Social competence, information-use, and cognition in jackdaws

The ability to learn from others (social learning) allows individuals to develop important skills and can generate cultural traditions within groups. However, social learning also has costs: by learning from others, rather than through their own interactions with the environment, animals risk picking up out-dated or irrelevant information. Animals from bees to birds and humans are known to solve this problem by switching between individual and social learning selectively, using rules to specify when, how and from whom to learn. These rules, known as social learning strategies, are generally assumed to have been shaped by natural selection and be under genetic control. The possibility that social learning strategies are themselves learned has not been investigated in natural populations.

Learning to learn from others could be highly beneficial, allowing individuals to change their social learning strategies as conditions change. For instance, as knowledge accumulates with age, many animals follow a "copy older individuals" strategy, but it could be useful to switch from this strategy if, for example, a group of young individuals discovers a new source of food. This project will examine whether wild jackdaws, birds of the large-brained corvid family, can learn social learning strategies, and explore how such learning influences group structure and dynamics.