The use and relative importance of intraspecific and interspecific social information in a bird community

Jaakkonen, Tuomo; Kivelä, Sami M.; Meier, Christoph M.; Forsman, Jukka T.

doi:10.1093/beheco/aru144

Cited by 39 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…Over 5 years, we experimentally provided individuals with a source of social information independent from actual site quality using an artificial nest site feature design previously successfully used in this system Seppänen et al, 2011;Jaakkonen et al, 2013Jaakkonen et al, , 2015Forsman et al, 2014). Using a quantitative genetic approach , we simultaneously explored the relative contribution of female and male (i) overall experience (age, familiarity with the environment, previous experience with the experimental design, and previous breeding success) and (ii) direct and indirect additive genetic effects on the joint decision to use the manipulated information source for nest site choice.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heterospecific Nest Site Copying Behavior in a Wild Bird: Assessing the Influence of Genetics and Past Experience on a Joint Breeding Phenotype

et al. 2018

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Breeding site selection is often a joint decision of pair members in species with biparental care and the experience of both pair members may influence the use of information for site selection. Nevertheless, quantitative genetics of joint information use for site selection remains unexplored so far. We used an experimental approach to quantify the relative importance of genetics (heritability) and past experience (age, familiarity with the environment, previous breeding success, previous information use) in heterospecific social information use for nest site selection in wild collared flycatchers (Ficedula albicollis). Flycatchers collect social information from resident tits for nest site selection. We created an apparent preference of tits for a novel nest site feature and recorded choices of flycatchers (copying or rejecting the tit preference). Copying behavior was stronger for naive individuals but also differed between years, which could be explained by contrasting seasonality in the demonstrator species. Past experience as reflected by age affected subsequent use of social information: pairs with a yearling male were more likely to copy the heterospecific preference than pairs with older immigrant males. There was no general pattern in successive individual choices over the years. Accordingly, individual repeatability in copying tit preference was very low. At the pair level, we estimated sex-specific direct and indirect genetic effects on the joint nest site decision and found no sex-specific heritability and no cross-sex genetic correlation. Our results confirm the importance of past experience for social information use and suggest that social information use is highly plastic and most likely not genetically inherited in collared flycatchers. Whether individuals use social information should be related to environmentally-induced changes in the quality of information and thus be context-dependent. Selection may therefore act on the ability to optimally use social information in varying environments and on the processes underlying such adjustment, such as learning, rather than the use of information itself.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Heterospecific Nest Site Copying Behavior in a Wild Bird: Assessing the Influence of Genetics and Past Experience on a Joint Breeding Phenotype

et al. 2018

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“…Although previous research found increased propensity of later arriving flycatchers to use social information (Seppänen & Forsman ; Jaakkonen et al . ), this has so far been interpreted as an effect of local breeding experience: later arrivers are inexperienced breeders and therefore have a higher need for social cues. However, we show that the potential to use social information may also differ between sexes in a protandrous species.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Competitor phenology as a social cue in breeding site selection

Samplonius

Both

2017

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Summary 1.Predicting habitat quality is a major challenge for animals selecting a breeding patch, because it affects reproductive success. Breeding site selection may be based on previous experience, or on social information from the density and success of competitors with an earlier phenology. 2. Variation in animal breeding phenology is often correlated with variation in habitat quality. Generally, animals breed earlier in high-quality habitats that allow them to reach a nutritional threshold required for breeding earlier or avoid nest predation. In addition, habitat quality may affect phenological overlap between species and thereby interspecific competition. Therefore, we hypothesized that competitor breeding phenology can be used as social cue by settling migrants to locate high-quality breeding sites. 3. To test this hypothesis, we experimentally advanced and delayed hatching phenology of two resident tit species on the level of study plots and studied male and female settlement patterns of migratory pied flycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca. The manipulations were assigned at random in two consecutive years, and treatments were swapped between years in sites that were used in both years. 4. In both years, males settled in equal numbers across treatments, but later arriving females avoided pairing with males in delayed phenology plots. Moreover, male pairing probability declined strongly with arrival date on the breeding grounds. 5. Our results demonstrate that competitor phenology may be used to assess habitat quality by settling migrants, but we cannot pinpoint the exact mechanism (e.g. resource quality, predation pressure or competition) that has given rise to this pattern. 6. In addition, we show that opposing selection pressures for arrival timing may give rise to different social information availabilities between sexes. We discuss our findings in the context of climate warming, social information use and the evolution of protandry in migratory animals.

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“…This creates a tradeoff between competition and the quality of information about resources; thus, relative to conspecifics, heterospecifics can not only provide less [ 2 9 1 _ T D $ D I F F ] information about relevant resources, but can also compete for resources less intensively and, similarly, can pose lower risks as disease vectors [4,19,59]. Work in bird communities suggests that this tradeoff drives an optimal degree of niche overlap for the interspecific exchange of social information about resources [60]. Interestingly, evolution and learning can fine-tune signals to increase the efficacy of useful information shared about resources.…”

Section: Effects Of Social Information On Population Dynamicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social Information Links Individual Behavior to Population and Community Dynamics

Gil

Hein

Spiegel

et al. 2018

Trends in Ecology & Evolution

132

198

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The use and relative importance of intraspecific and interspecific social information in a bird community

Cited by 39 publications

References 61 publications

Heterospecific Nest Site Copying Behavior in a Wild Bird: Assessing the Influence of Genetics and Past Experience on a Joint Breeding Phenotype

Heterospecific Nest Site Copying Behavior in a Wild Bird: Assessing the Influence of Genetics and Past Experience on a Joint Breeding Phenotype

Competitor phenology as a social cue in breeding site selection

Social Information Links Individual Behavior to Population and Community Dynamics

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