The smell of hunger: Norway rats provision social partners based on odour cues of need
Karin Schneeberger, Gregory Röder & Michael Taborsky
| Résumé |
When individuals exchange helpful acts reciprocally, increasing the
benefit of the receiver can enhance its propensity to return a
favour, as pay-offs are typically correlated in iterated
interactions. Therefore, reciprocally cooperating animals should
consider the relative benefit for the receiver when deciding to
help a conspecific. Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) exchange food
reciprocally and thereby take into account both the cost of helping
and the potential benefit to the receiver. By using a variant of the
sequential iterated prisoner’s dilemma paradigm, we show that rats
may determine the need of another individual by olfactory cues
alone. In an experimental food-exchange task, test subjects were
provided with odour cues from hungry or satiated conspecifics
located in a different room. Our results show that wild-type Norway
rats provide help to a stooge quicker when they receive odour cues
from a hungry rather than from a satiated conspecific. Using
chemical analysis by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS),
we identify seven volatile organic compounds that differ in their
abundance between hungry and satiated rats. Combined, this “smell
of hunger” can apparently serve as a reliable cue of need in
reciprocal cooperation, which supports the hypothesis of honest
signalling. |
| Mots-clés |
Rats Behavior Cooperation Food Smell Volatile organic compounds |
| Citation | Schneeberger, K., Röder, G., & Taborsky, M. (2020). The smell of hunger: Norway rats provision social partners based on odour cues of need. Plos Biology, 18(3), 1-13. |
| Type | Article de périodique (Anglais) |
| Date de publication | 24-3-2020 |
| Nom du périodique | Plos Biology |
| Volume | 18 |
| Numéro | 3 |
| Pages | 1-13 |
| URL | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000628 |