ArticlePloS one2017
Rats do not eat alone in public: Food-deprived rats socialize rather than competing for baits.
Article in PloS one, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Dynamic Changes in Implantable Collamer Lens Vault and Anterior Chamber Angle Under Varying Lighting Conditions.Clinical ophthalmology (Auckland, N.Z.) · 2026Article
- Hippocampus Oxytocin Signaling Promotes Prosocial Eating in Rats.Biological psychiatry · 2025Article
- Social factors influence solo and rat dyads exploration of an unfamiliar open field.Animal cognition · 2023Article
- Brain histone beta-hydroxybutyrylation couples metabolism with gene expression.Cellular and molecular life sciences : CMLS · 2023Article
- Bidirectional genetic selection of behaviors involved in social interaction of Wistar rats.Brazilian journal of medical and biological research = Revista brasileira de pesquisas medicas e biologica · 2022Article
- Social spatial cognition: social distance dynamics as an identifier of social interactions.Animal cognition · 2021Article
- Conspecific Presence Improves Episodic-Like Memory in Rats.Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2020Article
- A valence-free definition of sociality as any violation of inter-individual independence.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Limited resources result in competition among social animals. Nevertheless, social animals also have innate preferences for cooperative behavior. In the present study, 12 dyads of food-deprived rats were tested in four successive trials, and then re-tested as eight triads of food-deprived rats that were unfamiliar to each other. We found that the food-deprived dyads or triads of rats did not compete for the food available to them at regular spatially-marked locations that they had previously learnt. Rather, these rats traveled together to collect the baits. One rat, or two rats in some triads, lead (ran ahead) to collect most of the baits, but "leaders" differed across trials so that, on average, each rat ultimately collected similar amounts of baits. Regardless of which rat collected the baits, the rats traveled together with no substantial difference among them in terms of their total activity. We suggest that rats, which are a social species that has been found to display reciprocity, have evolved to travel and forage together and to share limited resources. Consequently, they displayed a sort of 'peace economy' that on average resulted in equal access to the baits across trials. For social animals, this type of dynamics is more relaxed, tolerant, and effective in the management of conflicts. Rather than competing for the limited available food, the food-deprived rats socialized and coexisted peacefully.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.