Vedrana Šlipogor

#nakedmolerat #laterality #comparativecognition #animalbehaviour

@prfju.bsky.social

@dee-unil.bsky.social @fbm-unil.bsky.social @unil.bsky.social | @thesensech.bsky.social | @ckecz.bsky.social

This article was led by my talented MSc student Dominic Dudek, co-authored by Martina Konečná & Radim Šumbera, and senior-authored by myself. 🥰 This is my first paper on naked mole-rats and my first senior-authored paper, so I am extra proud and happy to see it out. ✨✨✨

Further investigation using other modified and ecologically relevant experimental designs is warranted to understand the underlying mechanisms and ecological implications of laterality and turning bias in subterranean rodent species. 😊 🐹

✨ In line with our expectations, there were no sex or group effects on the direction or strength of laterality in the Initial Turn, nor the Arm Turn. Contrary to our expectation that there would be a stronger laterality bias in older individuals, we did not find such an effect.

✨ We found that while most individuals displayed a right-turning preference in their initial turn ➡️ they were ambilateral (i.e. did not show a preference) when choosing between the two side chambers ↔️.

We tested 69 captive IDs from 5 families using a T-maze, systematically rotating it across 24 trials to mitigate any potential environmental effects. We measured Initial and Arm Turns made, calculated Z-scores, Laterality and Absolute Laterality Index, and constructed linear regression models.

We investigated i) whether naked mole-rats display laterality, and if so, whether ii) laterality is affected by their age, sex, or group membership.

Lateralization (i.e. preferential use of one body side, limb or eye) has been suggested to impact learning and decision-making critical for survival. Naked mole-rats are cooperatively breeding rodents with excellent spatial navigation skills, necessary for living in complex underground burrows.

📢 Our new article entitled "Laterality in naked mole-rats (Heterocephalus glaber)" has been recently published *open access* in Mammalian Biology! 🥳

doi.org/10.1007/s429...

A thread. 🧵

New study of personality variability across social contexts in common marmosets 🧪 🐒
doi.org/10.1016/j.an...
#AnimalBehavior #CompCogPapers #Personality #Monkey #Primate #IndividualVariation #Marmoset

Amazing! Many congratulations, dear Miriam! 🥳✨️🤗

Thank you so much, I am very glad to hear this! 😊🤩

The News of the Week concerns personality modulation in the primate Callithrix jacchus
Read the article and follow for more!
ITA and ESP versions available
www.tumblr.com/dropsofscien...

@unil.bsky.social @dee-unil.bsky.social @fbm-unil.bsky.social @thesensech.bsky.social @univie.ac.at

The article is co-first authored by Michaela Masilkova and myself, and it has been a great pleasure working with Alisa Höflinger, Nina Lang, Thomas Bugnyar and Martina Konečná! 🥰☺️

Furthermore, our findings promote the implementation of social setting in test designs for animal behaviour and cognition as an equally rigorous yet, in some cases, ecologically more relevant empirical choice. 🐒 😊

These findings indicate that some personality traits may be more plastic than others and that the social environment can be an important modifier of individual behaviour.

✨ Although individual scores of ‘Avoidance/Shyness’ were consistent across settings, ‘Stress/Activity’ scores were modified by the presence of group members: more stressed/active individuals in the individual setting became less stressed/active when tested with conspecifics, and vice versa.

✨ When examining the personality structure containing the same behavioural variables across settings, two principal components emerged: ‘Avoidance/Shyness’ and ‘Stress/Activity’.

✨ We found that most of the behavioural variables showed temporal and contextual consistency and that the resulting personality structure was similar to the previously obtained captive and wild personality structures.

In this study, we aimed to answer this question by replicating a personality test battery previously done in an individual setting, with testing 25 monkeys in a social setting. We assessed their activity, reactions to novel object, food, predator, and their foraging under risk, across 2 sessions.

Animal personality has been studied in many taxa, but studies assessing the same animals in individual and social settings are lacking. Common marmosets live in family groups but also face problems on their own. Whether and how their personality profiles are affected by conspecifics is unknown.

📢 Our new article entitled “With or without you: common marmoset, Callithrix jacchus, personality expression is mediated by social setting” has just come out *open access* in #AnimalBehaviourJournal! ✨ 🥰🥳🐒 @asab.org

doi.org/10.1016/j.an...

A thread. 😊

@unil.bsky.social @dee-unil.bsky.social @fbm-unil.bsky.social @thesensech.bsky.social @univie.ac.at

This was a great cross-disciplinary collaboration with Huimin Ye, Buck Hanson, Joana Séneca, Bela Hausmann, Craig Herbold, @ppjevac.bsky.social, Thomas Bugnyar and @loyteam.bsky.social and I am very happy to have been part of this exciting endeavour! 🥰

These findings highlight specific association patterns between microbial taxa and personality, advance our understanding of microbiome-host dynamics and pave the way for research on the mechanistic links between behavior and gut microbiota in other animals and across ecological contexts. 🐒 🧫 🧬

✨ Specific microbial taxa were associated with personality traits: while members of the sulfite-reducing genus Desulfovibrio were enriched in more avoidant individuals, the predominant sulfite-reducing bacterium which was an unknown uncultured bacterium was linked to more explorative individuals.

✨  Beta diversity of the gut microbiota was linked with personality traits, age class, sex, and breeding status, but not with genetic relatedness.