Urbanization does not increase“object curiosity”in vervet monkeys,but semi-urban individuals selectively explore food-related anthropogenic items  

作　　者：Lindsey Ellington Stephanie Mercier Alba Motes-Rodrigo Erica van de Waal Sofa Forss 

机构地区：[1]Behavioural&Physiological Ecology,University of Groningen,P.O.Box 111039700 CC,Groningen,The Netherlands [2]Department of Ecology and Evolution,University of Lausanne,Biophore-CH-1015,Lausanne,Switzerland [3]Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies,University of Zurich,Winterthurerstrasse 190,CH-8057,Zurich,Switzerland [4]School of Life Sciences,University of KwaZulu-Natal,Private Bag X01,Scottsville,3209,South Africa

出　　处：《Current Zoology》2024年第3期383-393,共11页动物学报（英文版）

基　　金：the funding agencies behind this research,the Finnish KONE Foundation,the Wenner Gren Foundation,and the Swiss National Science Foundation(CRSK-3_220769)awarded to SE.

摘　　要：Urban environments expose animals to abundant anthropogenic materials and foods that facilitate foraging innovations in species with oppor-tunistic diets and high behavioral flexibility.Neophilia and exploration tendency are believed to be important behavioral traits for animals thriving in urban environments.Vervet monkeys(Chlorocebus pygerythrus)are one of few primate species that have successfully adapted to urban environments,thus making them an ideal species to study these traits.Using a within-species cross-habitat approach,we compared neophilia and exploration of novel objects(jointly referred to as"object curiosity")between semi-urban,wild,and captive monkeys to shed light on the cognitive traits facilitating urban living.To measure"object curiosity:"we exposed monkeys to various types of novel stimuli and compared their approaches and explorative behavior.Our results revealed differences in the number of approaches and explorative behavior toward novel stimuli between the habitat types considered.Captive vervet monkeys were significantly more explorative than both semi-urban and wild troops,sug-gesting that positive experiences with humans and lack of predation,rather than exposure to human materials per se,influence object curiosity.Across habitats,juvenile males were the most explorative age-sex class.This is likely due to males being the dispersing sex and juveniles being more motivated to learn about their environment.Additionally,we found that items potentially associated with human food,elicited stronger explorative responses in semi-urban monkeys than non-food related objects,suggesting that their motivation to explore might be driven by"anthrophilia'that is,their experience of rewarding foraging on similar anthropogenic food sources.We conclude that varying levels of exposure to humans,predation and pre-exposure to human food packaging explain variation in"object curiosity"in our sample of vervet monkeys.

关 键 词：animal urbanization neophilia novelty response object curiosity vervet monkeys 

分 类 号：Q95[生物学—动物学]