Individual-learning ability predicts social-foraging strategy in house sparrows
Social foragers can use either a ‘producer’ strategy, which involves searching for food, or a ‘scrounger’ strategy, which involves joining others' food discoveries. While producers rely on personal information and past experience, we may ask whether the tendency to forage as a producer is relat...
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Published in | Proceedings of the Royal Society. B, Biological sciences Vol. 278; no. 1705; pp. 582 - 589 |
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Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
England
The Royal Society
22.02.2011
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Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Social foragers can use either a ‘producer’ strategy, which involves searching for food, or a ‘scrounger’ strategy, which involves joining others' food discoveries. While producers rely on personal information and past experience, we may ask whether the tendency to forage as a producer is related to being a better learner. To answer this question, we hand-raised house sparrow (Passer domesticus) nestlings that upon independence were given an individual-learning task that required them to associate colour signal and food presence. Following the testing phase, all fledglings were released into a shared aviary, and their social-foraging tendencies were measured. We found a significant positive correlation between individual's performance in the individual-learning task and subsequent tendency to use searching (producing) behaviour. Individual-learning score was negatively correlated with initial fear of the test apparatus and with body weight. However, the correlation between individual learning and searching remained significant after controlling for these variables. Since it was measured before the birds entered a social group, individual-learning ability could not be the outcome of being a producer. However, the two traits may be initially associated, or individual learning could facilitate producing behaviour. To our knowledge, this is the first evidence that associates individual-learning abilities with social-foraging strategies in animal groups. |
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Bibliography: | istex:4110B8ED9C3E9B73C7CC5421CDE000B1A973FEF5 href:rspb20101151.pdf ArticleID:rspb20101151 ark:/67375/V84-TDRFH0P6-6 ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 ObjectType-Article-2 ObjectType-Feature-1 |
ISSN: | 0962-8452 1471-2945 1471-2954 |
DOI: | 10.1098/rspb.2010.1151 |