Processing of novel food reveals payoff and rank-biased social learning in a wild primate.

ABSTRACT: Social learning-learning from others-is the basis for behavioural traditions. Different social learning strategies (SLS), where individuals biasedly learn behaviours based on their content or who demonstrates them, may increase an individual's fitness and generate behavioural traditions. While SLS have been mostly studied in isolation, their interaction and the interplay between individual and social learning is less understood. We performed a field-based open diffusion experiment in a wild primate. We provided two groups of vervet monkeys with a novel food, unshelled peanuts, and documented how three different peanut opening techniques spread within the groups. We analysed data using hierarchical Bayesian dynamic learning models that explore the integration of multiple SLS with individual

SUBMITTER: Canteloup C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8131368 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature