Naive individuals promote collective exploration in homing pigeons.

ABSTRACT: Group-living animals that rely on stable foraging or migratory routes can develop behavioural traditions to pass route information down to inexperienced individuals. Striking a balance between exploitation of social information and exploration for better alternatives is essential to prevent the spread of maladaptive traditions. We investigated this balance during cumulative route development in the homing pigeon Columba livia. We quantified information transfer within pairs of birds in a transmission-chain experiment and determined how birds with different levels of experience contributed to the exploration-exploitation trade-off. Newly introduced naïve individuals were initially more likely to initiate exploration than experienced birds, but the pair soon settled into a pattern of

SUBMITTER: Valentini G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8687659 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature