Section: Ecology
Topic: Ecology, Population biology
Behavioral flexibility is manipulable and it improves flexibility and innovativeness in a new context
10.24072/pcjournal.284 - Peer Community Journal, Volume 3 (2023), article no. e70.
Get full text PDF Peer reviewed and recommended by PCI
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.
Type: Research article
CC-BY 4.0
@article{10_24072_pcjournal_284,
author = {Logan, Corina and Lukas, Dieter and Blaisdell, Aaron and Johnson-Ulrich, Zoe and MacPherson, Maggie and Seitz, Benjamin and Sevchik, August and McCune, Kelsey},
title = {Behavioral flexibility is manipulable and it improves flexibility and innovativeness in a new context},
journal = {Peer Community Journal},
eid = {e70},
publisher = {Peer Community In},
volume = {3},
year = {2023},
doi = {10.24072/pcjournal.284},
language = {en},
url = {https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.284/}
}
TY - JOUR AU - Logan, Corina AU - Lukas, Dieter AU - Blaisdell, Aaron AU - Johnson-Ulrich, Zoe AU - MacPherson, Maggie AU - Seitz, Benjamin AU - Sevchik, August AU - McCune, Kelsey TI - Behavioral flexibility is manipulable and it improves flexibility and innovativeness in a new context JO - Peer Community Journal PY - 2023 VL - 3 PB - Peer Community In UR - https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.284/ DO - 10.24072/pcjournal.284 LA - en ID - 10_24072_pcjournal_284 ER -
%0 Journal Article %A Logan, Corina %A Lukas, Dieter %A Blaisdell, Aaron %A Johnson-Ulrich, Zoe %A MacPherson, Maggie %A Seitz, Benjamin %A Sevchik, August %A McCune, Kelsey %T Behavioral flexibility is manipulable and it improves flexibility and innovativeness in a new context %J Peer Community Journal %D 2023 %V 3 %I Peer Community In %U https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.284/ %R 10.24072/pcjournal.284 %G en %F 10_24072_pcjournal_284
Logan, Corina; Lukas, Dieter; Blaisdell, Aaron; Johnson-Ulrich, Zoe; MacPherson, Maggie; Seitz, Benjamin; Sevchik, August; McCune, Kelsey. Behavioral flexibility is manipulable and it improves flexibility and innovativeness in a new context. Peer Community Journal, Volume 3 (2023), article no. e70. doi : 10.24072/pcjournal.284. https://peercommunityjournal.org/articles/10.24072/pcjournal.284/
Peer reviewed and recommended by PCI : 10.24072/pci.ecology.100407
Conflict of interest of the recommender and peer reviewers:
The recommender in charge of the evaluation of the article and the reviewers declared that they have no conflict of interest (as defined in the code of conduct of PCI) with the authors or with the content of the article.
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