Social context alters spatial memory performance in free-living male prairie voles.

Marissa A Rice,Gloria Sanín,Alexander G Ophir

doi:10.1098/rsos.190743

Marissa A Rice, Gloria Sanín + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.190743

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Abstract

Spatial memory is crucial for mating success because it enables males to locate potential mates and potential competitors in space. Intraspecific competition and its varying intensity under certain conditions are potentially important for shaping spatial memory. For example, spatial memory could enable males to know where competitors are (contest competition), it could help males find mating partners (scramble competition) or both. We manipulated the intensity of intraspecific competition in two distinct contexts by altering the operational sex ratio of prairie voles (Microtus ochrogaster) living in outdoor enclosures by creating male- and female-biased sex ratios. After living freely under these contexts for four weeks, we compared males' performance in a laboratory spatial memory test. Males in the male-biased context demonstrated better spatial memory performance than males in the female-biased context. Notably, these data show that in spite of experiencing equally complex spatial contexts (i.e. natural outdoor enclosures), it was the social context that influenced spatial cognition, and it did so in a manner consistent with the hypothesis that spatial memory is particularly relevant for male–male interactions.

Highlights

Spatial memory is a cognitive ability that is essential for many of life’s basic challenges
In our assessment of performance in the spatial memory test, we found that male biased (MB) males tended to spend more time in the correct quadrant of the maze (t(20) = 1.93, p = 0.06, d = 0.92 figure 4a) and had significantly more visits to this zone (GLM; B = −0.237, s.e. = 0.113, p = 0.027, d = 0.28, figure 4b) compared to males from the female biased (FB) context
We found that laboratory-reared males that lived in a male-biased semi-natural social context for approximately four weeks, out-performed males that experienced a female-biased social context on spatial learning and memory tasks conducted in the laboratory

Summary

Introduction

Spatial memory is a cognitive ability that is essential for many of life’s basic challenges. Food caching is essential to survival for non-migrating birds and mammals that do not have access to food sources over the winter [1,2]. Plasticity in spatial cognition enables accounting for changing spatial demands in the environment [3,4]. Navigating the environment beyond using simple procedural algorithms requires building spatial representations or ‘mental maps’ to remember the location of salient features in the environment (e.g. food sources or territories). Very little attention has been paid to how spatial memory relates to social contexts (see [5]), royalsocietypublishing.org/journal/rsos R.

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