The evolution of social learning as phenotypic cue integration
Kuijper, A; Leimar, O; Hammerstein, P; et al.McNamara, JM; Dall, SRX
Date: 17 May 2021
Article
Journal
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Publisher
Royal Society
Publisher DOI
Abstract
Most analyses of the origins of cultural evolution focus on when and where social learning
prevails over individual learning, overlooking the fact that there are other developmental inputs
that influence phenotypic fit to the selective environment. This raises the question how the
presence of other cue ‘channels’ affects the scope ...
Most analyses of the origins of cultural evolution focus on when and where social learning
prevails over individual learning, overlooking the fact that there are other developmental inputs
that influence phenotypic fit to the selective environment. This raises the question how the
presence of other cue ‘channels’ affects the scope for social learning. Here, we present a model
that considers the simultaneous evolution of (i) multiple forms of social learning (involving
vertical or horizontal learning based on either prestige or conformity biases) within the broader
context of other evolving inputs on phenotype determination, including (ii) heritable epigenetic
factors, (iii) individual learning, (iv) environmental and cascading maternal effects, (v) conservative bet-hedging and (vi) genetic cues.In fluctuating environments that are autocorrelated
(and hence predictable), we find that social learning from members of the same generation
(horizontal social learning) explains the large majority of phenotypic variation, whereas other
cues are much less important. Moreover, social learning based on prestige biases typically
prevails in positively autocorrelated environments, whereas conformity biases prevail in negatively autocorrelated environments. Only when environments are unpredictable or horizontal
social learning is characterised by an intrinsically low information content, other cues such as
conservative bet-hedging or vertical prestige biases prevail.
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