麻豆淫院

Why do some animals solve problems while others don't? The new study from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, now on the cover of Oikos, tackles this question with an unexpected star: the wild house mouse. This research dives into how different personality types鈥攅specially traits like boldness and shyness鈥攊nfluence innovation.

Led by Alexandros Vezyrakis, with Anja Guenther and Valeria Mazza, the team tested over 100 mice both in semi-natural enclosures (mimicking their wild habitats) and later in controlled lab arenas. The result? Shyer mice, not the bold ones, were more likely to visit problem-solving tasks repeatedly, increasing their chance of success.

This challenges a common assumption in animal behavior science: that bold, exploratory individuals are more likely to solve new problems. Instead, this study shows that being shy doesn't mean being slow鈥攊t can mean being thorough. These mice simply kept coming back to the puzzles, gaining more opportunities to eventually solve them.

"Innovation, it turns out, may be less about who's bold and more about who shows up often enough to get lucky," says lead author Vezyrakis. "Persistence, not just personality, plays a central role in problem-solving."

Context changes everything

The research also highlights a bigger issue: where animals are tested can drastically affect the results. In the quiet lab arenas, 60% of the mice managed to solve at least one problem. But in the socially dynamic, real-world-style enclosures, only about 21% did. The same individuals often behaved very differently depending on the environment. This suggests that many lab-based studies might be missing the bigger picture.

"Real-life conditions are messy," explains co-author Guenther. "If we only look at behavior in simplified, isolated lab settings, we risk misunderstanding how animals actually respond to challenges in nature."

Interestingly, mice didn't behave consistently across environments鈥攕uccess in the lab didn't predict success in the semi-natural setting. That difference reveals two key components of innovation: ability (can an animal solve a problem?) and propensity (will it actually try?).

The study suggests that lab tests may reveal what animals can do under ideal conditions鈥攂ut not necessarily what they will do in the wild. To truly understand innovation, scientists need to consider not only the cognitive skills of animals, but also the ecological and social factors that influence behavior.