Individual differences in the use of social information in foraging by captive great tits

@article{Marchetti2000IndividualDI,
  title={Individual differences in the use of social information in foraging by captive great tits},
  author={Chiara Maria Marchetti and Piet J. Drent},
  journal={Animal Behaviour},
  year={2000},
  volume={60},
  pages={131-140}
}
We investigated individual differences in copying behaviour of captive great tits, Parus major, by analysing their response to a tutor indicating a new feeding site. We used two groups, each of seven male birds, labelled 'fast' and 'slow' explorers based on previous studies in which consistent individual differences in the speed of exploring were found. The birds were trained to search for food hidden in a number of differently coloured and shaped feeders, and later to search in only one type… 
View on Elsevier
doi.org
289 Citations
Highly Influential Citations
9
Background Citations
123
Methods Citations
3
Results Citations
9

289 Citations

Personality and Information Gathering in Free-Ranging Great Tits

One aspect of animal personality that has been well described in captivity, but received only little attention in studies in the wild, is that personality types may vary in their behavioural…

Information transfer and gain in flocks: the effects of quality and quantity of social information at different neighbour distances

Overall, information transfer within starling flocks affects individual foraging and scanning behaviour, with receivers monitoring and copying senders’ behaviour mainly when neighbours are close.

TWO SOLITUDES: THE BEHAVIOUR OF PIGEONS IN COMPETITIVE FEEDING

In competitive feeding situations, pigeons react to what is most directly associated with the dwindling food conditions but are insensitive to the presence and to the pecking behaviour of the animal that creates them.

Boldness and Information Use in Three-Spined Sticklebacks

Investigation of the response of three-spined stickleback to ‘social cues’, ‘local enhancement’ and ‘public information’ during foraging tasks confirms previous work suggesting that this species responds to social cues and local enhancement but not public information.

Individual-learning ability predicts social-foraging strategy in house sparrows

A significant positive correlation between individual's performance in the individual-learning task and subsequent tendency to use searching (producing) behaviour is found and is the first evidence that associates individual- learning abilities with social-foraging strategies in animal groups.

Personality-dependent differences in problem-solving performance in a social context reflect foraging strategies

Time in captivity, individual differences and foraging behaviour in wild-caught chaffinches

It is concluded that it may not always be beneficial to allow wild-caught animals to habituate to captivity before commencing experiments and that testing animals soon after capture may increase the likelihood of data collection, reducing both the number of study animals required and the length of time they spend in captivity.

Space-use and sociability are not related to public-information use in ninespine sticklebacks

While the personality traits that were considered did not co-vary with public information use in this species, they may well indirectly affect opportunity for exposure to public information, and this is an obvious avenue for further research.

Personality in the wild zebra finch: exploration, sociality, and reproduction

It is found that the measures of sociality, wild, and captive exploration were repeatable, but contrary to predictions, exploration in the novel environment test was not significantly correlated with exploration of feeders in the wild.

Exploration Behaviour Is Not Associated with Chick Provisioning in Great Tits

This work investigated exploration behaviour (EB) as a measure of personality using both natural and experimental data from a wild population of great tits to find no association between EB and natural variation in provisioning behaviour, and results are initially surprising.
...

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 23 REFERENCES

Consistent individual differences in early exploratory behaviour of male great tits

The results show that juvenile male great tits differ consistently in various aspects of their exploratory behaviour at least during the first 18 weeks of life, which seems to refer to differences in the way in which information concerning the environment is collected and dealt with.

Colonial Nesting and Social Feeding as Strategies for Exploiting Food Resources in the Great Blue Heron (Ardea Herodias)

The results support the idea that colonial nesting and social feeding are adaptations concerned with finding food, but there are also other factors involved in the evolution of sociality in ardeids and other birds.

How mixed-species foraging flocks develop in response to benefits from observational learning

There was a baseline preference for approaching conspecifics but this could be overcome by learnt associations so that the birds would then approach non-conspecials.

Producers, scroungers and foraging group structure

The producer–scrounger model of Barnard & Sibly (1981,Anim. Behav.,29,543–550) predicts that at a certain ratio of producers and scroungers in a foraging group the payoff curves for individuals of…

Social Feeding in Birds

The development of social feeding is discussed, and it is suggested that the social facilitation could have developed from the normal innate response to a moving object, which has been conditioned specifically to a pecking bird as opposed to the innate approach responded to a generalised moving object.

Exchangeable producer and scrounger roles in a captive flock of feral pigeons: a case for the skill pool effect

Both high-and low-ranking White-throated Sparrows find novel locations of food

It is suggested that high-ranking birds found new sources of food as often as low- ranking birds and also appropriated sources ofFood once found by others.

Exploration, Aggressive Behaviour and Dominance in Pair-Wise Confrontations of Juvenile Male Great Tits

In the development of social dominance, constitutional behavioural characteristics may play an important role apart from morphological traits. Previous work has shown that juvenile male great tits…

Producers and scroungers: A general model and its application to captive flocks of house sparrows

Group Foraging: The Skill Pool Effect and Frequency-Dependent Learning

From the skill pool effect several ecological and behavioral predictions are generated that require more attention to comparisons of individual diets and behaviors inside and outside foraging groups.