than diet-matched controls, suggesting that the lesioned rats have developed an aversion to that food. Over-ingestion of the novel food may occur, but this outcome is not reliable. No indication that the animals' response to food palatability is affected by AP/cmNTS ablation was found. Learned aversion to a food ingested after AP/cmNTS ablation may account not only for changes of food preference after the lesion but also may be involved in the hypophagia and weight loss resulting from the ablation.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica M. Sheffer ◽  
Gabriele Uhl ◽  
Stefan Prost ◽  
Tillmann Lueders ◽  
Tim Urich ◽  
...  

AbstractMany ecological and evolutionary processes in animals depend upon microbial symbioses. In spiders, the role of the microbiome in these processes remains mostly unknown. We compared the microbiome between populations, individuals, and tissue types of a range-expanding spider, using 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Our study is one of the first to go beyond targeting known endosymbionts in spiders, and characterizes the total microbiome across different body compartments (leg, prosoma, hemolymph, book lungs, ovaries, silk glands, midgut, and fecal pellets). Overall, the microbiome differs significantly between populations and individuals, but not between tissue types. The microbiome of the wasp spider Argiope bruennichi features a novel dominant bacterial symbiont, which is abundant in every tissue type in spiders from geographically distinct populations, and present in offspring. The novel symbiont is affiliated with the Tenericutes, but has low sequence identity (<85%) to all previously named taxa, suggesting that the novel symbiont represents a new bacterial clade. Its presence in offspring implies that it is vertically transmitted. Our results shed light on the processes which shape microbiome differentiation in this species, and raise several questions about the implications of the novel dominant bacterial symbiont on the biology and evolution of its host.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
F Foerster ◽  
K Mönkemüller ◽  
PR Galle ◽  
H Neumann

Author(s):  
Vike Martina Plock

This chapter analyzes the role of fashion as a discursive force in Rosamond Lehmann’s 1932 coming-of-age novel Invitation to the Waltz. Reading the novel alongside such fashion magazines as Vogue, it demonstrates Lehmann’s awareness that 1920s fashion, in spite of its carefully stylized public image as harbinger of originality, emphasized the importance of following preconceived (dress) patterns in the successful construction of modern feminine types. Invitation to the Waltz, it argues, opposes the production of patterned types and celebrates difference and disobedience in its stead. At the same time, the novel’s formal appearance is nonetheless dependent on the very same tenets it criticizes. On closer scrutiny, it is seen to reveal its resemblance to Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse (1927). A tension between imitation and originality determines sartorial fashion choices. This chapter shows that female authorship in the inter-war period was subjected to the same market forces that controlled and sustained the organization of the fashion industry.


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (SPL1) ◽  
pp. 977-982
Author(s):  
Mohamed J. Saadh ◽  
Bashar Haj Rashid M ◽  
Roa’a Matar ◽  
Sajeda Riyad Aldibs ◽  
Hala Sbaih ◽  
...  

SARS-COV2 virus causes Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and represents the causative agent of a potentially fatal disease that is of great global public health concern. The novel coronavirus (2019) was discovered in 2019 in Wuhan, the market of the wet animal, China with viral pneumonia cases and is life-threatening. Today, WHO announces COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic. COVID-19 is likely to be zoonotic. It is transmitted from bats as intermediary animals to human. Also, the virus is transmitted from human to human who is in close contact with others. The computerized tomographic chest scan is usually abnormal even in those with no symptoms or mild disease. Treatment is nearly supportive; the role of antiviral agents is yet to be established. The SARS-COV2 virus spreads faster than its two ancestors, the SARS-CoV and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), but has lower fatality. In this article, we aimed to summarize the transmission, symptoms, pathogenesis, diagnosis, treatment, and vaccine to control the spread of this fatal disease.


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