Social learning in nest-building birds : a role for familiarity
Abstract
It is becoming apparent that birds learn from their own experiences of nest building. What is not clear is whether birds can learn from watching conspecifics build. As social learning allows an animal to gain information without engaging in costly trial-and-error learning, first-time builders should exploit the successful habits of experienced builders. We presented first-time nest-building male zebra finches with either a familiar or an unfamiliar conspecific male building with material of a colour the observer did not like. When given the opportunity to build, males that had watched a familiar male build switched their material preference to that used by the familiar male. Males that observed unfamiliar birds did not. Thus, first-time nest builders use social information and copy the nest material choices when demonstrators are familiar but not when they are strangers. The relationships between individuals therefore influences how nest-building expertise is socially transmitted in zebra finches.
Citation
Guillette , L M , Scott , A C Y & Healy , S D 2016 , ' Social learning in nest-building birds : a role for familiarity ' , Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , vol. 283 , no. 1827 , 20152685 . https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.2685
Publication
Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0962-8452Type
Journal article
Rights
© 2016 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Description
© 2016 The Author(s).Collections
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