Social learning about construction behaviour via an artefact.

ABSTRACT: One source of public information may be the enduring products of others' behaviour, such as discarded tools or vacated nests. Here, we examined whether observation of a nest affects the material captive zebra finch males prefer when they construct their first nest. It does: for first-time nest construction, males that viewed only an empty cage preferred the colour of material each initially favoured but those males that had observed a pre-built nest of material of their non-preferred colour lost their material-colour preference altogether. Additionally, half of the males that viewed a nest were tested in an environment (the laboratory) different to that in which they were reared (an outdoor aviary). We had expected the aviary-reared (versus laboratory-reared) males would be more uncertain,

SUBMITTER: Breen AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6507502 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature