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Foraging skills develop over generations in the wild

The movements of relocated wild animals reveal that a lost migratory skill was regained over successive generations. This suggests that skill improvements can occur over time as animals learn expertise from each other.
  1. Andrew Whiten

    1. Andrew Whiten is in the Centre for Social Learning and Cognitive Evolution, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews KY16 9JP, UK.

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The transmission of behavioural traditions by learning from others — cultural learning — was once thought to be a uniquely human attribute. However, evidence increasingly indicates that this phenomenon is widespread among animals, shaping behaviours from foraging for food to mate choice to predator avoidance1. Claims for human uniqueness in our cultural skills have therefore been pinned on our species’ capacity for what is called cumulative culture: the ramping up of cultural sophistication as each generation builds on their ancestors’ cultural achievements2,3. Writing in Science, Jesmer et al.4 now challenge this view in a study of the development of migratory skill in wild populations of bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) and moose (Alces alces) populations that have been moved to unfamiliar locations. Their findings have implications for understanding the evolution of cumulative culture in both humans and other animals, and for conservation policies5,6.

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Nature 562, 198-200 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-06867-3

References

  1. Whiten, A., Ayala, F. J., Feldman, M. W. & Laland, K. N. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, 7775–7781 (2017).

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  3. Boyd, R., Richerson, P. J. & Henrich, J. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 108 (Suppl. 2), 10918–10925 (2011).

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  4. Jesmer, B. R. et al. Science 361, 1023–1025 (2018).

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  5. Festa-Bianchet, M. Science 361, 972–973 (2018).

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  6. Report of the CMS Workshop on Conservation Implications of Animal Culture and Social Complexity (2018).

  7. Sasaki, T. & Biro, D. Nature Commun. 8, 15049 (2017).

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  8. Laundré, J. W., Hernández, L. & Alterndorf, K. B. Can. J. Zool. 79, 1401–1409 (2001).

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  9. Biro, D., Sasaki, T. & Portugal, S. J. Trends Ecol. Evol. 31, 550–562 (2016).

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  10. Berdahl, A. M. et al. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 373, 20170009 (2018).

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