Cargando…

Larger group sizes facilitate the emergence and spread of innovations in a group-living bird

The benefits of group living have traditionally been attributed to risk dilution or the efficient exploitation of resources; individuals in social groups may therefore benefit from access to valuable information. If sociality facilitates access to information, then individuals in larger groups may b...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Ashton, Benjamin J., Thornton, Alex, Ridley, Amanda R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Academic Press 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6915762/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31875855
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.10.004
_version_ 1783480091756462080
author Ashton, Benjamin J.
Thornton, Alex
Ridley, Amanda R.
author_facet Ashton, Benjamin J.
Thornton, Alex
Ridley, Amanda R.
author_sort Ashton, Benjamin J.
collection PubMed
description The benefits of group living have traditionally been attributed to risk dilution or the efficient exploitation of resources; individuals in social groups may therefore benefit from access to valuable information. If sociality facilitates access to information, then individuals in larger groups may be predicted to solve novel problems faster than individuals in smaller groups. Additionally, larger group sizes may facilitate the subsequent spread of innovations within animal groups, as has been proposed for human societies. We presented a novel foraging task (where a food reward could be accessed by pushing a self-shutting sliding door) to 16 groups of wild, cooperatively breeding Australian magpies, Cracticus tibicen dorsalis, ranging in size from two to 11 individuals. We found a nonlinear decline in the time taken for the innovative behaviour to emerge with increasing group size, and social information use facilitated the transmission of novel behaviour, with it spreading more quickly in larger than smaller groups. This study provides important evidence for a nonlinear relationship between group size and the emergence of innovation (and its subsequent transmission) in a wild population of animals. Further work investigating the scope and strength of group size–innovation relationships, and the mechanisms underpinning them, will help us understand the potential advantages of living in larger social groups.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-6915762
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2019
publisher Academic Press
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-69157622019-12-23 Larger group sizes facilitate the emergence and spread of innovations in a group-living bird Ashton, Benjamin J. Thornton, Alex Ridley, Amanda R. Anim Behav Article The benefits of group living have traditionally been attributed to risk dilution or the efficient exploitation of resources; individuals in social groups may therefore benefit from access to valuable information. If sociality facilitates access to information, then individuals in larger groups may be predicted to solve novel problems faster than individuals in smaller groups. Additionally, larger group sizes may facilitate the subsequent spread of innovations within animal groups, as has been proposed for human societies. We presented a novel foraging task (where a food reward could be accessed by pushing a self-shutting sliding door) to 16 groups of wild, cooperatively breeding Australian magpies, Cracticus tibicen dorsalis, ranging in size from two to 11 individuals. We found a nonlinear decline in the time taken for the innovative behaviour to emerge with increasing group size, and social information use facilitated the transmission of novel behaviour, with it spreading more quickly in larger than smaller groups. This study provides important evidence for a nonlinear relationship between group size and the emergence of innovation (and its subsequent transmission) in a wild population of animals. Further work investigating the scope and strength of group size–innovation relationships, and the mechanisms underpinning them, will help us understand the potential advantages of living in larger social groups. Academic Press 2019-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6915762/ /pubmed/31875855 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.10.004 Text en © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Ashton, Benjamin J.
Thornton, Alex
Ridley, Amanda R.
Larger group sizes facilitate the emergence and spread of innovations in a group-living bird
title Larger group sizes facilitate the emergence and spread of innovations in a group-living bird
title_full Larger group sizes facilitate the emergence and spread of innovations in a group-living bird
title_fullStr Larger group sizes facilitate the emergence and spread of innovations in a group-living bird
title_full_unstemmed Larger group sizes facilitate the emergence and spread of innovations in a group-living bird
title_short Larger group sizes facilitate the emergence and spread of innovations in a group-living bird
title_sort larger group sizes facilitate the emergence and spread of innovations in a group-living bird
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6915762/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31875855
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2019.10.004
work_keys_str_mv AT ashtonbenjaminj largergroupsizesfacilitatetheemergenceandspreadofinnovationsinagrouplivingbird
AT thorntonalex largergroupsizesfacilitatetheemergenceandspreadofinnovationsinagrouplivingbird
AT ridleyamandar largergroupsizesfacilitatetheemergenceandspreadofinnovationsinagrouplivingbird