Abstract：
There is increasing evidence that competent handling of social interactions among conspecifics has positive effects on individual fitness. While individual variation in social competence has been appreciated, the role of long-term experience in the acquisition of superior social skills has received less attention. With the goal of promoting further research, we integrate knowledge across disciplines to assess social expertise, defined as the characteristics, skills and knowledge allowing individuals with extensive social experience to perform significantly better than novices on a given social task. We focus on three categories of social behaviour. First, animals can gain from adjusting social behaviour towards individually recognised conspecifics that they interact with on a regular basis. For example, there is evidence that some territorial animals individually recognise their neighbours and modify their social interactions based on experience with each neighbour. Similarly, individuals in group-living species learn to associate with specific group members based on their expected benefits from such social connections. Individuals have also been found to devote considerable time and effort to learning about the spatial location and timing of sexual receptivity of opposite-sex neighbours to optimise reproduction. Second, signallers can enhance their signals, and receivers can refine their response to signals with experience. In many birds and insects, individuals can produce more consistent signals with experience, and females across a wide taxonomic range can adaptively adjust mating preferences after perceiving distinct male signals. Third, in many species, individuals that succeed in reproducing encounter the novel, complex task of caring for vulnerable offspring. Evidence from a few species of mammals indicates that mothers improve in providing for and protecting their young over successive broods. Finally, for social expertise to evolve, heritable variation in social expertise has to be positively associated with fitness. Heritable variation has been shown in traits contributing to social expertise including social attention, empathy, individual recognition and maternal care. There are currently limited data associating social expertise with fitness, most likely owing to sparse research effort. Exceptions include maternal care, signal refinement, and familiarity with neighbours and group members. Overall, there is evidence that individuals in many species keep refining their social skills with experience throughout life. Hence we propose promising lines of research that can quantify more thoroughly the development of social expertise and its effects on fitness.
摘要：
越来越多的证据表明，有能力处理特定物种之间的社交互动会对个人适应性产生积极影响。虽然社会能力的个体差异得到了重视，长期经验在获得卓越社交技能方面的作用受到的关注较少。以推动深入研究为目标,我们整合跨学科的知识来评估社会专业知识，定义为特征，技能和知识，使具有丰富社会经验的个人在特定社会任务上的表现明显优于新手。我们关注三类社会行为。首先,动物可以从调整社会行为中受益，以适应他们定期与之互动的个人认可的物种。例如,有证据表明，一些领土动物单独识别他们的邻居，并根据与每个邻居的经验改变他们的社会互动。同样，群体生活物种中的个体根据他们从这种社会关系中获得的预期收益，学会与特定群体成员建立联系。还发现个人花费大量时间和精力来了解异性邻居的性接受的空间位置和时间，以优化生殖。第二,信号器可以增强他们的信号，接收器可以根据经验改进对信号的响应。在许多鸟类和昆虫中，个人可以通过经验产生更一致的信号，并且在广泛的分类学范围内的雌性可以在感知到不同的雄性信号后自适应地调整交配偏好。第三，在许多物种中，成功复制的人遇到了小说，照顾脆弱后代的复杂任务。来自一些哺乳动物物种的证据表明，母亲在提供和保护其后代方面有所改善。最后,为了社会专业知识的发展，社会专业知识的遗传差异必须与健身呈正相关。遗传变异已显示在有助于社会专业知识的特征中，包括社会关注，同理心,个人认可和产妇护理。目前，将社会专业知识与健身联系起来的数据有限，最有可能是由于研究工作稀疏。例外情况包括产妇护理，信号细化，熟悉邻居和小组成员。总的来说,有证据表明，许多物种的个体都在一生中不断用经验来提高他们的社交技能。因此，我们提出了有希望的研究路线，可以更彻底地量化社会专业知识的发展及其对健身的影响。
