Skip Navigation



Behavioral Ecology Advance Access published online on February 12, 2009
Behavioral Ecology, doi:10.1093/beheco/arp016
This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Lay Summary
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
20/2/238    most recent
arp016v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Kendal, J. R.
Right arrow Articles by Laland, K. N.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Kendal, J. R.
Right arrow Articles by Laland, K. N.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Nine-spined sticklebacks deploy a hill-climbing social learning strategy

Jeremy R. Kendala, Luke Rendellb, Thomas W. Pikeb and Kevin N. Lalandb

a Department of Anthropology, University of Durham, Durham, UK b School of Biology, St Andrews University, Bute Building, Queen's terrace, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9TS, UK

Address correspondence to K.N. Laland, School of Biology, St Andrews University, Bute Building, Queen's terrace, St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9TS, UK. E-mail: knl1{at}st-andrews.ac.uk.


  Abstract

Theoretical models on the adaptive advantages of social learning lead to the conclusion that copying cannot be indiscriminate and that individuals should adopt evolved behavioral strategies that dictate the circumstances under which they copy others and from whom they learn. Strategies that exhibit hill-climbing properties, that would allow a population of individuals to converge on the fitness-maximizing behavior over repeated learning events, are of particular significance due to their potentially critical role in cumulative cultural evolution. Here, we provide experimental evidence that nine-spined sticklebacks (Pungitius pungitius) use public information adaptively and in accordance with a hill-climbing social learning strategy. Sticklebacks switch patch preferences to exploit a more profitable food patch if the returns to demonstrator fish are greater than their own but are less likely to copy when low-profitability patches are demonstrated. These findings reinforce the argument that public-information use in nine-spined sticklebacks is an adaptive specialization. More generally, the observation of this sophisticated form of learning in a species of fish supports the view that the presence of enhanced social learning may be predicted better by specific sources of selection than by relatedness to humans.

Key words: cultural evolution, evolutionary game theory, social learning strategy.

Received 26 August 2008; revised 11 December 2008; accepted 29 December 2009.


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.