Abstract
Human-induced rapid environmental change (HIREC) poses threats to a variety of species, and if or how it changes phenotypes is a question of central importance bridging evolutionary ecology and conservation management. Social learning is one type of phenotypic plasticity that can shape organismal responses to HIREC; it allows organisms to acquire phenotypes on a timescale that closely tracks environmental change while minimizing the costs of individual learning. A common assumption in behavioral ecology, is that social learning is generally an adaptive way to cope with HIREC by facilitating the rapid spread of innovative responses to change. While this can be true, social learning can also be maladaptive. It may hinder the spread of adaptive behavior by causing a carryover of old, no longer adaptive behaviors that slow the response to HIREC or even promote the spread of maladaptive behaviors. Here, we present a conceptual framework outlining how an organism’s evolutionary history can shape cognitive mechanisms, social behavior, and population composition, which in turn affect how an organism responds to HIREC. We review quantitative theory and empirical evidence spanning the cultural evolution and behavioral ecology literature discussing how social learning helps or hinders organismal or species’ responses to HIREC. We highlight how mismatch of social learning mechanisms and time-lags in a post-HIREC environment can slow or limit the acquisition of adaptive behavior. We then discuss how different pathways of cultural transmission and social learning strategies can help or hinder responses to HIREC. We also review how HIREC may interfere with the transmission process by altering the public information sent from sender to receiver through the environment before receivers acquire any public information. Lastly, we discuss gaps and future directions including how animals integrate personal and social information, the interaction between personality and social learning, and social learning between heterospecifics.
Highlights
All organisms must respond to the challenges created by human-induced rapid environmental change (HIREC) including novel enemies (Mack et al, 2000), novel resources (Marczak et al, 2007), habitat change, loss/fragmentation (Goudie, 2013), human harvesting (Mace and Reynolds, 2001), novel contaminants (Walker et al, 2014), and climate change (Walther et al, 2002)
These limitations might be due to an overreliance on social information after environmental change or the increased variance in fitness associated with social learning over individual learning
While models examining the evolution and prevalence of social learning have focused on these social learning traits, it is important to note that they often exclude the ability of individuals to integrate individual and social information, a scenario which likely occurs frequently in nature
Summary
All organisms must respond to the challenges created by human-induced rapid environmental change (HIREC) including novel enemies (Mack et al, 2000), novel resources (Marczak et al, 2007), habitat change, loss/fragmentation (Goudie, 2013), human harvesting (Mace and Reynolds, 2001), novel contaminants (Walker et al, 2014), and climate change (Walther et al, 2002). The cultural evolution literature emphasizes the possibility that social learning leads to the spread of maladaptive behaviors or limits the spread of adaptive behaviors (Boyd and Richerson, 1985; Laland and Williams, 1998; Giraldeau et al, 2002) These limitations might be due to an overreliance on social information after environmental change or the increased variance in fitness associated with social learning over individual learning. We present a framework which connects these three factors to predict how social learning might facilitate or hinder organisms’ adaptive responses to HIREC Within this framework, we discuss the theory behind the evolution of social learning, the types of processes involved in social learning and the conditions under which particular types of social learning might make social learning maladaptive. Throughout the paper we present several HIREC scenarios and illustrate known examples, or potential examples, where social learning produces either adaptive or maladaptive responses to HIREC
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