Data from: A genetic polymorphism affecting reliance on personal versus public information in a spatial learning task in Drosophila melanogaster

Organisms that face behavioural challenges can use different types of information to guide their decisions. First, they can use the personal information they sample in their environment. Second, they can use the inadvertent social information provided by the behaviour of conspecifics or heterospecifics (i.e. public information). Currently, little is known about the interaction between genetic variation and the use of personal versus public information in natural populations. Here, we investigated whether a natural genetic polymorphism affects the use of personal versus public information in a spatial learning task in Drosophila melanogaster. We found that genetic variation at the foraging locus interacts with social context during spatial learning. While both allelic variants are able to use personal and public information to improve their navigation during 10 training trials, a probe trial revealed that individuals carrying the forR (rover) allele rely mainly on personal information, whereas individuals carrying the fors (sitter) allele either use or display more public information than rovers. Accordingly, transfer of social information is more important in groups of sitters than in groups of rovers. These results suggest that a positive feedback loop can occur between alleles promoting group living, such as fors, and the use and/or display of public information, ultimately providing the opportunity for the joint evolution of sociality and cultural traits.

面临行为挑战的生物体可借助不同类型的信息指导决策。其一，它们可利用在环境中采样获取的个人信息；其二，可利用同种或异种个体行为所提供的无意社交信息（即公共信息（public information））。目前，学界对自然种群中遗传变异与个人信息、公共信息使用偏好之间的交互作用尚缺乏深入了解。本研究以黑腹果蝇（Drosophila melanogaster）为实验对象，探究自然遗传多态性是否会影响其在空间学习任务中对个人信息与公共信息的使用偏好。研究发现，在空间学习过程中，觅食基因座（foraging locus）处的遗传变异会与社交环境产生交互作用。尽管两种等位基因变异体在10次训练试次中均可利用个人信息与公共信息优化导航表现，但探测试次结果显示：携带forR（漫游者（rover））等位基因的个体主要依赖个人信息；而携带fors（滞留者（sitter））等位基因的个体相较于漫游者个体，更多地使用或展现公共信息。由此可见，社交信息传递在滞留者群体中的重要性高于漫游者群体。上述结果表明，在促进群体生活的等位基因（如fors）与公共信息的使用及/或展现之间，可能存在正反馈循环，最终为社交性与文化性状的协同进化提供了潜在契机。