Department of Biological Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2, Canada.
Department of Psychology, University of Manitoba, 190 Dysart Rd, Winnipeg, MB, R3T 2N2, Canada.
Learn Behav. 2021 Mar;49(1):23-35. doi: 10.3758/s13420-020-00450-5. Epub 2020 Dec 2.
Caching species store food when plentiful to ensure availability when resources are scarce. These stores may be at risk of pilferage by others present at the time of caching. Cachers may reduce the risk of loss by using information from the social environment to engage in behaviors to secure the resource-cache protection strategies. Here, we examined whether pinyon jays, a highly social corvid, use information from the social environment to modify their caching behavior. Pinyon jays were provided with pine seeds to cache in two visually distinct trays. The cacher could be observed by a non-pilfering conspecific, a pilfering conspecific, or an inanimate heterospecific located in an adjoining cage compartment, or the cacher could be alone. After caching, the pilfered tray was placed in the adjoining compartment where caches were either pilfered (pilfering conspecific and inanimate heterospecific conditions) or remained intact (non-pilfering conspecific and alone conditions). The safe tray was placed in a visible, but inaccessible, location. Overall, pinyon jays reduced the number of pine seeds cached in the pilfered tray when observed, compared with caching alone. However, their caching behavior did not differ between the pilfering conspecific and the non-pilfering conspecific conditions. These results suggest that either pinyon jays were unable to discriminate between the pilfering and non-pilfering conspecifics, or they generalized their experience of risk from the pilfering conspecific to the non-pilfering conspecific. Thus, we report evidence that pinyon jays use cache protection strategies to secure their resources when observed, but respond similarly when observed by pilfering and non-pilfering conspecifics.
当资源稀缺时,贮藏物种会储存食物以确保其可用性。这些贮藏物可能会被当时在场的其他动物偷走。贮藏者可以通过利用社会环境中的信息来采取保护资源的策略,从而降低损失的风险。在这里,我们研究了松鸦(一种高度社会化的鸦科动物)是否会利用社会环境中的信息来改变它们的贮藏行为。研究人员为松鸦提供了松果来贮藏在两个视觉上有明显区别的托盘里。贮藏者可以被非偷窃的同种个体、偷窃的同种个体或位于相邻笼舍隔间的无生命的异源种观察到,或者单独贮藏。贮藏后,被偷的托盘被放置在相邻的隔间里,里面的贮藏物要么被偷(偷窃的同种个体和无生命的异源种条件),要么保持完整(非偷窃的同种个体和单独的条件)。安全的托盘被放置在一个可见但无法进入的位置。总的来说,与单独贮藏相比,当被观察到的时候,松鸦会减少在被偷的托盘里贮藏的松果数量。然而,它们的贮藏行为在偷窃的同种个体和非偷窃的同种个体条件之间没有差异。这些结果表明,松鸦要么无法区分偷窃的和非偷窃的同种个体,要么它们将从偷窃的同种个体那里获得的风险经验推广到非偷窃的同种个体身上。因此,我们报告的证据表明,松鸦在被观察时会使用保护贮藏物的策略来保护它们的资源,但当被偷窃的和非偷窃的同种个体观察时,它们的反应是相似的。