This thesis examines whether scramble competition is associated with social learning. The question is explored via a comparative study involving two species of grassfinches, Amadina fasciata, and Taenopygia guttata. These finches vary in the degree to which they employ scramble competition while foraging, but are otherwise similar behaviourally and morphologically. General problems associated with the application of the comparative method to the testing of learning specializations are discussed. Functional improvements to previously employed approaches are proposed, and then implemented in a novel methodology and statistical approach to analysing the data, the Manova approach. The results of the study suggest that there is no link between scramble competition and social learning in these two species. When the effects of confounding variables are removed from the interspecific comparison, the species do not appear to differ in their social learning abilities. The results also indirectly suggest that some forms of social learning occur through the mechanisms of general learning.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.27434 |
| Date | January 1996 |
| Creators | Whittle, Patrick J. |
| Contributors | LeFebvre, Louis (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Biology.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001572249, proquestno: MQ29809, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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