Experimental manipulation of food distribution alters social networks and information transmission across environments in a food-caching bird

Heinen, Virginia K.; Benedict, Lauren M.; Sonnenberg, Benjamin R.; Bridge, Eli S.; Farine, Dan; Pravosudov, Vladimir V.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2022.08.007

Cited by 10 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…This suggests that our social manipulation mostly influenced changes in social network while the manipulation occurred, but had little long-lasting effects. Likewise, Heinen et al (2022) - unlike Firth and Sheldon (2015) - found that after assorting individuals at food patches, in a similar manner to our social stability treatment, the assortment did not persist into a new feeding context.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

“…These include effects on disease transmission, mating partner choice, access to shared information, the spread of innovations, and patterns of selection among many others (Cantor et al, 2021; Cheney et al, 2016; Ellis et al, 2019). Resource distribution is a major driver of social network structure (Beck et al, 2011; Foster et al, 2012; Heinen et al, 2022; Tavares et al, 2017). For instance, more clustered food resources can increase recurring aggregation and may be linked to stronger social bonds between individuals (Tavares et al, 2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unravelling effects of fine-scale changes within wild-bird flocks on sociality

Troisi,

Firth,

Crofts

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Social structure and individual sociality impact a wide variety of behavioural and ecological processes. Although it is well known that changes in the physical and social environment shape sociality, how perturbations govern sociality at a fine spatial scale remains poorly understood. By applying automated experimental treatments to RFID-tracked wild great tits (Parus major) in a field experiment, we examined how individual social network metrics changed when food resources and social stability were experimentally manipulated at the within-group spatial scale.First, we examined how individual sociality responds when food resources changed from a dispersed distribution (50m apart) to a clustered distribution (1m apart). Second, we tested how sociality changed when individuals were restricted to feeding in a manner that mimics assortative behaviour within flocks. Third, we tested the effects of experimentally manipulating the stability of these social groupings. Finally, we returned the feeders to the original dispersed distribution to test whether effects carried over.Repeatability analyses showed consistent differences among individuals in their social phenotypes across the various manipulations; dyadic association preferences also showed consistency. Nevertheless, average flock size and social centrality measures increased after the food was clustered. Some of these metrics changed further when birds were then forced to feed from only one of the five clustered feeders. There was some support for group stability at individual feeders also impacting individual social network metrics: increase in flock size was more pronounced in the stable than the unstable group. Most of the differences in sociality were maintained when the food distribution returned to the dispersed pattern, and this was caused primarily by the change in resource distribution rather than the social manipulation.Our results show that perturbations in the access to resources and social group stability can change sociality at a surprisingly fine spatial scale. These small-scale changes could arise through a variety of mechanisms, including assortative positioning within groups due to, for instance, similarity among individuals in their preferences for different resource patches. Our results suggest that small-scale effects could lead to social processes at larger scales and yet are typically overlooked in social groups.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 63%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unravelling effects of fine-scale changes within wild-bird flocks on sociality

Troisi,

Firth,

Crofts

et al. 2023

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…An important consideration when interpreting these results is the reliance on social information. Heinen et al [43,54] found that high-elevation birds rely less on social information when discovering novel food locations compared with low-elevation birds. If high-elevation birds generally rely less on social information compared with low-elevation birds, we might expect them to rely less on social information provided by their social mates.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What's in a mate? Social pairing decisions and spatial cognitive ability in food-caching mountain chickadees

Branch,

Welklin,

Sonnenberg

et al. 2023

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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While researchers have investigated mating decisions for decades, gaps remain in our understanding of how behaviour influences social mate choice. We compared spatial cognitive performance and food caching propensity within social pairs of mountain chickadees inhabiting differentially harsh winter climates to understand how these measures contribute to social mate choice. Chickadees rely on specialized spatial cognitive abilities to recover food stores and survive harsh winters, and females can discriminate among males with varying spatial cognition. Because spatial cognition and caching propensity are critical for survival and likely heritable, pairing with a mate with such enhanced traits may provide indirect benefits to offspring. Comparing the behaviour of social mates, we found that spatial cognitive performance approached a significant correlation within pairs at low, but not at high elevation. We found no correlation within pairs in spatial reversal cognitive performance at either elevation; however, females at high elevation tended to perform better than their social mates. Finally, we found that caching propensity correlated within pairs at low, while males cached significantly more food than their social mates at high elevations. These results suggest that cognition and caching propensity may influence social mating decisions, but only in certain environments and for some aspects of cognition.

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“…Different bat species eavesdrop on each other's feeding calls and use the social information other species provide in their own feeding decisions, creating a complex eavesdropping network between species (Lewanzik et al, 2019). In intra specific context, individuals use social information to identify novel food patches (Tóth et al, 2017) and they can quickly change their social associations according to changes in distribution of available food, proving the importance of social connections (Heinen et al, 2022). Hence, shared predator avoidance and foraging decisions may enhance the ecological trait convergence between individuals and populations, and there is potential even for evolutionary convergence through genetic assimilation.…”

Section: Ecological and Evolutionary Consequences Of Selective Inters...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological and evolutionary consequences of selective interspecific information use

et al. 2023

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Recent work has shown that animals frequently use social information from individuals of their own species as well as from other species; however, the ecological and evolutionary consequences of this social information use remain poorly understood. Additionally, information users may be selective in their social information use, deciding from whom and how to use information, but this has been overlooked in an interspecific context. In particular, the intentional decision to reject a behaviour observed via social information has received less attention, although recent work has indicated its presence in various taxa. Based on existing literature, we explore in which circumstances selective interspecific information use may lead to different ecological and coevolutionary outcomes between two species, such as explaining observed co-occurrences of putative competitors. The initial ecological differences and the balance between the costs of competition and the benefits of social information use potentially determine whether selection may lead to trait divergence, convergence or coevolutionary arms race between two species. We propose that selective social information use, including adoption and rejection of behaviours, may have far-reaching fitness consequences, potentially leading to community-level eco-evolutionary outcomes. We argue that these consequences of selective interspecific information use may be much more widespread than has thus far been considered.

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Experimental manipulation of food distribution alters social networks and information transmission across environments in a food-caching bird

Cited by 10 publications

References 50 publications

Unravelling effects of fine-scale changes within wild-bird flocks on sociality

Unravelling effects of fine-scale changes within wild-bird flocks on sociality

What's in a mate? Social pairing decisions and spatial cognitive ability in food-caching mountain chickadees

Ecological and evolutionary consequences of selective interspecific information use

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