Biology subjects

Fichtel, C.

Publications and source records attributed to Fichtel, C..

9 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2025

Social tolerance mediates social learning in wild red-fronted lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons) and ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta)

Social learning is widespread in the animal kingdom, allowing individuals to acquire information from conspecifics. Because such learning often follows the social network within a population, species with different social structures and tolerance levels may show distinct learning trajectories. We tested this in four groups of wild, egalitarian red-fronted lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons, N = 34) and three groups of wild, hierarchically organized ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta, N = 35) using a social diffusion experiment with feeding boxes. We also conducted a co-feeding test of social tolerance. The feeding boxes could be opened by either lifting or pushing the box. In experimental conditions, we trained a demonstrator in one of the two techniques; in control conditions, no demonstrator was trained. More red-fronted lemurs learned to open the box than ring-tailed lemurs, and they learned faster. Both species preferred the lifting technique, but when pushing was the seeded technique, most red-fronted lemurs adopted it, whereas ring-tailed lemurs did not. Order of acquisition diffusion analysis showed that in both species, social learning followed the social network and was more likely than individual learning. Social tolerance predicted the proportion of learners within a group, with red-fronted lemurs being more tolerant than ring-tailed lemurs. In a similar vein, in the more tolerant red-fronted lemurs, scrounging occurred much more often than in the less tolerant ring-tailed lemurs. Scrounging might also have driven the preference for lifting technique in red-fronted lemurs but not in ring-tailed lemurs. Our results show that tolerance facilitates social learning and that information spreads along social network pathways. Most importantly, our results show that these effects vary across species with different social structures. Together, this suggests that social tolerance can drive group-specific behaviours and may play a key role in the evolution of cultural traits. HighlightsIn the more socially tolerant red-fronted lemurs more individuals learned faster how to open a food box than in the less tolerant ring-tailed lemurs The transmission of the opening technique followed the affiliative social network Scrounging behaviour occurred more often in the socially tolerant red-fronted lemurs

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2025

Social Tolerance and Innovation in Capuchins: socially more tolerant brown capuchins are better problem-solvers than less tolerant white-faced capuchins

Innovativeness and social learning are the pillars of cultural evolution. While the role of social tolerance in social learning has long been acknowledged, its impact on innovativeness remains poorly understood. Here, we test six groups of captive white-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus) and brown capuchins (Sapajus apella) to explore and compare the relationship between social tolerance and problem-solving propensities. White-faced capuchins are renowned for their rich repertoire of social behaviours, whereas brown capuchins are known for their diverse foraging repertoire, resulting in a broad range of culturally transmitted behaviours in both species. We performed a co-feeding experiment to assess species differences in social tolerance and a set of open diffusion novel food puzzles to test innovativeness. We measured associations for each possible dyad within each group during both experiments and compared the resulting social networks between conditions. We also measured neophobia in an independent experiment presenting groups with three novel objects. Overall, during both experiments, brown capuchins were more tolerant, and proportionally more individuals spent their time within the testing areas at any given moment. We also found that networks across experimental contexts were more similar in brown capuchins compared to white-faced capuchins. Moreover, although differences in approaching and exploring food puzzles were marginal, the success rate was higher in brown capuchins than in white-faced capuchins. Finally, neither eigenvector centrality within the networks nor neophobia could explain individual problem-solving success. Age was the strongest predictor for successfully extracting a food item. The results indicate that species-level differences in social tolerance may contribute to divergent innovation patterns, whereas individual-level variation within species may have only a minor influence. We conclude that the higher social tolerance observed in brown capuchins during feeding and foraging contexts can contribute to their broader repertoire of foraging behaviours and foraging traditions. Data availabilityAll data needed to evaluate the conclusions are present at OSF (https://doi.org/10.17605/OSF.IO/BY5MJ). Declaration of InterestThe authors declare no competing interests. Author ContributionsSandro Sehner: Writing - original draft, review & editing, Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Data curation, Funding acquisition. Claudia Fichtel: Writing - review & editing. Peter Kappeler: Writing - review & editing. Helene Meunier: Writing - review & editing, Conceptualization, Methodology.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2025

Foraging competence and scrounging tolerance enhance social relationships in a socially tolerant wild primate

Social interactions are crucial for individual health and ultimately fitness, making the choice of social partners particularly important. Previous research has shown that individuals who succeed in foraging tasks often receive increased affiliation from group members. Similarly, in a social learning context, individuals who possess valuable information become more attractive social partners. Thus, an individuals role in a foraging context-specifically, whether it is a successful producer-can influence its social relationships. Therefore, we examined the interplay between social learning, producing and scrounging behavior, and social relationships in four groups of wild redfronted lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons). We conducted an open diffusion experiment with food boxes that required animals to learn one of two techniques to open them. 27 out of 29 individuals participated in the experiment, 24 interacted with the boxes and 16 learned to open them. Initial success was better predicted by use of individual than social information, i.e., manipulating the food boxes vs. time spent watching successful individuals or scrounging. Older males were less successful than females. Scrounging occurred in about 26% of events, with on average 1.3 individuals scrounging. The technique used, age and sex of the producer did not predict scrounging frequency. Learners and males scrounged more often than non-learners and females. Among learners, less successful individuals scrounged more often and this effect was more pronounced in males. More successful individuals and those that were scrounged more often received more affiliative behavior. Thus, cognitive skills and scrounging tolerance may strengthen social relationships in this primate species.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2024

PriMAT: A robust multi-animal tracking model for primates in the wild

O_LIDetection and tracking of animals is an important first step for automated behavioral studies using videos. Animal tracking is currently done mostly using deep learning frameworks based on keypoints, which show remarkable results in lab settings with fixed cameras, backgrounds, and lighting. However, multi-animal tracking in the wild presents several challenges such as high variability in background and lighting conditions, complex motion, and occlusion. C_LIO_LIWe propose a multi-animal tracking model, PriMAT, for nonhuman primates in the wild. The model learns to detect and track primates and other objects of interest from labeled videos or single images using bounding boxes instead of keypoints. Using bounding boxes significantly facilitates data annotation and robustness. Our one-stage model is conceptually simple but highly flexible, and we add a classification branch that allows us to train individual identification. C_LIO_LITo evaluate the performance of our model, we applied it in two case studies with Assamese macaques (Macaca assamensis) and redfronted lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons) in the wild. We show that with only a few hundred frames labeled with bounding boxes, we can achieve robust tracking results. Combining these results with the classification branch for the lemur videos, our model shows an accuracy of 84% in predicting lemur identities. C_LIO_LIOur approach presents a promising solution for accurately tracking and identifying animals in the wild, offering researchers a tool to study animal behavior in their natural habitats. Our code, models, training images, and evaluation video sequences are publicly available1, facilitating their use for animal behavior analyses and future research in this field. C_LI

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2024

Same data, different results? Evaluating machine learning approaches for individual identification in animal vocalisations

Automated acoustic analysis is increasingly used in behavioural ecology, and determining caller identity is a key element for many investigations. However, variability in feature extraction and classification methods limits the comparability of results across species and studies, constraining conclusions we can draw about the ecology and evolution of the groups under study. We investigated the impact of using different feature extraction (spectro-temporal measurements, linear and Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients, as well as highly comparative time-series analysis) and classification methods (discriminant function analysis, neural networks, random forests, and support vector machines) on the consistency of caller identity classification accuracy across 16 mammalian datasets. We found that Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients and random forests yield consistently reliable results across datasets, facilitating a standardised approach across species that generates directly comparable data. These findings remained consistent across vocalisation sample sizes and number of individuals considered. We offer guidelines for processing and analysing mammalian vocalisations, fostering greater comparability, and advancing our understanding of the evolutionary significance of acoustic communication in diverse mammalian species.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2023

The search behavior of terrestrial mammals

Animals moving through landscapes need to strike a balance between finding sufficient resources to grow and reproduce while minimizing encounters with predators 1,2. Because encounter rates are determined by the average distance over which directed motion persists 1,3-5, this trade-off should be apparent in individuals movement. Using GPS data from 1,396 individuals across 62 species of terrestrial mammals, we show how predators maintained directed motion ~7 times longer than for similarly-sized prey, revealing how prey species must trade off search efficiency against predator encounter rates. Individual search strategies were also modulated by resource abundance, with prey species forced to risk higher predator encounter rates when resources were scarce. These findings highlight the interplay between encounter rates and resource availability in shaping broad patterns mammalian movement strategies.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2022

Clarifying space use concepts in ecology: range vs. occurrence distributions

Quantifying animal movements is necessary for answering a wide array of research questions in ecology and conservation biology. Consequently, ecologists have made considerable efforts to identify the best way to estimate an animals home range, and many methods of estimating home ranges have arisen over the past half century. Most of these methods fall into two distinct categories of estimators that have only recently been described in statistical detail: those that measure range distributions (methods such as Kernel Density Estimation that quantify the long-run behavior of a movement process that features restricted space use) and those that measure occurrence distributions (methods such as Brownian Bridge Movement Models and the Correlated Random Walk Library that quantify uncertainty in an animal movement path during a specific period of observation). In this paper, we use theory, simulations, and empirical analysis to demonstrate the importance of applying these two classes of space use estimators appropriately and distinctly. Conflating range and occurrence distributions can have serious consequences for ecological inference and conservation practice. For example, in most situations, home-range estimates quantified using occurrence estimators are too small, and this problem is exacerbated by ongoing improvements in tracking technology that enable more frequent and more accurate data on animal movements. We encourage researchers to use range estimators to estimate the area of home ranges and occurrence estimators to answer other questions in movement ecology, such as when and where an animal crosses a linear feature, visits a location of interest, or interacts with other animals. Open Research StatementTracking data on Aepyceros melampus, Beatragus hunteri, Bycanistes bucinator, Cerdocyon thous, Eulemur rufifrons, Glyptemys insculpta, Gyps coprotheres, Madoqua guentheri, Ovis canadensis, Propithecus verreauxi, Sus scrofa, and Ursus arctos are publicly archived in the Dryad repository (Noonan et al. 2018; https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.v5051j2), as are data from Procapra gutturosa (Fleming et al. 2014a; https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.45157). Data on Panthera onca were taken from (Morato et al. 2018). Additional data are publicly archived in the Movebank repository under the following identifiers: Canis latrans, 8159699; Canis lupus, 8159399; Chrysocyon brachyurus, 18156143; Felis silvestris, 40386102; Gyps africanus, 2919708; Lepus europaeus, 25727477; Martes pennanti, 2964494; Panthera leo, 220229; Papio cynocephalus, 222027; Syncerus caffer, 1764627; Tapirus terrestris, 443607536; Torgos tracheliotus, 2919708; and Ursus americanus, 8170674.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2021

Males are more sensitive to their audience than females when scent-marking in the redfronted lemur

Audience effects, i.e. changes in behaviour caused by the presence of conspecifics, have rarely been studied in the context of olfactory communication, even though they may provide important insights into the functions of olfactory signals. Functional sex differences in scent-marking behaviours are common and influenced by the social system. To date, patterns of functional sex differences in scent-marking behaviours remain unknown in species without overt dominance relationships. We investigated sex differences in intra-group audience effects on anogenital scent-marking in a wild population of redfronted lemurs (Eulemur rufifrons) by performing focal scent-marking observations. With a combination of generalised linear mixed models and exponential random graph models, we found different audience effects in both sexes. Males were overall more sensitive than females to their audience. Only males seemed to be sensitive to the presence of both members of the opposite sex and same-sex conspecifics in the audience. Females were only moderately sensitive to the presence of other females in the audience. This study offers a potential behavioural pattern associated with anogenital scent-marking that seem to differ from those described for species exhibiting female dominance, supporting the notion that the social systems co-varies with scent-marking behaviours and scent-complexity in strepsirrhines.

animal behavior and cognition↗

bioRxiv2020

The lemur baseline: How lemurs compare to monkeys and apes in the Primate Cognition Test Battery

Primates have relatively larger brains than other mammals even though brain tissue is energetically costly. Comparative studies of variation in cognitive skills allow testing of evolutionary hypotheses addressing socioecological factors driving the evolution of primate brain size. However, data on cognitive abilities for meaningful interspecific comparisons are only available for haplorhine primates (great apes, Old- and New World monkeys) although strepsirrhine primates (lemurs and lorises) serve as the best living models of ancestral primate cognitive skills, linking primates to other mammals. To begin filling this gap, we tested members of three lemur species (Microcebus murinus, Varecia variegata, Lemur catta) with the Primate Cognition Test Battery, a comprehensive set of experiments addressing physical and social cognitive skills that has previously been used in studies of haplorhines. We found no significant differences in cognitive performance among lemur species and, surprisingly, their average performance was not different from that of haplorhines in many aspects. Specifically, lemurs overall performance was inferior in the physical domain but matched that of haplorhines in the social domain. These results question a clear-cut link between brain size and cognitive skills, suggesting a more domain-specific distribution of cognitive abilities in primates, and indicate more continuity in cognitive abilities across primate lineages than previously thought.

animal behavior and cognition↗