Abstract:
Cognition helps wildlife exploit novel resources and environments. Raccoons (Procyon lotor) have successfully adapted to human presence, in part due to their cognitive abilities. However, interactions between humans and wildlife can create conflict. A better understanding of the raccoon\'s behavioral flexibility and learning ability could mitigate some conflicts. Our objective was to evaluate wild raccoons learning in contexts varying in terms of exposure to humans (recreational and preservation zoning within protected areas) and task difficulty. Learning can be evaluated over multiple exposures to a cognitive task. Across three years of experiment, we employed 2 food extraction tasks to gauge the change in problem-solving performance over trials. This assessment considered the success probability (the number of successful trials divided by the total number of trials) and the time taken to solve the puzzles. We also looked at the effects of 2 behavioral traits, exploratory diversity and persistence. We found strong evidence for learning over consecutive trials in terms of improved success probability. Improvement in terms of success probability and solving time was more pronounced with the initially easier task. We detected an increase in success probability over trials only in the recreation zones, and there was no evidence of an effect of behavioral traits. The improved performance attributed to learning was also maintained over consecutive years. We provide additional evidence that raccoons can learn how to solve a problem, resulting in a more effective solution in consecutive trials. Finally, we consider the management implications of dealing with raccoons accessing anthropogenic resources.
摘要:
认知帮助野生动物开发新的资源和环境。浣熊(Procyonlotor)已经成功地适应了人类的存在,部分原因是他们的认知能力。然而,人类和野生动物之间的相互作用会产生冲突。更好地了解浣熊的行为灵活性和学习能力可以减轻一些冲突。我们的目标是评估野生浣熊在暴露于人类(保护区内的娱乐和保护分区)和任务难度方面的学习情况。可以通过多次暴露于认知任务来评估学习。经过三年的实验,我们采用了2项食物提取任务来评估试验中问题解决性能的变化.此评估考虑了成功概率(成功试验次数除以试验总数)和解决难题所需的时间。我们还研究了两种行为特征的影响,探索性多样性和持久性。我们发现了在连续试验中学习提高成功概率的有力证据。在最初更容易的任务中,成功概率和解决时间的改善更加明显。我们发现成功概率仅在娱乐区比试验增加,没有证据表明行为特征有影响。由于学习而提高的业绩也连续几年保持不变。我们提供了额外的证据表明浣熊可以学习如何解决问题,在连续试验中产生更有效的解决方案。最后,我们考虑了处理浣熊获取人为资源的管理意义。