Monkeys who experience more feeding competition utilize social information to learn foraging skills faster.

ABSTRACT: Animals must learn foraging skills to successfully survive and reproduce but the sources of interindividual variation in learning are poorly understood. For example, there is little consensus on the role motivation plays, even though it is a key factor impacting learning outcomes in humans. Here, we conduct a field experiment on a wild primate to investigate whether an individual's vulnerability to feeding competition impacts their motivation to learn a beneficial foraging technique. We provided a group of monkeys with a food reward (i.e., a half banana) that needed to be retrieved from a box. The monkeys discovered an efficient technique that consistently allowed them to retrieve the banana quickly, decreasing the risk of food loss to competitors. We found that individuals who frequently

SUBMITTER: Arseneau-Robar TJM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10356951 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature