The smell of cooperation: rats increase helpful behaviour when receiving odour cues of a conspecific performing a cooperative task.

ABSTRACT: Reciprocity can explain cooperative behaviour among non-kin, where individuals help others depending on their experience in previous interactions. Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) cooperate reciprocally according to direct and generalized reciprocity. In a sequence of four consecutive experiments, we show that odour cues from a cooperating conspecific are sufficient to induce the altruistic help of rats in a food-exchange task. When rats were enabled to help a non-cooperative partner while receiving olfactory information from a rat helping a conspecific in a different room, they helped their non-cooperative partner as if it was a cooperative one. We further show that the cues inducing altruistic behaviour are released during the act of cooperation and do not depend on the identity of

SUBMITTER: Gerber N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7739497 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature