Abstract:

Prior work has suggested that environmental variability can drive the evolution of social learning strategies, such as a frequency dependent or payoff-biased learning (Kendal et al. 2018, Aoki & Feldman 2014). Furthermore, moving to a novel environment might increase neurological plasticity (Park et al. 2021) and an individual’s sensitivity to social information (Deffner et al. 2020, Morchen et al. 2023). A prior experiment tested how great tits (Parus major) respond to temporal variability in payoffs (Aplin et al. 2017), although little is known about how tits respond to spatial variability. Here, we present results from a large scale cultural diffusion experiment with 18 micro-populations of great tits (N=144). We simulated an immigration event between pairs of populations with contrasting preferences for solving an automated foraging puzzle. Furthermore, the experiment had a 2x2 factorial design, where environmental cues were either symmetric or asymmetric, and rewards for solving preferences were also symmetric or asymmetric. We find that immigrant birds were most likely to adopt the residents’ preference when both environments and rewards were asymmetric. Using a bayesian dynamic learning model, we found that these birds were most sensitive to social information, and relied on a payoff-biased social learning strategy. In other conditions, birds were less sensitive to social information and did not evidence any strategic learning. This study provides empirical support for existing theory related to social learning strategies in a non-human animal. It also gives insight into when and why great tits evaluate the rewards of conspecifics.

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Speaker's social media:

twitter: @evogom; bluesky: mchimento.bsky.social