Pathways of information transmission among wild songbirds follow experimentally imposed changes in social foraging structure

Abstract

Animals regularly use information from others to shape their decisions. Yet, determining how changes in social structure affect information flow and social learning strategies has remained challenging. We manipulated the social structure of a large community of wild songbirds by controlling which individuals could feed together at automated feeding stations (selective feeders). We then provided novel ephemeral food patches freely accessible to all birds and recorded the spread of this new information. We demonstrate that the discovery of new food patches followed the experimentally imposed social structure and that birds disproportionately learnt from those whom they could forage with at the selective feeders. The selective feeders reduced the number of conspecific information sources available and birds subsequently increased their use of information provided by heterospecifics. Our study demonstrates that changes to social systems carry over into pathways of information transfer and that individuals learn from tutors that provide relevant information in other contexts.

Keywords: information spread; information use; mixed species flocks; social learning strategies; social networks; social transmission.

Figure 1.

Results of network-based diffusion analysis using: (a) pre-experimental network to predict patch discoveries pre-experiment, (b) pre-experimental network to predict patch discoveries during experiment and (c) network during experiment to predict patch discoveries during the experiment. Grids show model-averaged estimates of s for each network type (upper and lower 95% intervals as superscript and subscript, respectively). Diagrams illustrate information transfer between a focal individual (centre) and different types of individual with which they hold equal social associations to within the network (types correspond to grid values). ‘Matched’ refers to individuals who could access the same selective feeder stations as the focal and ‘mismatched’ refers to those who could only access different stations from them. Line thickness shows relative value of s within each panel (scaled by maximum s estimate); direct comparisons across panels are difficult as parameter estimates also depend on the accuracy and density of the social network.