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Author Dong, D.; Jones, G.; Zhang, S.
Title Dynamic evolution of bitter taste receptor genes in vertebrates Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication BMC Evolutionary Biology Abbreviated Journal
Volume 9 Issue 1 Pages 12
Keywords
Abstract Sensing bitter tastes is crucial for many animals because it can prevent them from ingesting harmful foods. This process is mainly mediated by the bitter taste receptors (T2R), which are largely expressed in the taste buds. Previous studies have identified some T2R gene repertoires, and marked variation in repertoire size has been noted among species. However, the mechanisms underlying the evolution of vertebrate T2R genes remain poorly understood.
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Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 1471-2148 ISBN Medium
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Notes (up) Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Dong2009 Serial 6637
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Author Ohtsuki, H.; Iwasa, Y.; Nowak, M.A.
Title Indirect reciprocity provides only a narrow margin of efficiency for costly punishment Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Abbreviated Journal Nature
Volume 457 Issue 7225 Pages 79-82
Keywords
Abstract Indirect reciprocity1, 2, 3, 4, 5 is a key mechanism for the evolution of human cooperation. Our behaviour towards other people depends not only on what they have done to us but also on what they have done to others. Indirect reciprocity works through reputation5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. The standard model of indirect reciprocity offers a binary choice: people can either cooperate or defect. Cooperation implies a cost for the donor and a benefit for the recipient. Defection has no cost and yields no benefit. Currently there is considerable interest in studying the effect of costly (or altruistic) punishment on human behaviour18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25. Punishment implies a cost for the punished person. Costly punishment means that the punisher also pays a cost. It has been suggested that costly punishment between individuals can promote cooperation. Here we study the role of costly punishment in an explicit model of indirect reciprocity. We analyse all social norms, which depend on the action of the donor and the reputation of the recipient. We allow errors in assigning reputation and study gossip as a mechanism for establishing coherence. We characterize all strategies that allow the evolutionary stability of cooperation. Some of those strategies use costly punishment; others do not. We find that punishment strategies typically reduce the average payoff of the population. Consequently, there is only a small parameter region where costly punishment leads to an efficient equilibrium. In most cases the population does better by not using costly punishment. The efficient strategy for indirect reciprocity is to withhold help for defectors rather than punishing them.
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Publisher Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0028-0836 ISBN Medium
Area Expedition Conference
Notes (up) 10.1038/nature07601 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4705
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Author Harrison, S.A.; Tong, F.
Title Decoding reveals the contents of visual working memory in early visual areas Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Abbreviated Journal Nature
Volume 458 Issue 7238 Pages 632-635
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Abstract Visual working memory provides an essential link between perception and higher cognitive functions, allowing for the active maintenance of information about stimuli no longer in view1, 2. Research suggests that sustained activity in higher-order prefrontal, parietal, inferotemporal and lateral occipital areas supports visual maintenance3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and may account for the limited capacity of working memory to hold up to 3–4 items9, 10, 11. Because higher-order areas lack the visual selectivity of early sensory areas, it has remained unclear how observers can remember specific visual features, such as the precise orientation of a grating, with minimal decay in performance over delays of many seconds12. One proposal is that sensory areas serve to maintain fine-tuned feature information13, but early visual areas show little to no sustained activity over prolonged delays14, 15, 16. Here we show that orientations held in working memory can be decoded from activity patterns in the human visual cortex, even when overall levels of activity are low. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging and pattern classification methods, we found that activity patterns in visual areas V1–V4 could predict which of two oriented gratings was held in memory with mean accuracy levels upwards of 80%, even in participants whose activity fell to baseline levels after a prolonged delay. These orientation-selective activity patterns were sustained throughout the delay period, evident in individual visual areas, and similar to the responses evoked by unattended, task-irrelevant gratings. Our results demonstrate that early visual areas can retain specific information about visual features held in working memory, over periods of many seconds when no physical stimulus is present.
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Corporate Author Thesis
Publisher Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0028-0836 ISBN Medium
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Notes (up) 10.1038/nature07832 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4944
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Author Clutton-Brock, T.
Title Cooperation between non-kin in animal societies Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Abbreviated Journal Nature
Volume 462 Issue 7269 Pages 51-57
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Abstract Explanations of cooperation between non-kin in animal societies often suggest that individuals exchange resources or services and that cooperation is maintained by reciprocity. But do cooperative interactions between unrelated individuals in non-human animals really resemble exchanges or are they a consequence of simpler mechanisms? Firm evidence of reciprocity in animal societies is rare and many examples of cooperation between non-kin probably represent cases of intra-specific mutualism or manipulation.
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Publisher Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0028-0836 ISBN Medium
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Notes (up) 10.1038/nature08366 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5270
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Author Proops, L.; McComb, K.; Reby, D.
Title Cross-modal individual recognition in domestic horses (Equus caballus) Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Abbreviated Journal Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
Volume 106 Issue 3 Pages 947-951
Keywords animal cognition vocal communication social behavior playback experiment expectancy violation
Abstract Individual recognition is considered a complex process and, although it is believed to be widespread across animal taxa, the cognitive mechanisms underlying this ability are poorly understood. An essential feature of individual recognition in humans is that it is cross-modal, allowing the matching of current sensory cues to identity with stored information about that specific individual from other modalities. Here, we use a cross-modal expectancy violation paradigm to provide a clear and systematic demonstration of cross-modal individual recognition in a nonhuman animal: the domestic horse. Subjects watched a herd member being led past them before the individual went of view, and a call from that or a different associate was played from a loudspeaker positioned close to the point of disappearance. When horses were shown one associate and then the call of a different associate was played, they responded more quickly and looked significantly longer in the direction of the call than when the call matched the herd member just seen, an indication that the incongruent combination violated their expectations. Thus, horses appear to possess a cross-modal representation of known individuals containing unique auditory and visual/olfactory information. Our paradigm could provide a powerful way to study individual recognition across a wide range of species.
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Notes (up) 10.1073/pnas.0809127105 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4689
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Author Cameron, E.Z.; Setsaas, T.H.; Linklater, W.L.
Title Social bonds between unrelated females increase reproductive success in feral horses Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Abbreviated Journal Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
Volume 106 Issue 33 Pages 13850-13853
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Abstract In many mammals, females form close social bonds with members of their group, usually between kin. Studies of social bonds and their fitness benefits have not been investigated outside primates, and are confounded by the relatedness between individuals in primate groups. Bonds may arise from kin selection and inclusive fitness rather than through direct benefits of association. However, female equids live in long-term social groups with unrelated members. We present 4 years of behavioral data, which demonstrate that social integration between unrelated females increases both foal birth rates and survival, independent of maternal habitat quality, social group type, dominance status, and age. Also, we show that such social integration reduces harassment by males. Consequently, social integration has strong direct fitness consequences between nonrelatives, suggesting that social bonds can evolve based on these direct benefits alone. Our results support recent studies highlighting the importance of direct benefits in maintaining cooperative behavior, while controlling for the confounding influence of kinship.
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Notes (up) 10.1073/pnas.0900639106 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5152
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Author Schmidt, M.; Lipson, H.
Title Distilling Free-Form Natural Laws from Experimental Data Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Science Abbreviated Journal Science
Volume 324 Issue 5923 Pages 81-85
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Abstract For centuries, scientists have attempted to identify and document analytical laws that underlie physical phenomena in nature. Despite the prevalence of computing power, the process of finding natural laws and their corresponding equations has resisted automation. A key challenge to finding analytic relations automatically is defining algorithmically what makes a correlation in observed data important and insightful. We propose a principle for the identification of nontriviality. We demonstrated this approach by automatically searching motion-tracking data captured from various physical systems, ranging from simple harmonic oscillators to chaotic double-pendula. Without any prior knowledge about physics, kinematics, or geometry, the algorithm discovered Hamiltonians, Lagrangians, and other laws of geometric and momentum conservation. The discovery rate accelerated as laws found for simpler systems were used to bootstrap explanations for more complex systems, gradually uncovering the “alphabet” used to describe those systems.
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Notes (up) 10.1126/science.1165893 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5264
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Author Rowe, M.L.; Goldin-Meadow, S.
Title Differences in Early Gesture Explain SES Disparities in Child Vocabulary Size at School Entry Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Science Abbreviated Journal Science
Volume 323 Issue 5916 Pages 951-953
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Abstract Children from low-socioeconomic status (SES) families, on average, arrive at school with smaller vocabularies than children from high-SES families. In an effort to identify precursors to, and possible remedies for, this inequality, we videotaped 50 children from families with a range of different SES interacting with parents at 14 months and assessed their vocabulary skills at 54 months. We found that children from high-SES families frequently used gesture to communicate at 14 months, a relation that was explained by parent gesture use (with speech controlled). In turn, the fact that children from high-SES families have large vocabularies at 54 months was explained by children's gesture use at 14 months. Thus, differences in early gesture help to explain the disparities in vocabulary that children bring with them to school.
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Notes (up) 10.1126/science.1167025 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4728
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Author Goodson, J.L.; Schrock, S.E.; Klatt, J.D.; Kabelik, D.; Kingsbury, M.A.
Title Mesotocin and Nonapeptide Receptors Promote Estrildid Flocking Behavior Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Science Abbreviated Journal
Volume 325 Issue 5942 Pages 862-866
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Abstract Proximate neural mechanisms that influence preferences for groups of a given size are almost wholly unknown. In the highly gregarious zebra finch (Estrildidae: Taeniopygia guttata), blockade of nonapeptide receptors by an oxytocin (OT) antagonist significantly reduced time spent with large groups and familiar social partners independent of time spent in social contact. Opposing effects were produced by central infusions of mesotocin (MT, avian homolog of OT). Most drug effects appeared to be female-specific. Across five estrildid finch species, species-typical group size correlates with nonapeptide receptor distributions in the lateral septum, and sociality in female zebra finches was reduced by OT antagonist infusions into the septum but not a control area. We propose that titration of sociality by MT represents a phylogenetically deep framework for the evolution of OT’s female-specific roles in pair bonding and maternal functions.
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Notes (up) 10.1126/science.1174929 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5646
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Author Dunbar, R.I.M.
Title The social brain hypothesis and its implications for social evolution Type Journal Article
Year 2009 Publication Annals of Human Biology Abbreviated Journal Annals of Human Biology
Volume 36 Issue 5 Pages 562-572
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Abstract The social brain hypothesis was proposed as an explanation for the fact that primates have unusually large brains for body size compared to all other vertebrates: Primates evolved large brains to manage their unusually complex social systems. Although this proposal has been generalized to all vertebrate taxa as an explanation for brain evolution, recent analyses suggest that the social brain hypothesis takes a very different form in other mammals and birds than it does in anthropoid primates. In primates, there is a quantitative relationship between brain size and social group size (group size is a monotonic function of brain size), presumably because the cognitive demands of sociality place a constraint on the number of individuals that can be maintained in a coherent group. In other mammals and birds, the relationship is a qualitative one: Large brains are associated with categorical differences in mating system, with species that have pairbonded mating systems having the largest brains. It seems that anthropoid primates may have generalized the bonding processes that characterize monogamous pairbonds to other non-reproductive relationships (?friendships?), thereby giving rise to the quantitative relationship between group size and brain size that we find in this taxon. This raises issues about why bonded relationships are cognitively so demanding (and, indeed, raises questions about what a bonded relationship actually is), and when and why primates undertook this change in social style.
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Publisher Taylor & Francis Place of Publication Editor
Language Summary Language Original Title
Series Editor Series Title Abbreviated Series Title
Series Volume Series Issue Edition
ISSN 0301-4460 ISBN Medium
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Notes (up) doi: 10.1080/03014460902960289 Approved no
Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6546
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