Corvid connections: how do social bonds influence stress, health, nutrition and cultural knowledge? (Ref: 4282)

Like humans, many animals form stable social relationships. These relationships can be highly beneficial: in humans and other primates individuals with strong relationships tend to be healthier and less anxious. However, there has been little research on other animals and it is not clear how the benefits of social relationships trade off against costs. To address these issues, this project uses established populations of individually recognisable, RFID-tagged wild jackdaws, members of the large-brained corvid family that form enduring pair bonds embedded within dynamic social networks.
Using field experiments, non-invasive stress assays and physiological measures, the project examines the impacts of social relationships on stress and the acquisition of food and knowledge. Specifically, it will determine how variation in the strength of relationships affects: 1. Stress and health: Non-invasive thermal imaging and hormonal assays allow us to understand whether variability in short-term social interactions (e.g. co-feeding with partners) and long-term sociality measures mediate stress levels and health. 2. Food: automated feeders that record the identity of all visiting birds allow testing of how the presence and identity of social partners alters the probability of displacement and changes food intake. 3. Knowledge: novel foraging innovations will be seeded in groups by training individual "demonstrators" to access automated feeders. We will then quantify the cultural transmission of the new behaviour and associated changes in social network structure to determine whether jackdaws can adjust their social associations to learn from knowledgeable individuals. This will also allow us to determine whether maintaining strong bonds with particular partners trades off against the risks of missing out on opportunities to learn valuable information from others. Together, this work will provide important insights into social evolution, cultural transmission and health.