• Refine Query
  • Source
  • Publication year
  • to
  • Language
  • No language data
  • Tagged with
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • 1
  • About
  • The Global ETD Search service is a free service for researchers to find electronic theses and dissertations. This service is provided by the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations.
    Our metadata is collected from universities around the world. If you manage a university/consortium/country archive and want to be added, details can be found on the NDLTD website.
1

Foraging tactics and social networks in wild jackdaws

Kings, Michael January 2018 (has links)
Individual variation in asocial and social behavioural traits can affect patterns of social association. Resultant individual-level variation in sociality can be quantified using social network analysis. Social network analysis has recently been applied to the study of the evolution and development of social behaviour. Though captive systems have provided useful contributions to this endeavour, investigating the factors shaping social structure in wild populations affords superior ecological relevance. The characterisation of the social structure of wild animals has been greatly aided by improvements in automated data collection methods, particularly the miniaturisation of Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) technology for the purposes of studying the social foraging behaviour of wild birds. In this thesis, I use RFID methods to examine the factors influencing between-individual variation in foraging routines (Chapter Two) and social network position (Chapter Three) in wild populations of a colonial corvid species, the jackdaw (Corvus monedula). I then relate social network position to reproductive success (Chapter Three) and investigate the developmental plasticity of jackdaw social behaviour by determining the effect of early life conditions on social network position (Chapter Four). Finally, I describe the fine-scale temporal dynamics of social foraging, the nature of accompaniment during paired foraging and the foraging benefits of social support (Chapter Five).

Page generated in 0.1113 seconds