Microbiota and the social brain Sherwin, Eoin; Bordenstein, Seth R; Quinn, John L ...
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science),
11/2019, Letnik:
366, Številka:
6465
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Sociability can facilitate mutually beneficial outcomes such as division of labor, cooperative care, and increased immunity, but sociability can also promote negative outcomes, including aggression ...and coercion. Accumulating evidence suggests that symbiotic microorganisms, specifically the microbiota that reside within the gastrointestinal system, may influence neurodevelopment and programming of social behaviors across diverse animal species. This relationship between host and microbes hints that host-microbiota interactions may have influenced the evolution of social behaviors. Indeed, the gastrointestinal microbiota is used by certain species as a means to facilitate communication among conspecifics. Further understanding of how microbiota influence the brain in nature may be helpful for elucidating the causal mechanisms underlying sociability and for generating new therapeutic strategies for social disorders in humans, such as autism spectrum disorders (ASDs).
Cognition has been studied intensively for several decades, but the evolutionary processes that shape individual variation in cognitive traits remain elusive 1–3. For instance, the strength of ...selection on a cognitive trait has never been estimated in a natural population, and the possibility that positive links with life history variation 1–5 are mitigated by costs 6 or confounded by ecological factors remains unexplored in the wild. We assessed novel problem-solving performance in 468 wild great tits Parus major temporarily taken into captivity and subsequently followed up their reproductive performance in the wild. Problem-solver females produced larger clutches than nonsolvers. This benefit did not arise because solvers timed their breeding better, occupied better habitats, or compromised offspring quality or their own survival. Instead, foraging range size and day length were relatively small and short, respectively, for solvers, suggesting that they were more efficient at exploiting their environment. In contrast to the positive effect on clutch size, problem solvers deserted their nests more often, leading to little or no overall selection on problem-solving performance. Our results are consistent with the idea that variation in cognitive ability is shaped by contrasting effects on different life history traits directly linked to fitness 1, 3.
► Natural selection does not favor problem-solver great tits over nonsolvers in the wild ► Solvers produce larger clutches because they exploit their environment efficiently ► But solvers are also more sensitive to perceived predation risk at the nest ► These contrasting links potentially explain why individual cognitive ability varies
Whether these translate into clinical diagnoses of chronic diseases like interstitial lung disease, dementia, heart failure, and chronic kidney disease remains to be seen. ...the study used ...administrative data from primary care. ...this study was conducted in a high-income nation with substantial resources to support patients following infection with COVID-19.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Animal contests govern access to key resources and are a fundamental determinant of fitness within populations. Little is known about the mechanisms generating individual variation in strategic ...contest behavior or what this variation means for population level processes. Cognition governs the expression of behaviors during contests, most notably by linking experience gained with decision making, but its role in driving the evolutionary ecological dynamics of contests is only beginning to emerge. We review the kinds of cognitive mechanisms that underlie contest behavior, emphasize the importance of feedback loops and socio-ecological context, and suggest that contest behavior provides an ideal focus for integrative studies of phenotypic variation.
Animal contests are important determinants of fitness.
Cognition mediates contest behaviors, but its role is underappreciated.
New theory, technologies, and methodologies facilitate the study of contest cognition.
We develop a framework linking cognition, contests, fitness, and ecology.
Group living commonly helps organisms face challenging environmental conditions. Although a known phenomenon in humans, recent findings suggest that a benefit of group living in animals generally ...might be increased innovative problem-solving efficiency. This benefit has never been demonstrated in a natural context, however, and the mechanisms underlying improved efficiency are largely unknown. We examined the problem-solving performance of great and blue tits at automated devices and found that efficiency increased with flock size. This relationship held when restricting the analysis to naive individuals, demonstrating that larger groups increased innovation efficiency. In addition to this effect of naive flock size, the presence of at least one experienced bird increased the frequency of solving, and larger flocks were more likely to contain experienced birds. These findings provide empirical evidence for the "pool of competence" hypothesis in nonhuman animals. The probability of success also differed consistently between individuals, a necessary condition for the pool of competence hypothesis. Solvers had a higher probability of success when foraging with a larger number of companions and when using devices located near rather than further from protective tree cover, suggesting a role for reduced predation risk on problem-solving efficiency. In contrast to traditional group living theory, individuals joining larger flocks benefited from a higher seed intake, suggesting that group living facilitated exploitation of a novel food source through improved problem-solving efficiency. Together our results suggest that both ecological and social factors, through reduced predation risk and increased pool of competence, mediate innovation in natural populations.
Human evolutionary scholars have long supposed that the earliest stone tools were made by the genus Homo and that this technological development was directly linked to climate change and the spread ...of savannah grasslands. New fieldwork in West Turkana, Kenya, has identified evidence of much earlier hominin technological behaviour. We report the discovery of Lomekwi 3, a 3.3-million-year-old archaeological site where in situ stone artefacts occur in spatiotemporal association with Pliocene hominin fossils in a wooded palaeoenvironment. The Lomekwi 3 knappers, with a developing understanding of stone's fracture properties, combined core reduction with battering activities. Given the implications of the Lomekwi 3 assemblage for models aiming to converge environmental change, hominin evolution and technological origins, we propose for it the name 'Lomekwian', which predates the Oldowan by 700,000 years and marks a new beginning to the known archaeological record.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IJS, IZUM, KILJ, KISLJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBMB, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
We present the fifth portion of an unbiased survey of the Galactic plane, |b| ≤ 2°, for 6668-MHz methanol masers. This section of the survey completes the Galactic longitude range visible to the ...Parkes radio telescope, incorporating the longitude range 20°–60°. Within this section of the survey we find 265 methanol masers, 64 new to the survey, bringing the total number of methanol masers detected across the full longitude coverage (186°, through 0°, to 60°) to 972 sources.
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