Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, Japan.
PLoS One. 2011 May 4;6(5):e19602. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0019602.
While social interactions play a crucial role on the development of young individuals, those of highly mobile juvenile birds in inaccessible environments are difficult to observe. In this study, we deployed miniaturised video recorders on juvenile brown boobies Sula leucogaster, which had been hand-fed beginning a few days after hatching, to examine how social interactions between tagged juveniles and other birds affected their flight and foraging behaviour. Juveniles flew longer with congeners, especially with adult birds, than solitarily. In addition, approximately 40% of foraging occurred close to aggregations of congeners and other species. Young seabirds voluntarily followed other birds, which may directly enhance their foraging success and improve foraging and flying skills during their developmental stage, or both.
虽然社交互动对年轻个体的发展起着至关重要的作用，但在难以观察的情况下，高度流动的幼年鸟类的社交互动却难以观察。在这项研究中，我们在人工喂养的幼年褐鹈鹕 Sula leucogaster 身上安装了微型摄像机，以观察标记的幼年个体与其他鸟类之间的社交互动如何影响它们的飞行和觅食行为。与单独飞行相比，幼年个体与同类，特别是与成年鸟类一起飞行的时间更长。此外，大约 40%的觅食活动发生在同类和其他物种聚集的附近。年幼的海鸟会主动跟随其他鸟类，这可能直接提高它们的觅食成功率，并在发育阶段提高它们的觅食和飞行技能，或者两者兼而有之。
