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4,669 results for “Environment;”

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dryad28/100

Data from: Selection in a fluctuating environment leads to decreased genetic variation and facilitates the evolution of phenotypic plasticity

Changes in the environment are expected to induce changes in the quantitative genetic variation, which influences the ability of a population to adapt to environmental change. Furthermore, environmental changes are not constant in time, but fluctuate. Here we investigate the effect of rapid, continuous and/or fluctuating temperature changes in the seed beetle Callosobruchus maculatus, using an evolution experiment followed by a split brood experiment. In line with expectations, individuals responded in a plastic way and had an overall higher potential to respond to selection after a rapid change in the environment. After selection in an environment with increasing temperature, plasticity remained unchanged (or decreased) and environmental variation decreased, especially when fluctuations were added; these results were unexpected. As expected, the genetic variation decreased after fluctuating selection. Our results suggest that fluctuations in the environment have major impact on the response of a population to environmental change; in a highly variable environment with low predictability a plastic response might not be beneficial and the response is genetically and environmentally canalized resulting in a low potential to respond to selection and low environmental sensitivity. Interestingly, we found greater variation for phenotypic plasticity after selection, suggesting that the potential for plasticity to evolve is facilitated after exposure to environmental fluctuations. Our study highlights that environmental fluctuations should be considered when investigating the response of a population to environmental change.

opencc-zeroDec 2011View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Interactions between ecological factors in the developmental environment modulate pupal and adult traits in a polyphagous fly

1. In holometabolous insects, adult fitness depends on the quantity and quality of resource acquired at the larval stage. Diverse ecological factors can influence larval resource acquisition, but little is known about how these factors in the larval environment interact to modulate larval development and adult traits. 2. Here, we addressed this gap by considering how key ecological factors of larval density, diet nutritional composition, and microbial growth interact to modulate pupal and adult traits in a polyphagous tephritid fruit fly, Bactrocera tryoni (aka 'Queensland fruit fly'). 3. Larvae were allowed to develop at two larval densities (low and high), on diets that were protein-rich, standard, or sugar-rich and prepared with or without preservatives to inhibit or encourage microbial growth, respectively. 4. Percentage of adult emergence and adult sex ratio were not affected by the interaction between diet composition, larval density and preservative treatments, although low preservative content increased adult emergence in sugar-rich diets but decreased adult emergence in protein-rich and standard diets. 5. Pupal weight, male and female adult dry weight, and female (but not male) body energetic reserves were affected by a strong three-way interaction between diet composition, larval density and preservative treatment, whereby in general, low preservative content increased pupal weight and female lipid storage in sugar-rich diets particularly at low-larval density, and differentially modulated the decrease in adult body weight caused by larval density across diets. 6. Our findings provide insights into the ecological factors modulating larval development of a polyphagous fly species, and shed light into the ecological complexity of the larval developmental environment in frugivorous insects.

opencc-zeroDec 2018View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Biodiversity and thermal ecological function: the influence of freshwater algal diversity on local thermal environments

The influence of temperature on diversity and ecosystem functioning is well studied; the converse however, i.e. how biodiversity influences temperature, much less so. We manipulated freshwater algal species diversity in microbial microcosms to uncover how diversity influenced primary production, which is well documented in biodiversity research. We then also explored how visible-spectrum absorbance and the local thermal environment responded to biodiversity change. Variations in the local thermal environment, that is, in the temperature of the immediate surroundings of a community, are known to matter not only for the rate of ecosystem processes, but also for persistence of species assemblages and the very relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. In our microcosm experiment, we found a significant positive association between algal species richness and primary production, a negative association between primary production and visible-spectrum absorbance, and a positive association between visible-spectrum absorbance and the response of the local thermal environment (i.e., change in thermal infrared emittance over a unit time). These findings support an indirect effect of algal diversity on the local thermal environment pointing to a hitherto unrecognized biodiversity effect in which diversity has a predictable influence on local thermal environments.

opencc-zeroMay 2019View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Hormonal, behavioral, and life-history traits exhibit correlated shifts in relation to population establishment in a novel environment

Climate change, habitat alteration, range expansions, and biological invasions are all predicted to require rapid shifts in multiple traits including behavior and life history, both for initial population establishment and subsequent adaptation. Hormonal mechanisms likely play a key role in facilitating or constraining plastic and genetic responses for suites of traits, but few studies have evaluated their role in shaping contemporary adaptation or diversification. We examined multiple phenotypic adjustments and associated hormonal changes following a recent (early 1980s) colonization event, in which a temperate-breeding songbird, the dark-eyed junco (Junco hyemalis), became established in the Mediterranean climate of San Diego, California. The milder climate has led to an extended breeding season and year-round residency, and we document shifts in multiple sexually selected behaviors and plumage traits. Testosterone titers in San Diego were elevated for longer but with a lower peak value compared to a nearby native-range population, and correlations between testosterone and related traits were similar within and among populations. A common garden study indicated that changes in testosterone likely represent plastic responses to the less seasonal environment of the city, providing the context against which subsequent genetic changes in morphology likely occurred. We argue that correlated shifts in multiple traits, organized by underlying physiology, may be a generally important element of many successful adjustments to changing environments.

opencc-zeroDec 2013View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Enriched rearing environment and wild genetic background can enhance survival and disease resistance of salmonid fishes during parasite epidemics

The importance and volume of aquaculture is increasing world-wide. Rearing practices play a key role in determining growth rate, survival and disease resistance in aquaculture fishes. Recent evidence suggests that in comparison with a standard stimulus-poor rearing environment, an enriched or variable rearing environment has significant positive effects on several traits underlying growth and well-being of fish. However, the effect of enriched rearing on one of the most important threats for aquaculture development, occurrence of parasitic infections, remains unknown. We used surveillance data of experimental salmonid populations of wild and hatchery origin under semi-natural parasite exposure to explore effects of enriched rearing on outbreaks of important aquaculture pathogens and associated fish mortalities in production-scale fish densities. We also conducted controlled parasite exposures to investigate if enriched rearing reduces susceptibility of fish to infection in comparison with standard rearing conditions. We found evidence of enriched rearing influencing survival and disease resistance of aquaculture fish during parasite epidemics. Essentially, populations from enriched rearing had a higher survival rate, lower parasite occurrence and greater resistance to most infections compared to fish held in standard rearing conditions. Similarly, fish of wild genetic background had lower mortality during some of the epidemics compared to fish of hatchery origin. However, we also demonstrate significant variation in these patterns and in some cases a tendency for opposite effects of enriched rearing and genetic background depending on the fish species and nature of the epidemic. Synthesis and applications. Our results suggest that parasitic infections and epidemics can be managed through enriched rearing conditions. This may have important implications for economically and ecologically sustainable parasite and disease prevention strategies in aquaculture.

opencc-zeroDec 2014View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: The distinctive footprints of local hitchhiking in a varied environment and global hitchhiking in a subdivided population

Loci with higher levels of population differentiation than the neutral expectation are traditionally interpreted as evidence of ongoing selection that varies in space. This article emphasizes an alternative explanation which has been largely overlooked to date: in species subdivided into large subpopulations, enhanced differentiation can also be the signature left by the fixation of an unconditionally favourable mutation on its chromosomal neighbourhood. To discriminate among the two alternative scenarios one needs to investigate how genetic structure varies along the chromosomal region of the locus. Local hitchhiking is shown to generate a single sharp peak of differentiation centred on the adaptive polymorphism and the standard signature of a selective sweep only in those subpopulations where the allele is favoured. Global hitchhiking produces two domes of differentiation on either side of the fixed advantageous mutation and signatures of a selective sweep in every subpopulation, albeit of different magnitude. Investigating population differentiation around a locus that strongly differentiates two otherwise genetically similar populations of the marine mussel Mytilus edulis, plausible evidence for the global hitchhiking hypothesis has been obtained. Global hitchhiking is a neglected phenomenon that might prove to be important in species with large population sizes such as many marine invertebrates.

opencc-zeroDec 2009View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Short‐term insurance versus long‐term bet‐hedging strategies as adaptations to variable environments

Understanding how organisms adapt to environmental variation is a key challenge of biology. Central to this are bet-hedging strategies that maximize geometric mean fitness across generations, either by being conservative or diversifying phenotypes. Theoretical models have identified environmental variation across generations with multiplicative fitness effects as driving the evolution of bet-hedging. However, behavioral ecology has revealed adaptive responses to additive fitness effects of environmental variation within lifetimes, either through insurance or risk-sensitive strategies. Here we explore whether the effects of adaptive insurance interact with the evolution of bet-hedging by varying the position and skew of both arithmetic and geometric mean fitness functions. We find that insurance causes the optimal phenotype to shift from the peak to down the less steeply decreasing side of the fitness function, and that conservative bet-hedging produces an additional shift on top of this, which decreases as adaptive phenotypic variation from diversifying bet-hedging increases. When diversifying bet-hedging is not an option, environmental canalization to reduce phenotypic variation is almost always favored, except where the tails of the fitness function are steeply convex and produce a novel risk-sensitive increase in phenotypic variance akin to diversifying bet-hedging. Importantly, using skewed fitness functions, we provide the first model that explicitly addresses how conservative and diversifying bet-hedging strategies might coexist.

opencc-zeroDec 2017View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: The fitness landscape of the codon space across environments

Fitness landscapes map the relationship between genotypes and fitness. However, most fitness landscape studies ignore the genetic architecture imposed by the codon table and thereby neglect the potential role of synonymous mutations. To quantify the fitness effects of synonymous mutations and their potential impact on adaptation on a fitness landscape, we use a new software based on Bayesian Monte Carlo Markov Chain methods and re-estimate selection coefficients of all possible codon mutations across 9 amino-acid positions in Saccharomyces cerevisiae Hsp90 across 6 environments. We quantify the distribution of fitness effects of synonymous mutations and show that it is dominated by many mutations of small or no effect and few mutations of larger effect. We then compare the shape of the codon fitness landscape across amino-acid positions and environments, and quantify how the consideration of synonymous fitness effects changes the evolutionary dynamics on these fitness landscapes. Together these results highlight a possible role of synonymous mutations in adaptation and indicate the potential mis-inference when they are neglected in fitness landscape studies.

opencc-zeroDec 2017View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Fire evolution in the radioactive forests of Ukraine and Belarus: future risks for the population and the environment

This paper analyzes the current and future status of forests in Ukraine and Belarus that were contaminated after the nuclear disaster in 1986. Using several models, together with remote sensing data and observations, we studied how climate change in these forests may affect fire regimes. We investigated the possibility of 137Cs displacement over Europe by studying previous fire events, and examined three fire scenarios that depended on different emission altitudes of 137Cs, assuming that 10% of the forests were affected by fires. Field measurements and modeling simulations confirmed that numerous radioactive contaminants are still present at these sites in extremely large quantities. Forests in Eastern Europe are characterized by large, highly fire-prone patches that are conducive to the development of extreme crown fires. Since 1986, there has been a positive correlation between extreme fire events and drought in the two contaminated regions. Litter carbon storage in the area has doubled since 1986 due to increased tree mortality and decreased decomposition rates; dead trees and accumulating litter in turn can provide fuel for wildfires that pose a high risk of redistributing radioactivity in future years. Intense fires in 2002, 2008 and 2010 resulted in the displacement of 137Cs to the south; the cumulative amount of 137Cs re-deposited over Europe was equivalent to 8% of that deposited following the initial Chernobyl disaster. However, a large amount of 137Cs still remains in these forests, which could be remobilized along with a large number of other dangerous, long-lived, refractory radionuclides. We predict that an expanding flammable area associated with climate change will lead to a high risk of radioactive contamination with characteristic fire peaks in the future. Current fire-fighting infrastructure in the region is inadequate due to understaffing and lack of funding. Our data yield the first cogent predictions for future fire incidents and provide scientific insights that could inform and spur evidence-based policy decisions concerning highly contaminated regions around the world, such as those of Chernobyl.

opencc-zeroDec 2013View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Escherichia coli populations adapt to complex, unpredictable fluctuations by minimizing trade-offs across environments

In nature, organisms are simultaneously exposed to multiple stresses (i.e. complex environments) that often fluctuate unpredictably. Although both these factors have been studied in isolation, the interaction of the two remains poorly explored. To address this issue, we selected laboratory populations of Escherichia coli under complex (i.e. stressful combinations of pH, H2O2 and NaCl) unpredictably fluctuating environments for ~900 generations. We compared the growth rates and the corresponding trade-off patterns of these populations to those that were selected under constant values of the component stresses (i.e. pH, H2O2 and NaCl) for the same duration. The fluctuation-selected populations had greater mean growth rate and lower variation for growth rate over all the selection environments experienced. However, whereas the populations selected under constant stresses experienced trade-offs in the environments other than those in which they were selected, the fluctuation-selected populations could bypass the across-environment trade-offs almost entirely. Interestingly, trade-offs were found between growth rates and carrying capacities. The results suggest that complexity and fluctuations can strongly affect the underlying trade-off structure in evolving populations.

opencc-zeroDec 2015View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Haploids adapt faster than diploids across a range of environments

Despite a great deal of theoretical attention, we have limited empirical data about how ploidy influences the rate of adaptation. We evolved isogenic haploid and diploid populations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for 200 generations in seven different environments. We measured the competitive fitness of all ancestral and evolved lines against a common competitor and find that in all seven environments haploid lines adapted faster than diploids, significantly so in three environments. We apply theory that relates the rates of adaptation and measured effective population sizes to the properties of beneficial mutations. We obtained rough estimates of the average selection coefficients in haploids between 2-10% for these first selected mutations. Results were consistent with semi-dominant to dominant mutations in four environments and recessive to additive mutations in two other environments. These results are consistent with theory that predicts haploids should evolve faster than diploids at large population sizes.

opencc-zeroDec 2009View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Sexually antagonistic genetic variance for fitness in an ancestral and a novel environment

The intersex genetic correlation for fitness (rwfm), a standardized measure of the degree to which male and female fitness covary genetically, has consequences for important evolutionary processes, but few estimates are available and none have explored how it changes with environment. Using a half-sibling breeding design, we estimated the genetic (co)variance matrix (G) for male and female fitness, and the resulting rwfm,in Drosophila serrata. Our estimates were performed in two environments: the laboratory yeast food to which the population was well adapted and a novel corn food. The major axis of genetic variation for fitness in the two environments, accounting for 51.3 per cent of the total genetic variation, was significant and revealed a strong signal of sexual antagonism, loading negatively in both environments on males but positively on females. Consequently, estimates of rwfm were negative in both environments (-0.34 and -0.73, respectively), indicating that the majority of genetic variance segregating in this population has contrasting effects on male and female fitness. The possible strengthening of the negative rwfm in this novel environment may be a consequence of no history of selection for amelioration of sexual conflict. Additional studies from a diverse range of novel environments will be needed to determine the generality of this finding.

opencc-zeroDec 2011View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Listening to the environment: hearing differences from an epigenetic effect in solitarious and gregarious locusts

Locusts display a striking form of phenotypic plasticity, developing into either a lone-living solitarious phase or a swarming gregarious phase depending on population density. The two phases differ extensively in appearance, behaviour and physiology. We found that solitarious and gregarious locusts have clear differences in their hearing, both in their tympanal and neuronal responses. We identified significant differences in the shape of the tympana that may be responsible for the variations in hearing between locust phases. We measured the nanometre mechanical responses of the ear's tympanal membrane to sound, finding that solitarious animals exhibit greater displacement. Finally, neural experiments signified that solitarious locusts have a relatively stronger response to high frequencies. The enhanced response to high-frequency sounds in the nocturnally flying solitarious locusts suggests greater investment in detecting the ultrasonic echolocation calls of bats, to which they are more vulnerable than diurnally active gregarious locusts. This study highlights the importance of epigenetic effects set forth during development and begins to identify how animals are equipped to match their immediate environmental needs.

opencc-zeroDec 2013View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Evolution of phenotype-environment associations by genetic responses to selection and phenotypic plasticity in a temporally autocorrelated environment

Covariation between population-mean phenotypes and environmental variables, sometimes termed a 'phenotype-environment association' (PEA), can result from phenotypic plasticity, genetic responses to natural selection, or both. PEAs can potentially provide information on the evolutionary dynamics of a particular set of populations, but this requires a full theoretical characterization of PEAs and their evolution. Here, we derive formulas for the expected PEA in a temporally fluctuating environment for a quantitative trait with a linear reaction norm. We compare several biologically relevant scenarios, including constant versus evolving plasticity, and the situation where an environment affects both development and selection but at different time periods. We find that PEAs are determined not only by biological factors (e.g., magnitude of plasticity, genetic variation), but also environmental factors, such as the association between the environments of development and of selection, and in some cases the level of temporal autocorrelation. We also describe how a PEA can be used to estimate the relationship between an optimum phenotype and an environmental variable (i.e., the environmental sensitivity of selection), an important parameter for determining the extinction risk of populations experiencing environmental change. We illustrate this ability using published data on the predator-induced morphological responses of tadpoles to predation risk.

opencc-zeroDec 2013View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Quantifying pursuit-diving seabirds' associations with fine-scale physical features in tidal stream environments

The rapid increase in the number of tidal stream turbine arrays will create novel and unprecedented levels of anthropogenic activity within habitats characterized by horizontal current speeds exceeding 2 ms−1. However, the potential impacts on pursuit-diving seabirds exploiting these tidal stream environments remain largely unknown. Identifying similarities between the fine-scale physical features (100s of metres) suitable for array installations, and those associated with foraging pursuit-diving seabirds, could identify which species are most vulnerable to either collisions with moving components, or displacement from these installations. A combination of vessel-based observational surveys, Finite Volume Community Ocean Model outputs and hydroacoustic seabed surveys provided concurrent measures of foraging distributions and physical characteristics at a fine temporal (15 min) and spatial (500 m) resolution across a tidal stream environment suitable for array installations, during both breeding and non-breeding seasons. These data sets were then used to test for associations between foraging pursuit-diving seabirds (Atlantic puffins Fratercula arctica, black guillemots Cepphus grylle, common guillemots Uria aalge, European shags Phalacrocorax aristotelis) and physical features. These species were associated with areas of fast horizontal currents, slow horizontal currents, high turbulence, downward vertical currents and also hard–rough seabeds. The identity and strength of associations differed among species, and also within species between seasons, indicative of interspecific and intraspecific variations in habitat use. However, Atlantic puffins were associated particularly strongly with areas of fast horizontal currents during breeding seasons, and European shags with areas of rough–hard seabeds and downward vertical currents during non-breeding seasons. Synthesis and applications. Atlantic puffins' strong association with fast horizontal current speeds indicates that they are particularly likely to interact with installations during breeding seasons. Any post-installation monitoring and mitigation measures should therefore focus on this species and season. The multi-species associations with high turbulence and downward vertical currents, which often coincide with fast horizontal current speeds, also highlight useful pre-installation mitigation measures via the omission of devices from these areas, reducing the overall likelihood of interactions. Environmental impact assessments (EIA) generally involve once-a-month surveys across 2-year periods. However, the approaches used in this study show that more focussed surveys can greatly benefit management strategies aiming to reduce the likelihood of negative impacts by facilitating the development of targeted mitigation measures. It is therefore recommended that these approaches contribute towards EIA within development sites.

opencc-zeroDec 2015View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Harvested populations are more variable only in more variable environments

The interaction between environmental variation and population dynamics is of major importance, particularly for managed and economically important species, and especially given contemporary changes in climate variability. Recent analyses of exploited animal populations contested whether exploitation or environmental variation has the greatest influence on the stability of population dynamics, with consequences for variation in yield and extinction risk. Theoretical studies however have shown that harvesting can increase or decrease population variability depending on environmental variation, and requested controlled empirical studies to test predictions. Here, we use an invertebrate model species in experimental microcosms to explore the interaction between selective harvesting and environmental variation in food availability in affecting the variability of stage-structured animal populations over 20 generations. In a constant food environment, harvesting adults had negligible impact on population variability or population size, but in the variable food environments, harvesting adults increased population variability and reduced its size. The impact of harvesting on population variability differed between proportional and threshold harvesting, between randomly and periodically varying environments, and at different points of the time series. Our study suggests that predicting the responses to selective harvesting is sensitive to the demographic structures and processes that emerge in environments with different patterns of environmental variation.

opencc-zeroDec 2015View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Local biotic environment shapes the spatial scale of bacteriophage adaptation to bacteria

The ecological, epidemiological, and evolutionary consequences of host-parasite interactions are critically shaped by the spatial scale at which parasites adapt to hosts. The scale of interaction between hyperparasites and their parasites is likely to be influenced by the host of the parasite and potentially likely to differ among within-host environments. Here we examine the scale at which bacteriophages adapt to their host bacteria by studying natural isolates from the surface or interior of horse chestnut leaves. We find that phages are more infective to bacteria from the same tree relative to those from other trees but do not differ in infectivity to bacteria from different leaves within the same tree. The results suggest that phages target common bacterial species, including an important plant pathogen, within plant host tissues; this result has important implications for therapeutic phage epidemiology. Furthermore, we show that phages from the leaf interior are more infective to their local hosts than phages from the leaf surface are to theirs, suggesting either increased resistance of bacteria on the leaf surface or increased phage adaptation within the leaf. These results highlight that biotic environment can play a key role in shaping the spatial scale of parasite adaptation and influencing the outcome of coevolutionary interactions.

opencc-zeroDec 2009View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Multiple benefits of alloparental care in a fluctuating environment

Although cooperatively breeding vertebrates occur disproportionately in unpredictable environments, the underlying mechanism shaping this biogeographic pattern remains unclear. Cooperative breeding may buffer against harsh conditions (hard life hypothesis), or additionally allow for sustained breeding under benign conditions (temporal variability hypothesis). To distinguish between the hard life and temporal variability hypotheses, we investigated whether the number of alloparents at a nest increased reproductive success or load-lightening in superb starlings (Lamprotornis superbus), and whether these two types of benefits varied in harsh and benign years. We found that mothers experienced both types of benefits consistent with the temporal variability hypothesis, as larger contingents of alloparents increased the number of young fledged while simultaneously allowing mothers to reduce their provisioning rates under both harsh and benign rainfall conditions. In contrast, fathers experienced load-lightening only under benign rainfall conditions, suggesting that cooperative breeding may serve to take advantage of unpredictable benign breeding seasons when they do occur. Cooperative breeding in unpredictable environments may thus promote flexibility in offspring care behaviour, which could mitigate variability in the cost of raising young. Our results highlight the importance of considering how offspring care decisions vary among breeding roles and across fluctuating environmental conditions.

opencc-zeroDec 2017View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Rapid response to changing environments during biological invasions: DNA methylation perspectives

Dissecting complex interactions between species and their environments has long been a research hot spot in the fields of ecology and evolutionary biology. The well-recognized Darwinian evolution has well-explained long-term adaptation scenarios; however, "rapid" processes of biological responses to environmental changes remain largely unexplored, particularly molecular mechanisms such as DNA methylation that have recently been proposed to play crucial roles in rapid environmental adaptation. Invasive species, which have capacities to successfully survive rapidly changing environments during biological invasions, provide great opportunities to study molecular mechanisms of rapid environmental adaptation. Here, we used the methylation-sensitive amplified polymorphism (MSAP) technique in an invasive model ascidian, Ciona savignyi, to investigate how species interact with rapidly changing environments at the whole-genome level. We detected quite rapid DNA methylation response: significant changes of DNA methylation frequency and epigenetic differentiation between treatment and control groups occurred only after 1 hr of high-temperature exposure or after 3 hr of low-salinity challenge. In addition, we detected time-dependent hemimethylation changes and increased intragroup epigenetic divergence induced by environmental stresses. Interestingly, we found evidence of DNA methylation resilience, as most stress-induced DNA methylation variation maintained shortly (~48 hr) and quickly returned back to the control levels. Our findings clearly showed that invasive species could rapidly respond to acute environmental changes through DNA methylation modifications, and rapid environmental changes left significant epigenetic signatures at the whole-genome level. All these results provide fundamental background to deeply investigate the contribution of DNA methylation mechanisms to rapid contemporary environmental adaptation.

opencc-zeroDec 2016View details →
dryad28/100

Data from: Age and early social environment influence guppy social learning propensities

Social learning, learning from others, allows animals to quickly and adaptively adjust to changing environments, but only if social learning provides reliable, useful information in that environment. Early life conditions provide a potential cue to the reliability of social information later in life. Here, we addressed whether direct early life experience of the utility of social learning influences later social learning propensities. We reared guppy, Poecilia reticulata, fry for 45 days in three different social conditions which involved the presence of adult demonstrators providing cues about feeding locations in the tanks ('follow adults' and 'avoid adults' treatments), or their absence ('no adults' treatment). In the 'follow adults' treatment, juveniles that swam in the same direction as the adult demonstrators found food, whereas in the 'avoid adults' treatment, subjects that swam in the opposite direction to the demonstrators found food. We then tested the fish with a social learning task, to examine whether prior experience had influenced the social learning tendencies of the juveniles. After another 45 days of rearing under common-garden conditions with no adult fish present in the tanks, subjects were retested with the same social learning task, to investigate whether early experiences had effects persisting into adulthood. After 45 days of rearing we found no evidence for social learning in any of the experimental groups. However, after 90 days of rearing, we found evidence of social learning, but only in the 'follow adults' treatment. These results suggest that social learning propensities may develop over life, and that prior exposure to conspecifics providing useful foraging information during early life can shape the degree of reliance on social learning in adulthood.

opencc-zeroDec 2015View details →

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Allen Brain Atlas

Allen Brain Atlas is an Allen Institute collection of brain map atlases, datasets, APIs, and analysis tools covering mouse, human, and non-human primate brain resources.

allen-brain-atlas
neuroscienceopenDocumentation, web resources, and API references are available online.
Last verified 2026-04-30Open record

Annotated Behaviour and Observability Dataset (ABODe)

ABODe is a University of Edinburgh DataShare dataset for behavior classification in group-housed mice using home-cage video, identities, bounding boxes, ground-plate positions, and annotator labels.

abode-home-cage
behavioral-neuroscienceopenThe DataShare record exposes download links for annotations, documentation, license text, and the zipped per-snippet data directory.
Last verified 2026-04-30Open record

DANDI Archive for NWB datasets

DANDI is a BRAIN Initiative archive for publishing and sharing neurophysiology data, including electrophysiology, optophysiology, and behavioral data packaged as NWB and related standards.

dandi-nwb
electrophysiologyopenPublished Dandiset metadata and archive endpoints are available through the production DANDI API.
Last verified 2026-04-30Open record

International Brain Laboratory public data

The International Brain Laboratory public data releases expose standardized mouse decision-making experiments, including Neuropixels recordings, widefield calcium imaging, behavior, and session metadata accessed through the ONE API.

ibl
behavioral-neuroscienceopenPublic sessions can be searched and loaded from the IBL public data server through ONE.
Last verified 2026-04-29Open record

OpenNeuro

OpenNeuro is a free, open platform for sharing neuroimaging datasets, with public search, dataset pages, and download paths for web, S3, DataLad, and the OpenNeuro CLI.

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neuroscienceopenPublished datasets are available on demand over the internet.
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