Will food-handling time influence agonistic behaviour in sub-adult common ravens (Corvus corax)?
Discovering a food source may invoke either competition or cooperation, depending on many factors such as divisibility and accessibility. We experimentally investigated the influence of effort to procure food on the tolerance towards others during feeding. Nine sub-adult captive ravens were tested in different foraging contexts that differed in foraging effort, namely three string-pulling conditions and two without pulling requirement. We expected that the effort to gain access to food would positively affect the tolerance towards others at feeding. As predicted, we found fewer agonistic interactions, fewer displacements of subordinates from food and prolonged feeding bouts in the three string-pulling conditions compared to the two conditions when no pulling was involved. Further, in the string pulling tasks interactions occurred mostly on the perch before pulling and only rarely was pulling interrupted by agonistic interactions. The rate of interactions did not change over trials. Our data suggests that perceived effort influences social behaviour.
Konrad Lorenz Research Station Grünau, University of Vienna, Austria; Department of Psychology, Neuroscience Unit, Norges Teknisk Naturvitenskapelig Universitet, Trondheim, Norway. Electronic address: gerit.pfuhl@gmail.com.
Gerit
G
Pfuhl
Konrad Lorenz Research Station Grünau, University of Vienna, Austria.
Matthias
M
Gattermayr
Konrad Lorenz Research Station Grünau, University of Vienna, Austria; Department of Cognitive Biology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
Thomas
T
Bugnyar
D000378:Agonistic Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D003216:Conditioning, Operant / Q000502:physiology; D046368:Crows / Q000502:physiology*; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D005511:Food Handling; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D011340:Problem Solving / Q000502:physiology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology; D012919:Social Behavior
Corvids; Food sharing; Problem solving; Social foraging; String pulling