In an ever-changing environment, the ability to adapt choices to new conditions is essential for daily living and ultimately, for survival. Behavioural flexibility allows animals to maximise survival and reproduction in novel settings by adjusting their behaviour based on specific information and feedback acquired in their current environments. However, a growing body of evidence indicates that an individual's personality type can limit the extent to which the individual might behave flexibly, by influencing the way an individual pays attention to novelty and how much information it collects and stores, which in turn affects the individual's decision-making and learning process. In this study, the behavioural flexibility of a generalist predator, the Chimango Caracara, Milvago chimango, was analysed using the reversal learning paradigm, focusing on the comparison between age classes, and the relation of learning flexibility with a personality trait, the level of neophobia. Due to the low number of male individuals captured, this study was carried out only with female birds. The results showed that age had no significant effect either on the acquisition of a stimulus-reward association, or on the capacity of reversing this previously learned association. Reversal of the response was a harder task for these birds in comparison with the initial acquisition process. The individual's performances in the learning tasks seemed to be uncorrelated with each other, suggesting that they involve different neural mechanisms. Contrary to the general pattern observed in the majority of previous work on personality and cognition in non-human animals, the level of neophobia did not correlate with the initial associative learning performance in both adults and juveniles, yet it showed a significant negative relationship with reversal learning ability, mainly in the regressive phase of this task, for the two age classes. Our results suggest that the predatory and generalist lifestyle of female individuals of M. chimango along with the selective pressures of the environment of the individuals studied might play a critical role in the degree and direction of the linkage between novelty response and learning flexibility observed in this study.

We studied object exploration and manipulative behavior in wild‐caught Chimango Caracaras (Milvago chimango), an opportunistic and generalist raptor species, in relation to age and sex differences. Each bird was presented with six objects. We then recorded the latencies to approach and first contact with the objects, the number of objects explored, and the number of exploration events performed on each object. Age influenced the tendency to explore in M. chimango. Compared with adults, juveniles were more likely to explore the objects, approaching and contacting them more quickly. The number of objects explored was also higher in young than adult birds. Both age classes used a variety of manipulative behaviors to explore the objects, some of which have been described as play in others studies. Sex did not affect an individual's likelihood to explore or the number and frequency of manipulative behaviors used during object exploration. The tendency for both young and adult birds to explore and manipulate objects that not resemble prey is likely to be a distinct advantage for a generalist species like M. chimango which must cope with a high diversity of modified environments.

Exploration represents an important way by which organisms evaluate environment information. The decision of whether or not an animal should investigate environmental changes may influence the extent to which animals learn about their surroundings and cope with habitat modifications. We analysed exploration behaviour in a suburban population of a raptor species, the Chimango Caracara, Milvago chimango, by examining how age, previous experience and object complexity influence novel object exploration. Our findings showed that object complexity did not influence caracaras initial approach and contact with objects, but did influence the degree of engagement during exploratory activities, as measured by total exploration time and number of exploration events. These variables were higher for complex objects than for simple objects. Experience resulted in less exploration of simple objects. It is likely that, for caracaras, simple objects are easier to encode and recall than complex objects, so additional exploration of such objects would not provide further information. Results suggest that exploratory behaviour in this raptor was guided more by the benefits of a greater quantity of information obtained by exploring complex objects, than by the risks associated to this activity. We can conclude that caracaras cope with novel features in their surroundings with a novelty-seeking strategy, characteristic for generalist species in discovering early new resources opportunities, and which might be a determining factor for adaptive responses to environment modification.

SummaryThe framing of environmental conservation has been changing, mainly towards a reconciliation between human needs and nature conservation. A major challenge of biosphere reserves (BRs) is the integration of biodiversity conservation and the sustainable development of local communities. Although these areas are large, they are often not large enough to contain the movements of wide-ranging species. We studied immature Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) movements to evaluate their habitat use in relation to protected areas (PAs). We particularly aimed to determine whether BRs significantly increase the protection of this wide-ranging species. We analysed the movement overlap of 26 GPS-tagged birds with the PAs of Patagonia, and we evaluated preferences for particular landscape categories with a use–availability design. Condors were mainly located in unprotected areas (56.4%), whereas 26.4% of locations were within International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) PAs and 17.2% of locations were in BRs (not including IUCN PAs). When compared to availability, birds preferred BRs over other areas, highlighting the importance of BRs in protecting species that forage in humanized areas. However, the lack of controls and management policies expose condors to several threats, such as poisoning and persecution, in both private lands and BRs. Implementing strict management practices for BRs will help to conserve wide-ranging scavengers that feed in humanized areas.