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Do fledglings choose wisely? An experimental investigation into social foraging behaviour

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Abstract

Many cooperative bird species have an extended period of post-fledging care. Despite the fact that this period of care can last up to several months, it remains a relatively understudied stage of chick development. This period, when young are actively begging but highly mobile, provides an opportunity for young to maximise the amount of care they receive by selectively choosing particular adults to beg from. In pied babblers Turdoides bicolor (a cooperatively breeding passerine), fledglings closely follow foraging adults and beg for food regularly (a behavioural interaction termed social foraging). Using a combination of natural observations and experimental manipulations, we found that fledgling pied babblers preferentially socially forage with adult care-givers who have high foraging success, since this results in young receiving more food. By supplementally feeding adults to artificially increase their foraging success, we increased the proportion of time that fledglings chose to socially forage with them, confirming that fledglings are selectively choosing dyadic interactions with the best adult foragers. These results indicate that pied babbler fledglings are sensitive to and can respond to short-term changes in adult foraging success, enabling them to maximize their nutritional intake, a behavioural adjustment that has long-term benefits in this system.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the British Ecological Society and the DST/NRF Centre of Excellence at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute for funding this research. We are grateful to Prof. Tim Clutton-Brock and Prof. Marta Manser for the use of the facilities and land access at the Kuruman River Reserve, and the De Bruins and Kotzes for allowing us access to their land. We thank Prof. Phil Hockey for his continued support of the Pied Babbler Research Project and Mike Finnie for his support in this research. Comments from three anonymous reviewers greatly improved this manuscript.

Ethical standards

The experiments conducted in this study comply with the current laws of South Africa. This research was conducted under the ethical clearance from the Science Faculty Animal Ethics Board, University of Cape Town (R2012/2006/V15/AR) and with research permits being issued by the Northern Cape Conservation Authority.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, DST/NRF Centre of Excellence, University of Cape Town, Private Bag X3, Rondebosch, 7701, South Africa

    A. M. Thompson & A. R. Ridley

  2. Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Marsfield 2122, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    A. R. Ridley

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  1. A. M. Thompson
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  2. A. R. Ridley
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Correspondence to A. M. Thompson.

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Communicated by M. Soler

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Thompson, A.M., Ridley, A.R. Do fledglings choose wisely? An experimental investigation into social foraging behaviour. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 67, 69–78 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-012-1426-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-012-1426-0

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