Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, United States of America.
Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 May 9;19(5):e0301270. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0301270. eCollection 2024.
Mixed-species groups and aggregations are quite common and may provide substantial fitness-related benefits to group members. Individuals may benefit from the overall size of the mixed-species group or from the diversity of species present, or both. Here we exposed mixed-species flocks of songbirds (Carolina chickadees, Poecile carolinensis, tufted titmice, Baeolophus bicolor, and the satellite species attracted to these two species) to three different novel feeder experiments to assess the influence of mixed-species flock size and composition on ability to solve the feeder tasks. We also assessed the potential role of habitat density and traffic noise on birds' ability to solve these tasks. We found that likelihood of solving a novel feeder task was associated with mixed-species flock size and composition, though the specific social factor involved depended on the particular species and on the novel feeder. We did not find an influence of habitat density or background traffic noise on likelihood of solving novel feeder tasks. Overall, our results reveal the importance of variation in mixed-species group size and diversity on foraging success in these songbirds.
混合物种群体和聚集现象很常见，可能为群体成员提供与适应度相关的实质性益处。个体可能受益于混合物种群体的整体规模，也可能受益于存在的物种多样性，或者两者兼而有之。在这里，我们让混合物种的鸣禽（卡罗莱纳雀、卡罗莱纳山雀、簇羽山雀、黑头山雀和吸引这两种物种的卫星物种）群体接触到三种不同的新型饲料实验，以评估混合物种群体规模和组成对解决饲料任务能力的影响。我们还评估了栖息地密度和交通噪音对鸟类解决这些任务能力的潜在作用。我们发现，解决新型饲料任务的可能性与混合物种群体的规模和组成有关，但具体涉及的社会因素取决于特定物种和新型饲料。我们没有发现栖息地密度或背景交通噪音对解决新型饲料任务可能性的影响。总体而言，我们的结果表明，混合物种群体规模和多样性的变化对这些鸣禽觅食成功的重要性。
