Authorship：Corresponding author   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)  

DOI： 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106617

Publisher：Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory  

ABSTRACT

Collaborative hunting, in which predators play different and complementary roles to capture prey, has been traditionally believed as an advanced hunting strategy requiring large brains that involve high level cognition. However, recent findings that collaborative hunting have also been documented in smaller-brained vertebrates have placed this previous belief under strain. Here, we demonstrate that decisions underlying collaborative hunts do not necessarily rely on sophisticated cognitive processes using computational multi-agent simulation based on deep reinforcement learning. We found that apparently elaborate coordination can be achieved through a relatively simple decision process of mapping between observations and actions via distance-dependent internal representations formed by prior experience. Furthermore, we confirmed that this decision rule of predators is robust against unknown prey controlled by humans. Our results of computational ecology emphasize that collaborative hunting can emerge in various intra- and inter-specific interactions in nature, and provide insights into the evolution of sociality.

DOI： 10.1101/2022.10.10.511517

Authorship：Lead author   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：The Royal Society  

Many animal species form groups. Group characteristics differ between species, suggesting that the decision-making of individuals for grouping varies across species. However, the actual decision-making properties that lead to interspecific differences in group characteristics remain unclear. Here, we compared the group formation processes of two Drosophilinae fly species, Colocasiomyia alocasiae and Drosophila melanogaster , which form dense and sparse groups, respectively. A high-throughput tracking system revealed that C. alocasiae flies formed groups faster than D. melanogaster flies, and the probability of C. alocasiae remaining in groups was far higher than that of D. melanogaster . C. alocasiae flies joined groups even when the group size was small, whereas D. melanogaster flies joined groups only when the group size was sufficiently large. C. alocasiae flies attenuated their walking speed when the inter-individual distance between flies became small, whereas such behavioural properties were not clearly observed in D. melanogaster . Furthermore, depriving C. alocasiae flies of visual input affected grouping behaviours, resulting in a severe reduction in group formation. These findings show that C. alocasiae decision-making regarding grouping, which greatly depends on vision, is significantly different from D. melanogaster , leading to species-specific group formation properties.

DOI： 10.1098/rsos.220042

Other Link： https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full-xml/10.1098/rsos.220042

Authorship：Lead author   Publishing type：Research paper (scientific journal)   Publisher：Springer Science and Business Media LLC  

Mate discrimination contributes to the co-existence of related species by reducing the risk of interspecific copulation. In pollination mutualistic systems where pollinators utilize host plants as mating places, sharing of host plants with other related species could increase non-adaptive interspecific copulation. Although such host-sharing species are expected to have strong mate discrimination systems, little is known about whether and how they discriminate species for mating. Here, we investigate mate discrimination of two fly species, Colocasiomyia xenalocasiae and C. alocasiae (Diptera: Drosophilidae), which share host plants; they are essentially anthophilous, depending exclusively on specific aroid host plants throughout their entire life cycles. Our field observations showed that the males of C. alocasiae and C. xenalocasiae preferentially paired with conspecific, but not heterospecific, females. This indicates that they discriminate species for mating in the natural habitat. Such mate discrimination was also observed under laboratory conditions. To investigate how these flies discriminate species, we defined distinct behavioral elements in courtship sequence in both species, and compared sexual interactions in each element between conspecific and heterospecific pairs. We found that males discriminate female whilst tapping, whereas females discriminate male before or during males’ attempted mounting. This suggests that mate discrimination systems in both males and females reduce the incidence of heterospecific mounting; mounting is a necessary step in the sequence of courtship for successful copulation. The mate discrimination system found in this study potentially allows for the co-existence of C. xenalocasiae and C. alocasiae on the same host plant by effectively suppressing interspecific copulation.

DOI： 10.1007/s10905-022-09798-0

Scopus

Other Link： https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10905-022-09798-0/fulltext.html

Publishing type：Research paper (international conference proceedings)  

Other Link： https://dblp.uni-trier.de/rec/conf/nips/2021

DOI： https://doi.org/10.3390/genes11020157

DOI： https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.2045

Authorship：Lead author  

DOI： https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1943-17.2017

Authorship：Lead author  

DOI： https://doi.org/10.1111/imb.12232

Authorship：Lead author  

DOI： https://doi.org/10.1039/c3an00704a

Author：Myself 

Author：Myself 

Author：Other 

Author：Other