Experimental evidence for social transmission of food acquisition techniques in wild meerkats

Despite major evolutionary implications, patterns of social information transmission in natural populations remain poorly understood. We used an experiment to examine the spread of novel food acquisition techniques through groups of wild meerkats, Suricata suricatta. We trained individual `demonstrators' in six groups to obtain food from an apparatus using one of two techniques. A further three control groups had no demonstrators. We found evidence for social learning on two levels. First, a greater proportion of individuals in experimental than control groups interacted with the apparatus and obtained food from it. Second, a number of individuals in experimental groups adopted demonstrators' techniques following interactions with demonstrators or other group members that had already learned from demonstrators. Scrounging appeared to be the primary driver of technique acquisition, with naive individuals being more likely to learn a technique if they had scrounged from an individual performing that technique. Among individuals that never scrounged, observing successful performance of a technique also had a positive effect on technique adoption. Young individuals were more likely than adults to join and scrounge from demonstrators and were consequently more likely to learn. A number of individuals also learned without observing or scrounging from demonstrators, and there was some indication that their techniques subsequently spread to others, leading to the existence of alternative socially learned techniques within groups. These results shed light on patterns of social learning in nature and suggest that a lack of behavioural uniformity within groups need not imply a lack of socially transmitted behaviour. (C) 2009 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.