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Behavioral flexibility is manipulable and it improves flexibility and innovativeness in a new contextuse asterix (*) to get italics
Logan CJ, Lukas D, Blaisdell AP, Johnson-Ulrich Z, MacPherson M, Seitz BM, Sevchik A, McCune KBPlease use the format "First name initials family name" as in "Marie S. Curie, Niels H. D. Bohr, Albert Einstein, John R. R. Tolkien, Donna T. Strickland"
2023
<p style="text-align: justify;">Behavioral flexibility, the ability to adapt behavior to new circumstances, is thought to play an important role in a species’ ability to successfully adapt to new environments and expand its geographic range. However, flexibility is rarely directly tested in a way that would allow us to determine how flexibility works to predict a species’ ability to adapt their behavior to new environments. We use great-tailed grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus; a bird species) as a model to investigate this question because they have recently rapidly expanded their range into North America. We attempted to manipulate grackle flexibility using shaded (light and dark gray) tube reversal learning to determine whether flexibility is generalizable across contexts (multi-access box), and what learning strategies grackles employ. We found that flexibility was manipulable: birds in the manipulated group took fewer trials to pass criterion with increasing reversal number, and they reversed a shade preference in fewer trials by the end of their serial reversals compared to control birds who had only one reversal. Birds that passed their last reversal faster were also more flexible (faster to switch between loci) and innovative (solved more loci) on a multi-access box. All grackles in the manipulated reversal learning group used one learning strategy (epsilon-decreasing) in all reversals, and none used a particular exploration or exploitation strategy earlier or later in their serial reversals. Understanding how flexibility causally relates to other traits will allow researchers to develop robust theory about what flexibility is and when to invoke it as a primary driver in a given context, such as a rapid geographic range expansion.</p>
https://doi.org/10.5063/F1BR8QNCYou should fill this box only if you chose 'All or part of the results presented in this preprint are based on data'. URL must start with http:// or https://
https://doi.org/10.5063/F1BR8QNCYou should fill this box only if you chose 'Scripts were used to obtain or analyze the results'. URL must start with http:// or https://
https://doi.org/10.5063/F1BR8QNCYou should fill this box only if you chose 'Codes have been used in this study'. URL must start with http:// or https://
Behavioral flexibility, comparative cognition, grackle, innovativeness, multi-access box, problem solving, reversal learning, touchscreen
NonePlease indicate the methods that may require specialised expertise during the peer review process (use a comma to separate various required expertises).
Behaviour & Ethology, Preregistrations, Zoology
No need for them to be recommenders of PCIEcology. Please do not suggest reviewers for whom there might be a conflict of interest. Reviewers are not allowed to review preprints written by close colleagues (with whom they have published in the last four years, with whom they have received joint funding in the last four years, or with whom they are currently writing a manuscript, or submitting a grant proposal), or by family members, friends, or anyone for whom bias might affect the nature of the review - see the code of conduct
e.g. John Doe [john@doe.com]
2022-01-13 19:08:52
Aurélie Coulon