Elsevier

Animal Behaviour

Volume 85, Issue 2, February 2013, Pages 349-356
Animal Behaviour

A comparison of innovative problem-solving abilities between wild and captive spotted hyaenas, Crocuta crocuta

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.11.003Get rights and content

Innovative problem solving enables individuals to deal with novel social and ecological challenges. However, our understanding of the importance of innovation for animals in their natural habitat is limited because experimental investigations of innovation have historically focused on captive animals. To determine how captivity affects innovation, and whether captive studies of animal innovation suffer from low external validity, we need experimental investigations of innovation in both wild and captive populations of the same species in diverse taxa. Here we inquired whether wild and captive spotted hyaenas differ in their ability to solve the same novel technical problem, and in the diversity of exploratory behaviours they exhibit when first interacting with the problem. Our results suggest that wild and captive populations show important differences in their innovative problem-solving abilities. Captive hyaenas were significantly more successful at solving the novel problem, and significantly more diverse in their initial exploratory behaviour, than were wild hyaenas. We were able to rule out hypotheses suggesting that these differences result from excess energy or time available to captive animals. We conclude that captive hyaenas were more successful because captive individuals were less neophobic and more exploratory than their wild counterparts. These results have important implications for our interpretation of studies on innovative problem solving in captive animals and aid our attempts to gain a broader understanding of the importance of innovation for animals in their natural habitat.

Highlights

► Research on animal problem solving seldom considers both wild and captive animals. ► We presented wild and captive spotted hyaenas with the same novel technical problem. ► Captives were better than wild hyaenas at solving the problem. ► Captives showed more diverse exploratory behaviour and were less neophobic. ► Captive studies of animal innovation may suffer from low external validity.

Section snippets

Subjects and Study Site

Wild subjects were 62 spotted hyaenas from two neighbouring clans in the Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya. Benson-Amram & Holekamp (2012) provide complete details on the identification of individual hyaenas, assignment to rank, sex and age categories, and methods used to assess problem-solving success, neophobia, exploration diversity and persistence among wild hyaenas.

Experiments in captivity were conducted on members of a breeding colony at the Field Station for Behavioral Research (FSBR)

Results

We found no difference in success (χ12=2.52, P = 0.11), exploration diversity (F1,16 = 0.060, P = 0.81), neophobia (F1,17 = 4.0, P < 0.062) or persistence (F1,17 = 2.82, P = 0.11) between captive hyaenas that observed a conspecific open the box and those that did not. Thus, watching another hyaena solve the problem did not improve performance. There was no effect of previous experience in a cooperative problem-solving experiment or hormone treatment group on success (experience: χ12=1.63, P = 0.20; hormone: χ22

Discussion

Demonstrating that a captive animal can solve a novel problem shows us that a species has the capability to innovate in that domain. Our results confirm, however, that captive studies tell us little about whether individuals from the same species would regularly show, or benefit from, innovative behaviour in the wild. As predicted, we found a striking difference in the percentage of captive and wild hyaenas that were able to solve a novel technical problem, even when members of both populations

Acknowledgments

The research presented here was described in Animal Research Application No. 07/08-099-00, approved most recently on 4 June 2010 by the All University Committee on Animal Use and Care at Michigan State University. The experimental procedures for the captive study were approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of California, Berkeley. This work was supported by National Science Foundation grants IOB0618022, IOS0819437, and IOS1121474. Michigan State University

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      Animals’ ability to innovate has been linked to several behavioral mechanisms (reviewed by Tebbich et al., 2016): (1) Exploration Diversity, e.g., the number of different task-directed behaviors (Benson-Amram and Holekamp, 2012; Sol et al., 2011), (2) Neophobia, e.g., fear of novelty or unfamiliar items (Berlyne, 1950; Webster and Lefebvre, 2001), (3) Persistence, e.g., task-directed motivation and working time (Biondi et al., 2010; Lefebvre et al., 2004) and (4) behavioral flexibility, e.g., an individual’s ability to change their behavior in response to environmental feedback and to inhibit previously successful behavior (Griffin and Guez, 2014; Lea et al., 2020). For example, there is an overall trend between innovative problem-solving, high Exploration Diversity, high Persistence, and low Neophobia (e.g., birds: Bókony et al., 2014; Boogert et al., 2008; mammals: Benson-Amram, Weldele, and Holekamp, 2013; Kendal et al., 2005; Thornton and Samson, 2012; reptiles: Leal and Powell, 2012; Manrod et al., 2008; fish: Kuba et al., 2010; Mair, Lucon-Xiccato, and Bisazza, 2021). Animals’ cognitive abilities and the behaviors underpinning these abilities have potentially important fitness consequences; innovation has been linked to species’ ability to exploit novel resources, adapt to a changing environment, or use resources within their environment more efficiently (Dukas, 2004; Mehrkam, 2019; Sol et al., 2013).

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