论文标题：Experience of the signaller explains the use of social versus personal information in the context of sentinel behaviour in meerkats

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作者：R. Rauber & M. B. Manser

发表时间：2018/08/23

数字识别码：10.1038/s41598-018-29678-y

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《app手机版》近期发表的一项研究Experience of the signaller explains the use of social versus personal information in the context of sentinel behaviour in meerkats指出，觅食中的狐獴在听到经验丰富的哨兵发出的平静叫声后，表现出的警觉性较低。

图1：在觅食时，狐獴群体通常会有一名哨兵守卫，哨兵会爬上高处巡视该区域的捕食者。哨兵通过发出哨声和警报呼叫向组员通知感知到的捕食风险。图源：Jacob Brown

当多只狐獴成群结队外出觅食时，通常会派一只（极少情况下多于一只）狐獴察看四周情况，并定期通过叫声向同伴传递信息——这种行为叫做“放哨”。哨兵狐獴可以通过叫声向其它觅食的同伴告知自己的身份以及当下的捕食风险。虽然学界已知觅食的狐獴对不同哨兵的叫声会有不同的反应，但既往研究并未确定哨兵的年龄、哨兵与群体内其它个体的关系以及放哨经验是否会影响觅食者对其哨声的反应。

2016年和2017年的春天，瑞士苏黎世大学的Ramona Rauber和同事向9组觅食的狐獴（每组3到23只不等）播放事先录好的不同哨兵的平静叫声，每次播放时长为五分钟，并统计期间出现警觉行为（四处张望）的觅食狐獴的比例。作者们发现，如果平静叫声来自那些更常站岗的哨兵而非很少站岗的哨兵，觅食的狐獴们四处张望的时间就更少。哨兵是否占支配地位、哨兵的年龄以及性别似乎与觅食狐獴是否出现警觉行为无关。

图2：放哨经验和哨兵是否是受试者的同窝兄弟姐妹对警觉水平的影响。图源：Rauber & Manser

这一发现说明，狐獴有一套机制用来判断某一个体的放哨经验。作者指出，狐獴可能是通过辨认叫声和记忆听到这一叫声的频率来识别哨兵的老练程度的。

摘要：To maximise foraging opportunities while simultaneously avoiding predation, group-living animals can obtain personal information on food availability and predation risk and/or rely on social information provided by group members. Although mainly associated with low costs of information acquisition, social information has the potential to be irrelevant or inaccurate. In this study we use playbacks of individually distinct sentinel calming calls produced during sentinel behaviour, a form of coordinated vigilance behaviour, to show that meerkats (Suricata suricatta) discriminate between social information provided by different sentinels and adjust their personal vigilance behaviour according to the individual that is played back. We found that foraging group members acquired the lowest amounts of personal information when hearing social information provided by experienced individuals that act as sentinels most often in their group and littermates. Our study shows that social information can be flexibly used in the context of sentinel behaviour in order to optimize the trade-off between foraging and vigilance behaviours dependent on discrimination among signallers. We also provide novel evidence that the experience of sentinels rather than their age or dominance status is the main factor affecting the extent to which individuals use social information.

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