Researchers Isabelle Coolen, Olivier Dangles, and Jérôme Casas, from the University of Tours, France, considered that wood crickets might be just the candidate to test for this prediction. Indeed, wood crickets typically hide under leaves when in the presence of spiders, and the high local densities at which they live may well allow for social transmission of information regarding danger.
In the new work in the journal Current Biology, the authors found that not only do crickets hide more when in the presence of others who have just experienced a dangerous environment, but they also continue to do so long after these "demonstrators" are gone. The authors showed that the long-lasting behavioral changes cannot be simply attributed to such nonsocial factors as long re-emergence times or residual odor cues, and that the most straightforward explanation for the observed behavioral changes is one involving social learning. The findings of Dr. Coolen and colleagues therefore question the common conception that social learning is restricted to large-brained animals assumed to possess superior cognitive abilities.
The researchers included Isabelle Coolen, Olivier Dangles, and Jérôme Casas of the Institut de Recherche en Biologie de l'Insecte, Université François Rabelais de Tours, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Tours France. This study was funded by the European Community under the Lifelike Perception Systems action, key action of the Future and Emergent Technologies (FET) arm of the "Information Society Technologies-IST" Programme.
Coolen et al.: "Social learning in non-colonial insects?" Publishing in Current Biology, Vol. 15, pages 1931–1935 November 8, 2005. DOI 10.1016/j.cub.2005.09.015 www.current-biology.com
Current Biology