Episodic correlations in behavioural lateralisation differ between a poison frog and its mimic

We tested three primary hypotheses: 1) behaviours will be lateralised, either at the individual or population level, 2) behaviours will show complementary laterality such that different tasks will be allocated to different sides of the animal, and 3) the scale of lateralisation will differ between social and non-social behaviours, such that social behaviours will be lateralised at the population level while non-social behaviours will be lateralised only at the individual level, allowing for social behaviours to be coordinated while non-social behaviours remain unpredictable. We also conducted a further exploratory analysis to determine the presence of lateralisation-based within-individual correlations. Experiments were conducted on sympatric populations of the Ecuador poison frog, Ameerega bilinguis, and its Batesian mimic the sanguine dart frog, Allobates zaparo. Individuals repeatedly experienced four types of trials where they were exposed to a conspecific (Am. bilinguis/Al. zaparo), a heterospecific (Am. bilinguis/Al. zaparo), prey (live termites) or a simulated predator (the human observer). All trials were then analysed for lateralised eye use inspecting the stimulus (in the conspecific, heterospecific and prey trials) or for escape direction (in the simulated predator trials).

我们验证了三项核心假说：1）行为将存在偏侧化（lateralisation）现象，可体现于个体层面或种群层面；2）行为将表现出互补性偏侧化，即动物会将不同任务分配至身体的不同单侧；3）偏侧化的程度在社会行为与非社会行为间存在差异：社会行为会在种群层面呈现偏侧化，而非社会行为仅会在个体层面表现出偏侧化，这使得社会行为可实现协调配合，而非社会行为则保持不可预测性。此外，我们还开展了一项探索性分析，以探究基于偏侧化的个体内相关性是否存在。实验对象为同域分布的两个种群：厄瓜多尔箭毒蛙（Ecuador poison frog，Ameerega bilinguis）及其贝茨拟态者血色箭毒蛙（sanguine dart frog，Allobates zaparo）。每只个体先后接受四类重复实验处理：分别暴露于同种个体（Am. bilinguis/Al. zaparo）、异种个体（Am. bilinguis/Al. zaparo）、猎物（活白蚁）或模拟捕食者（人类观察者）。随后，对所有实验数据进行分析：针对同种、异种及猎物实验，分析其观察刺激物时的偏侧眼部使用情况；针对模拟捕食者实验，则分析其逃逸方向的偏侧化特征。