Cognitive ecology: environmental dependence of the fitness costs of learning.
A recent study has found that butterflies maintain behavioural plasticity useful to them in rare environments by reducing associated costs in common environments. Butterflies use innate sensory biases to locate common green hosts, but learn to modify these preferences to find rare, red host-plants.
Raine
Nigel E
NE
Research Centre for Psychology, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK. n.e.raine@qmul.ac.uk
D000818:Animals; D001522:Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology; D002080:Butterflies; D004463:Ecology; D004777:Environment; D005260:Female; D007858:Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D010641:Phenotype; D012641:Selection, Genetic