Animal innovation: from diffusion to fitness consequences

• Applicants: Dr. Anja Guenther; Valeria Mazza, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Sensory and Behavioural Biology ; Evolution, Anthropology
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 493860801

Innovation is the ability to produce new behaviours or to apply novelsolutions to old problems, introducing novel variants into apopulation's behavioural repertoire. While individual animals oftenproduce innovations, only a few of these novel behavioural variantsare transmitted, maintained, adopted and integrated in thepopulation’s repertoire, despite their apparent utility to the innovatorand to the rest of the population. There is reason to believe that aninnovator’s identity, personality, and position in a social network orgroup play a fundamental role in determining whether the novelbehaviour is socially transmitted. Individuals in many speciesassociate in a non-random manner, leading to opportunities forobserving and learning a novel behaviour being more frequent whenthere is a higher sought or tolerated spatial proximity, usually amarker for kinship, familiarity or stable social bonds. Innovatorscentrality in the group, i.e. number and strength of social bonds, mightthus influence transmission of information and the likelihood of novelbehaviour being socially learned by others. Observer identity inrelation to innovator might also contribute to social learning andtherefore social transmission of innovation. Thus, it could be that theinterplay between innovation propensity, behavioural/cognitive makeupof both the innovator and the observer, as well as the strength oftheir bond, determine the spread and maintenance of innovations in apopulation, which could lead to the establishment of local traditionsand cultures. The more widespread an innovation is within apopulation, the higher its evolutionary relevance should be. Bothnatural and sexual selection are expected to act on among-individualvariation in innovation propensity. However, further investigation isneeded to understand how these processes interact to maintainvariation in natural populations. In this project we aim to analyse theinterplay between personality, innovation propensity and spread ofinnovations in replicated populations of house mice (Mus musculusdomesticus) living under semi-natural conditions. We will investigatethe influence of individual (e.g. rank, sex) and social profile (socialnetwork position, relationship with the innovator) of innovator andobserver in the spread of innovations across the population toincrease our understanding of the role of individual characteristics in the diffusion of innovations within populations, as well as determinethe evolutionary importance of innovativeness by assessing theimpact on natural and sexual selection by testing for sexualpreferences for innovators, as well as fitness consequences of beinginnovative.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants