From a sequential pattern, temporal adjustments emerge in hummingbird traplining

Abstract

Animals that feed from resources that are constant in space and that refill may benefit from repeating the order in which they visit locations. This is a behavior known as traplining, a spatial phenomenon. Hummingbirds, like other central-place foragers, use short traplines when moving between several rewarding sites. Here we investigated whether traplining hummingbirds also use relevant temporal information when choosing which flowers to visit. Wild rufous hummingbirds that were allowed to visit 3 artificial flower patches in which flowers were refilled 20 min after they had been depleted repeated the order in which they visited the 3 patches. Although they tended to visit the first 2 patches sooner than 20 min, they visited the third patch at approximately 20-min intervals. The time between visits to the patches increased across the experiment, suggesting that the birds learned to wait longer before visiting a patch. The birds appeared to couple the sequential pattern of a trapline with temporal regularity, to some degree. This suggests that there is a temporal component to the repeated spatial movements flown by foraging wild hummingbirds.

Individual and seasonal variation in the movement behavior of two tropical nectarivorous birds

“…Forays are thought to allow animals to learn about landscape-level resource patterns, and prospect for new breeding sites [ 17 , 18 ]. Since nectarivores have well-developed spatiotemporal cognitive abilities [ 38 , 98 ], and ‘ōhi‘a are long-lived, ʻapapane and ʻiʻiwi likely become more familiar with local bloom patterns over time through large-scale exploration. Furthermore, since the timing of ‘ōhi‘a blooms can vary annually, exploratory forays outside the tracking area may allow birds to assess conditions across the landscape.…”

Animal cognition

“…Rufous hummingbirds, Selasphorus rufus, provide a rare case where both are possible and the experiment by Tello-Ramos et al (2019) is the latest in a multi-decade series of experiments investigating spatial memory in wild birds. The question for Tello-Ramos et al (2019) was also one of how animals might combine multiple sources of information to relocate rewarding locations.…”

“…Rufous hummingbirds, Selasphorus rufus, provide a rare case where both are possible and the experiment by Tello-Ramos et al (2019) is the latest in a multi-decade series of experiments investigating spatial memory in wild birds. The question for Tello-Ramos et al (2019) was also one of how animals might combine multiple sources of information to relocate rewarding locations. In this case, however, the question was whether the birds use temporal information alongside spatial information to return to flowers because spatial information alone is insufficient when flowers take time to replenish their nectar supplies: a bird that returns too soon may 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 find the flower not yet replenished, while a bird that returns too late may find that a competitor has already drunk the flower's contents.…”

What is that smell? Hummingbirds avoid foraging on resources with defensive insect compounds

“…For nectar-feeding organisms, the presence of a floral visitor may indicate that the nectar reward is currently being exploited (Yokoi and Fujisaki 2011). Thus, hummingbirds should avoid visiting flowers empty of nectar to optimize their foraging efficiency and minimize energy expenditure (Hurly 1996;Tello-Ramos et al 2019). Hummingbirds utilize their exceptional spatial memory to help identify flowers that they themselves have recently visited (e.g., Hurly 1996;Sandlin 2000;Ornelas and Lara 2015).…”