Objective
In many animal species, individuals acquire information from others. Until recently, however, there was no evidence for teaching in non-human animals. Now teaching has been shown in a small but diverse group of animals, all of them social. Teaching, according to the definition that is well established in evolutionary biology, must incur a cost or provide no immediate benefit to the experienced individual, i.e. the leader. This raises the question under what conditions does teaching evolve? Sociality is shaped by selection that operates, in part, at the family or colony level. Thus the leader incurs a cost and/or has no immediate benefit, but teaching will be beneficial at the colony level. Recent studies suggest that under a constantly changing environment (e.g. food supply) there will not necessarily be a direct link between an increase in individual performance after information transfer and collective energy gain of the colony. I will examine the effect of spatial and temporal availability of food on the benefits and costs of teaching at the individual and colony level of the tandem running ant Temnothorax albipennis. T. albipennis can forage towards a goal such as food, by two main strategies: (1) foraging alone, (2) teaching by tandem running, i.e. a leader teaches a naïve follower. In the second case there is strong bi-directional feedback of information between leader and follower. I will focus on the interactions during tandem running and assess the proportion of individuals and time allocated to tandem running for food. In ants there is a high level of communication between leaders and followers, which will provide insight into the increase in efficiency that accrues from teaching at an extremely fine scale.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
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Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF
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Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Coordinator
BS8 1QU Bristol
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.