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Mild movement sequence repetition in five primate species and evidence for a taxonomic divide in cognitive mechanisms

When animals forage, they face complex multi-destination routing problems. Traplining behaviour—the repeated use of the same route—can be used to study how spatial memory might evolve to cope with complex routing problems in ecologically distinct taxa. We analyzed experimental data from multi-destin...

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Autores principales: Kumpan, L. Tamara, Vining, Alexander Q., Joyce, Megan M., Aguado, William D., Smeltzer, Eve A., Turner, Sarah E., Teichroeb, Julie A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9411198/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36008452
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18633-7
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author Kumpan, L. Tamara
Vining, Alexander Q.
Joyce, Megan M.
Aguado, William D.
Smeltzer, Eve A.
Turner, Sarah E.
Teichroeb, Julie A.
author_facet Kumpan, L. Tamara
Vining, Alexander Q.
Joyce, Megan M.
Aguado, William D.
Smeltzer, Eve A.
Turner, Sarah E.
Teichroeb, Julie A.
author_sort Kumpan, L. Tamara
collection PubMed
description When animals forage, they face complex multi-destination routing problems. Traplining behaviour—the repeated use of the same route—can be used to study how spatial memory might evolve to cope with complex routing problems in ecologically distinct taxa. We analyzed experimental data from multi-destination foraging arrays for five species, two cercopithecine monkeys (vervets, Chlorocebus pygerythrus, and Japanese macaques, Macaca fuscata) and three strepsirrhines (fat-tailed dwarf lemurs, Cheirogaleus medius, grey mouse lemurs, Microcebus murinus, and aye-ayes, Daubentonia madagascariensis). These species all developed relatively efficient route formations within the arrays but appeared to rely on variable cognitive mechanisms. We found a strong reliance on heuristics in cercopithecoid species, with initial routes that began near optimal and did not improve with experience. In strepsirrhines, we found greater support for reinforcement learning of location-based decisions, such that routes improved with experience. Further, we found evidence of repeated sequences of site visitation in all species, supporting previous suggestions that primates form traplines. However, the recursive use of routes was weak, differing from the strategies seen in well-known traplining animals. Differences between strepsirrhine and cercopithecine strategies may be the result of either ecological or phylogenetic trends, and we discuss future possibilities for disentangling the two.
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spelling pubmed-94111982022-08-27 Mild movement sequence repetition in five primate species and evidence for a taxonomic divide in cognitive mechanisms Kumpan, L. Tamara Vining, Alexander Q. Joyce, Megan M. Aguado, William D. Smeltzer, Eve A. Turner, Sarah E. Teichroeb, Julie A. Sci Rep Article When animals forage, they face complex multi-destination routing problems. Traplining behaviour—the repeated use of the same route—can be used to study how spatial memory might evolve to cope with complex routing problems in ecologically distinct taxa. We analyzed experimental data from multi-destination foraging arrays for five species, two cercopithecine monkeys (vervets, Chlorocebus pygerythrus, and Japanese macaques, Macaca fuscata) and three strepsirrhines (fat-tailed dwarf lemurs, Cheirogaleus medius, grey mouse lemurs, Microcebus murinus, and aye-ayes, Daubentonia madagascariensis). These species all developed relatively efficient route formations within the arrays but appeared to rely on variable cognitive mechanisms. We found a strong reliance on heuristics in cercopithecoid species, with initial routes that began near optimal and did not improve with experience. In strepsirrhines, we found greater support for reinforcement learning of location-based decisions, such that routes improved with experience. Further, we found evidence of repeated sequences of site visitation in all species, supporting previous suggestions that primates form traplines. However, the recursive use of routes was weak, differing from the strategies seen in well-known traplining animals. Differences between strepsirrhine and cercopithecine strategies may be the result of either ecological or phylogenetic trends, and we discuss future possibilities for disentangling the two. Nature Publishing Group UK 2022-08-25 /pmc/articles/PMC9411198/ /pubmed/36008452 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18633-7 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Kumpan, L. Tamara
Vining, Alexander Q.
Joyce, Megan M.
Aguado, William D.
Smeltzer, Eve A.
Turner, Sarah E.
Teichroeb, Julie A.
Mild movement sequence repetition in five primate species and evidence for a taxonomic divide in cognitive mechanisms
title Mild movement sequence repetition in five primate species and evidence for a taxonomic divide in cognitive mechanisms
title_full Mild movement sequence repetition in five primate species and evidence for a taxonomic divide in cognitive mechanisms
title_fullStr Mild movement sequence repetition in five primate species and evidence for a taxonomic divide in cognitive mechanisms
title_full_unstemmed Mild movement sequence repetition in five primate species and evidence for a taxonomic divide in cognitive mechanisms
title_short Mild movement sequence repetition in five primate species and evidence for a taxonomic divide in cognitive mechanisms
title_sort mild movement sequence repetition in five primate species and evidence for a taxonomic divide in cognitive mechanisms
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9411198/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36008452
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-18633-7
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