Copy if dissatisfied, innovate if not: contrasting egg-laying decision making in an insect

Animal Cognition
Ryoga Otake, Shigeto Dobata

Abstract

The use of conspecific cues as social information in decision making is widespread among animals; but, because this social information is indirect, it is error-prone. During resource acquisition, conspecific cues also indicate the presence of competitors; therefore, decision makers are expected to utilize direct information from resources and modify their responses to social information accordingly. Here, we show that, in a non-social insect, unattractive egg-laying resources alter the behavioural response to conspecific cues from avoidance to preference, leading to resource sharing. Females of the adzuki bean beetle Callosobruchus chinensis avoid laying eggs onto beans that already have conspecific eggs. However, when we provided females with bean-sized clean glass beads with and without conspecific eggs, the females preferred to add their eggs onto the beads with eggs. The glass beads, once coated with water extracts of adzuki beans, enabled the females to behave as if they were provided with the beans: the females preferred bean-odoured glass beads to clean glass beads and they avoided the substrates with eggs. When females are provided with unattractive egg-laying substrates only, joining behaviour (i.e. copying) might be a...Continue Reading

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Citations

May 16, 2020·Bulletin of Entomological Research·Sugihiko HoshizakiYukio Ishikawa
Oct 20, 2020·Frontiers in Psychology·Felix B OberhauserTomer J Czaczkes

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