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Many animals, including humans, acquire valuable skills and knowledge by copying others. Scientists refer to this as social learning. It is one of the most exciting and rapidly developing areas of behavioral research and sits at the interface of many academic disciplines, including biology, experimental psychology, economics, and cognitive neuroscience.Social Learningprovides a comprehensive, practical guide to the research methods of this important emerging field. William Hoppitt and Kevin Laland define the mechanisms thought to underlie social learning and demonstrate how to distinguish them experimentally in the laboratory. They present techniques for detecting and quantifying social learning in nature, including statistical modeling of the spatial distribution of behavior traits. They also describe the latest theory and empirical findings on social learning strategies, and introduce readers to mathematical methods and models used in the study of cultural evolution. This book is an indispensable tool for researchers and an essential primer for students. Provides a comprehensive, practical guide to social learning researchCombines theoretical and empirical approachesDescribes techniques for the laboratory and the fieldCovers social learning mechanisms and strategies, statistical modeling techniques for field data, mathematical modeling of cultural evolution, and more

Features 12 super-smart animals found around the world, including their life cycles, habitats, and traits.

Vocal learning, the substrate of human language acquisition, has rarely been described in other mammals. Often, group-specific vocal dialects in wild populations provide the main evidence for vocal learning. While social learning is often the most plausible explanation for these intergroup differences, it is usually impossible to exclude other driving factors, such as genetic or ecological backgrounds. Here, we show the formation of dialects through social vocal learning in fruit bats under controlled conditions. We raised 3 groups of pups in conditions mimicking their natural roosts. Namely, pups could hear their mothers' vocalizations but were also exposed to a manipulation playback. The vocalizations in the 3 playbacks mainly differed in their fundamental frequency. From the age of approximately 6 months and onwards, the pups demonstrated distinct dialects, where each group was biased towards its playback. We demonstrate the emergence of dialects through social learning in a mammalian model in a tightly controlled environment. Unlike in the extensively studied case of songbirds where specific tutors are imitated, we demonstrate that bats do not only learn their vocalizations directly from their mothers, but that they are actually influenced by the sounds of the entire crowd. This process, which we term \"crowd vocal learning,\" might be relevant to many other social animals such as cetaceans and pinnipeds.

Behavioral innovations are likely to contribute to the persistence of native species in developed areas. Innovativeness has been well-studied in birds, and the frequency with which they innovate is related to their relative brain size. However, the mechanisms by which behavioral innovations emerge and spread remain poorly known. Two major mechanisms are thought to play a fundamental role: the independent appearance of the same innovation in different individuals and innovation diffusion by social learning. Here, we describe observations of multiple Blue-faced Honeyeaters (Entomyzon cyanotis) collecting sugar packets, a technical innovation that had not been published in that species. We also demonstrate that this behavior emerged in 2 developed areas separated by 1,200 km, with multiple individuals engaging in the behavior within one of the sites, such that both independent innovation and social diffusion are likely to have occurred. Using brain size data on 62 species of the Meliphagidae family, we then discuss the likely importance of relative brain size in determining innovativeness in this family, and suggest that anatomical specialization such as the curvature of beaks used in nectar foraging could constrain the emergence of new behaviors in some large-brained species. Received 15 March 2018. Accepted 2 September 2018. Key words: Acanlhorhynchus temtirostris, behavioral innovation, brain size, Entomyzon cyanotis, innovation spread, Meliphagidae Les innovations comportementales sont susceptibles de contribuer a la persistance d'especes natives dans les zones developpees. La capacite d'innovation a ete bien etudiee chez les oiseaux et la frequence a laquelle les oiseaux innovent est liee a la taille relative de leur cerveau. Cependant, les mecanismes par lesquels les innovations comportementales emergent et se repandent restent mal connus. Deux mecanismes principaux jouent probablement un role fondamental : l'apparition independante d'une meme innovation chez differents individus et la diffusion de l'innovation par l'apprentissage social. Nous decrivons ici les observations de plusieurs meliphages a oreillons bleus (Entomyzon evanotis) collectant des sachets de sucre, une innovation technique qui n'avait pas ete publiee chez cette espece. Nous demontrons egalement que ce comportement est apparu dans 2 zones developpees separees de 1 200 km, plusieurs individus se livrant a ce comportement sur l'un des sites, si bien que l'emergence independante de la meme innovation, mais aussi la diffusion sociale de cette innovation ont probablement eu lieu. En utilisant les donnees de taille du cerveau de 62 especes de la famille des meliphagides, nous discutons ensuite de l'importance probable de la taille relative du cerveau dans la determination des differences de capacite d'innovation au sein de cette famille, et suggerons que certaines specialisations anatomiques telles que la courbure des becs utilises pour la collecte de nectar pourraient contraindre l'emergence de nouveaux comportements chez certaines especes a gros cerveau. Mots clefs : Acanthorhynchus tenuirostris, innovation comportementale, diffusion de l'innovation, taille du cerveau, Entomyzon cyanotis, meliphagide

Why vocal learning has evolved in songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds but not in other avian groups remains an unanswered question. The difficulty in providing an answer stems not only from the challenge of reconstructing the conditions that favored vocal learning among ancestors of these groups but also from our incomplete knowledge of extant birds. Here we provide multiple lines of evidence for a previously undocumented, evolutionarily independent origin of vocal learning among the suboscine passerines. Working with bellbirds (Procnias spp.), we show that (1) a captive-reared Bare-throated Bellbird (P. nudicollis) deprived of conspecific song not only developed abnormal conspecific songs but also learned the calls of a Chopi Blackbird (Gnorimopsar chopi) near which it was housed; (2) songs of Three-wattled Bellbirds (P. tricarunculata) occur in three geographically distinct dialects (from north to south: Nicaragua, Monteverde, and Talamanca); (3) Three-wattled Bellbirds at Monteverde, Costa Rica, are often bilingual, having learned the complete song repertoire of both the Monteverde and Talamanca dialects; (4) immature bellbirds have an extended period of song development, lasting the 6 years in which they are in subadult plumage; and (5) adult male Three-wattled Bellbirds continually relearn their songs, visiting each others' song perches and adjusting their songs to track population-wide changes. Perhaps female preferences and strong sexual selection have favored vocal learning among bellbirds, and additional surveys for vocal learning among other lekking cotingas and other suboscines may reveal patterns that help determine the conditions that promote the evolution of vocal learning.