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Prospecting at conspecific nests and exploration in a novel environment are associated with reproductive success in the jackdaw

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Abstract

Consistent behavioural differences between individuals of the same population (“personality” variation) might arise if individuals follow different life-history strategies. Thus, it would be important to determine how personality variation relates to behaviours potentially associated with life-history strategies, such as those related to the use of information about the state of the environment. Little is, however, known about how personality is associated with information use and reproductive success. We tested whether wild social jackdaws, Corvus monedula, show consistent behavioural differences in their exploratory behaviour (in a novel environment in the lab and in their reaction towards a novel object in the wild) and prospecting behaviour (number of visits to conspecific nests). We furthermore examined whether these behavioural traits are linked with each other and predictors of reproductive success. Breeding jackdaws were consistent in their exploratory behaviour within, and in their prospecting behaviour between, years. Exploratory behaviour in the novel environment was correlated with the latency to approach a novel object in the wild but not with the frequency of prospecting at conspecific nests. Highly exploratory males and females and frequently prospecting males produced fewer fledglings than less exploratory individuals or less prospecting males, respectively. We discuss the importance of consistent individual differences in exploration and information sampling on individual fitness.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Soili and Jouni Laaksonen for help during field work and three anonymous reviewers for constructive comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. The study was funded by the Academy of Finland (a grant to TL).

Ethical standards

This research complies with the Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour/Animal Behavior Society Guidelines for the Treatment of Animals in Behavioural Research and was conducted under licence from the Southwest Finland Regional Environment Centre. The capture and handling of the birds, and other data collection, included only short-term disturbance and had no effect on the breeding success of the birds.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Finnish Museum of Natural History, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, 00014, Finland

    Wiebke Schuett & Toni Laaksonen

  2. Kivitaskuntie, Pori, Finland

    Jesse Laaksonen

  3. Section of Ecology, Department of Biology, University of Turku, Turku, 20014, Finland

    Toni Laaksonen

  4. Zoological Institute and Museum, University of Hamburg, Martin-Luther-King Platz 3, 20146, Hamburg, Germany

    Wiebke Schuett

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  1. Wiebke Schuett
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  2. Jesse Laaksonen
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Correspondence to Toni Laaksonen.

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Communicated by S. Pruett-Jones

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Schuett, W., Laaksonen, J. & Laaksonen, T. Prospecting at conspecific nests and exploration in a novel environment are associated with reproductive success in the jackdaw. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 66, 1341–1350 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-012-1389-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-012-1389-1

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