Michael Taborsky
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Experimental evidence for social learning in semi-natural, wild-type Norway rats Open
Animals may acquire information about their environment by social learning. Social transmission can affect the rate of trait acquisition and performance. It is often unclear, how behaviours are acquired when social information is available…
Division of labour as key driver of social evolution Open
The social division of labour (DoL) has been renowned as a key driver of the economic success of human societies dating back to ancient philosophers such as Plato (in The Republic , ca 380 BCE), Xenophon (in Cyropaedia , ca 370 BCE) and Ar…
Group size and labour demands determine division of labour as a consequence of demographic stochasticity Open
Division of labour (DoL) is most prominently observed in eusocial insects but also occurs in much smaller cooperative groups where all individuals could potentially perform any task. In such groups, previous experience and learning are the…
Norway rats recruit cooperation partners based on previous receipt of help while disregarding kinship Open
Norway rats are known to liberate trapped conspecifics, which implies an empathic response to the deplorable situation of the captive. If this is an altruistic behavior reflecting an evolved decision rule, the requisite fitness enhancement…
Ambrosia beetles adjust dispersal preferences to their degree of exhaustion Open
Delayed dispersal of sexually mature offspring is a fundamental component of cooperative breeding in fungus farming ambrosia beetles. These beetles dwell in logs of recently deceased trees, where female offspring postpone reproduction and …
Reciprocal altruism in Norway rats Open
Reciprocal altruism has been proposed to generate evolutionarily stable levels of cooperation, but empirical evidence in non‐human animals is contentious. A series of experimental studies on Norway rats revealed that these animals reciproc…
Assessment of help value affects reciprocation in Norway rats Open
Wild-type Norway rats reciprocate help received in a well-replicated experimental food-giving task, but the criteria to appraise the received help's value are unclear. We tested whether quality or quantity of received help is more importan…
Philopatry yields higher fitness than dispersal in a cooperative breeder with sex-specific life history trajectories Open
Social evolution is tightly linked to dispersal decisions, but the ecological and social factors selecting for philopatry or dispersal often remain obscure. Elucidating selection mechanisms underlying alternative life histories requires me…
Coercion promotes alloparental care in cooperative breeders Open
Members of social groups may negotiate among each other about the exchange of goods and services. If this involves asymmetries between interacting partners, for instance in condition, power, or expected payoffs, coercion may be involved in…
Genomic basis of Y‐linked dwarfism in cichlids pursuing alternative reproductive tactics Open
Sexually antagonistic selection, which favours different optima in males and females, is predicted to play an important role in the evolution of sex chromosomes. Body size is a sexually antagonistic trait in the shell‐brooding cichlid fish…
R script from Assessment of help value affects reciprocation in Norway rats Open
Script for analyses
Data 1 from Assessment of help value affects reciprocation in Norway rats Open
Data “np.RData” represents the data that includes both familiar and unfamiliar dyads.
Data 2 from Assessment of help value affects reciprocation in Norway rats Open
Data “np_f.RData” represents the data that only includes unfamiliar dyads.
Data 3 from Assessment of help value affects reciprocation in Norway rats Open
Data “np_prev.RData” represents the data that only includes familiar dyads.
Food-exchanging Norway rats apply the direct reciprocity decision rule rather than copying by imitation Open
The decision rule of direct reciprocity states that an individual helps someone who previously helped them. An alternative explanation to observations of reciprocal exchanges of help is copying by imitation. Norway rats, Rattus norvegicus,…
Norway rats help social partners in need in response to ultrasonic begging signals Open
Begging signals are widespread in animals and have been extensively studied in the context of brood care. In contrast, the functionality of begging signals expressed among adults has not yet been scrutinised experimentally. Norway rats ( R…
Group augmentation on trial: helpers in small groups enhance antipredator defence of eggs Open
Mechanisms selecting for the evolution of cooperative breeding are hotly debated. While kin selection theory has been the central paradigm to explain the seemingly altruistic behaviour of non-reproducing helpers, it is increasingly recogni…
The evolution of cooperative breeding by direct and indirect fitness effects Open
The evolution of cooperative breeding has been traditionally attributed to the effect of kin selection. While there is increasing empirical evidence that direct fitness benefits are relevant, the relative importance of alternative selectio…
Group augmentation on trial: helpers in small groups enhance antipredator defence of eggs Open
Dataset for the article "Group augmentation on trial: helpers in small groups enhance antipredator defence of eggs".
Group augmentation on trial: helpers in small groups enhance antipredator defence of eggs Open
Dataset for the article "Group augmentation on trial: helpers in small groups enhance antipredator defence of eggs".
Data for: Coercion promotes alloparental care in cooperative breeders Open
Members of social groups may negotiate among each other about the exchange of goods and services. If this involves asymmetries between interacting partners, for instance in condition, power or expected payoffs, coercion may be involved in …
Sex-Specific Routes to Independent Breeding in a Polygynous Cooperative Breeder Open
How can individuals obtain a breeding position and what are the benefits associated with philopatry compared to dispersal? These questions are particularly intriguing in polygamous cooperative breeders, where dispersal strategies reflect m…
Age‐ and sex‐dependent variation in relatedness corresponds to reproductive skew, territory inheritance, and workload in cooperatively breeding cichlids Open
Kin selection plays a major role in the evolution of cooperative systems. However, many social species exhibit complex within-group relatedness structures, where kin selection alone cannot explain the occurrence of cooperative behavior. Un…
Reaching Out for Inaccessible Food Is a Potential Begging Signal in Cooperating Wild-Type Norway Rats, Rattus norvegicus Open
Begging is widespread in juvenile animals. It typically induces helpful behaviours in parents and brood care helpers. However, begging is sometimes also shown by adults towards unrelated social partners. Adult Norway rats ( Rattus norvegic…
Ecological variation drives morphological differentiation in a highly social vertebrate Open
Animals may respond to ecological heterogeneity by genetic differentiation or phenotypic plasticity. Responses of organisms to their ecology can include adaptation at various levels of organization, including morphology, behaviour and soci…
Habitat Quality Determines Dispersal Decisions and Fitness in a Beetle – Fungus Mutualism Open
Delayed dispersal of sexually mature offspring is a fundamental component of cooperative breeding. In ambrosia beetles, female offspring temporarily remain in their natal nest and refrain from reproduction, instead investing in alloparenta…
The smell of cooperation: rats increase helpful behaviour when receiving odour cues of a conspecific performing a cooperative task Open
Reciprocity can explain cooperative behaviour among non-kin, where individuals help others depending on their experience in previous interactions. Norway rats ( Rattus norvegicus ) cooperate reciprocally according to direct and generalized…