Food discovery is associated with different reliance on social learning and lower cognitive flexibility across environments in a food-caching bird.

ABSTRACT: Social learning is a primary mechanism for information acquisition in social species. Despite many benefits, social learning may be disadvantageous when independent learning is more efficient. For example, searching independently may be more advantageous when food sources are ephemeral and unpredictable. Individual differences in cognitive abilities can also be expected to influence social information use. Specifically, better spatial memory can make a given environment more predictable for an individual by allowing it to better track food sources. We investigated how resident food-caching chickadees discovered multiple novel food sources in both harsher, less predictable high elevation and milder, more predictable low elevation winter environments. Chickadees at high elevation were faster

SUBMITTER: Heinen VK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8131126 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature