Sex differences in color discrimination and serial reversal learning in mollies and guppies

作     者：Theodora FUSS Klaudia WITTE 

作者机构：Research Group of Ecology and Behavioral Biology Institute of Biology Department of Chemistry and Biology University of Siegen Adolf-Reichwein-Str. 2 57076 Siegen Germany 

出 版 物：《Current Zoology》 (动物学报（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2019年第65卷第3期

页      面：323-332页

核心收录：

学科分类：0710[理学-生物学] 07[理学] 

主　　题：behavioural and cognitive flexibility colour discrimination neophobia serial reversal learning/Poecilia mexicana and Poecilia latipinna Poecilia reticulata 

摘      要：Behavioral flexibility provides an individual with the ability to adapt its behavior in response to environmental changes. Studies on mammals, birds, and teleosts indicate greater behavioral flexibility in females. Conversely, males appear to exhibit greater behavioral persistenee. We, therefore, investigated sex differences in behavioral flexibility in 2 closely related molly species (Poecilia latipinna, P. mexicana) and their more distant relative, the guppy P. reticulata by comparing male and female individuals in a serial, visual reversal learning task. Fish were first trained in color discrimination, which was quickly learned by all females (guppies and mollies) and all molly males alike. Despite continued training over more than 72 sessions, male guppies did not learn the general test procedure and were, therefore, excluded from further testing. Once the reward contingency was reversed serially, molly males of both species performed considerably better by inhibiting their previous response and reached the learning criterion sign讦icantly faster than their respective con specific females. Moreover, Atlantic molly males clearly outperformed all other individuals (males and females) and some of them even reached the level of 1-trial learning. Thus, the apparently un iversal pattern of higher female behavioral flexibility seems to be in verted in the 2 examined molly species, although the evolutionary account of this pattern remains highly speculative. These findings were complemented by the observed lower neophobia of female sailfin mollies compared with their male con specifics. This sex differe nee was not observed in Atlantic mollies that were observed to be sigrdficantly less distressed in a novel situation than their consexuals. Hypothetically, sex differences in behavioral flexibility can possibly be explained in terms of the different roles that males and females play in mating competition, mate choice, and reproduction or, more gen erally, in complex social in teractio ns. Each of these characteristics clearly differed between the closely related mollies and the more distantly related guppies.