Can yellow-bellied marmots (<i>Marmota flaviventer</i>) learn foraging innovations?

Abstract

Innovation is widespread in animals and may help them modify their behavior to changes in the environment. A common method to determine whether a species possesses innovative abilities is to present them with a novel foraging problem and then to explain the traits that may predict success. Individuals differ in their innovative propensity and factors that have been linked to such differences include age, sex, rank, and personality. Yellow-belied marmots (Marmota flaviventer) are 3-5 kg ground dwelling squirrels that live in female kin groups at predictable locations, making them an ideal subject of an innovation study. Here we asked whether yellow- bellied marmots can learn foraging innovations and how the factors of age, sex, and sociality affect an individual’s innovative propensity. We presented individuals with a two-action puzzle box and began by determining who was able to solve it, and who was not. We used logistic regression to study characteristics associated with success and our preliminary data suggest that the social group to which an individual belongs to was an important predictor of innovative success. To determine whether innovative success illustrated learning, we asked whether marmots’ latency to open the box declined over repeated exposures. We also asked whether the diversity of behaviors used to open the box decreased with successive experience. Surprisingly, we found no evidence that marmots learned to open the box either faster or more efficiently with more experience. In order to better study innovation, larger sample sizes will be needed. In addition, future studies will ask whether innovation can be socially transmitted through marmot groups.