🎉New paper alert 🥳
Does proximity of breeding hollows influence foraging associations in wild cockatoos?
doi.org/10.1098/rsbl...
(🧵—1/2)
With @lucymaplin.bsky.social , A. Csak
Finally, how individuals extracted almond kernels ?
(>500 videos, 147 birds, 5 roosts)
Openings were more similar :
- between close-by roosts,
- between highly connected roosts
- between social associates
This indirectly suggests that openings are likely to also be socially learned.
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At 2 roost sites, we trained 2 birds to eat dyed almonds (red/blue). Once presented to the group, naïve individuals ate almonds within minutes. In the control group, almonds were only eaten after a visiting bird introduced the behaviour (>99% of solves through social learning 🤯)
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The behaviour spread to neighbouring roosts located between 2-10 km apart within days.
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We find that male—but not female—winter social associations are correlated with breeding location; males bred closer to their winter associates, and more socially connected males tended to breed closer to the roost location.
(2/2)
So grateful for my amazing collaborators who made this project possible. And of course our cockies—especially Heidi (wing tag 48, on pic below) who helped supervising this pandemonium 🦜
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Age and sex did not influence whether individuals socially learned, but did influence *how* they learned:
- juveniles were conformists, disproportionally preferring the most chosen colour
- adults preferentially copied members of the same roost
(🧵3/6)
Our latest episode of Transmissions is out! This one features Prof. Dr. Lucy Aplin, a leading cognitive ecologist from the University of Zurich and Australian National University.
This marks our very first episode dedicated entirely to understanding animal culture!
youtu.be/M7qCTKRNVuA?...
Video
Hi all! I am new to Bluesky so I am just posting some of my earlier research.
📣 #PhDOpportunity in Geelong, Australia
Ever wondered how urbanisation affects sleep in birds? 🐦 Interested in #behaviouralecology and #biologging? Come and work with me and Kate Buchanan at @deakinuniversity.bsky.social!
Applications close 31 May
Details: www.deakin.edu.au/study/fees-a...
Cultural Evolution Society
Conduct research in in urban bird behaviour with Deakin's PhD scholarship.
GPS is relatively new. So how can we study long-term animal movements? Our approach in @Ecology_Letters transforms historic location records (pre-GPS) into valuable data, revealing capuchins' responses to #climate and demographic change. #openaccess...
