Behavioural factors underlying innovative problem‑solving differences in an avian predator from two contrasting habitats

BIONDI LAURA MARINA; FUENTES GISELLE MAGALI; BO MARÍA SUSANA

ANIMAL COGNITION

SPRINGER HEIDELBERG

Lugar: HEIDELBERG; Año: 2021

1435-9448

Innovative behavior is considered one of the main factors facilitating the adaptation of animals to urban life. However, therelationship between urbanization and innovativeness is equivocal, perhaps reflecting aspects of urban environments thatinfluence differently the behavioural traits underlying the occurrence of an innovation. In this work, we analysed the variationin innovative problem-solving performance between urban and rural individuals of the Caracara Chimango (Milvagochimango), with the goal of determining which behavioural trait (or combination) most explained such variation. We foundthat urban raptors outperformed rural ones in their solving speed and solving level (number of solutions) with a multiaccessbox. They also showed more persistence, motor flexibility and diversity, as well as higher effectiveness in their solvingattempts than rural chimangos. Sex was not an important factor. Urban chimangos showed less neophobia and spent more timeexploring the box than rural birds during the initial habituation period, which probably determined the amount of informationabout the system that each individual had at the beginning of first problem solving trial. This difference in novelty responseboth directly and indirectly, through its relationship with persistence, motor flexibility and proportion of effective attempts,explained variability in solving performance. All individuals showed a decrease in solving latency, and an increase in solvinglevel with experience, indicating that learning occurred in both raptor groups. This improvement occurred in parallel withchanges in the afore-mentioned traits, though the pattern of improvement differed between urban and rural chimangos. Wesuggest that the characteristics of urban areas modulate the novelty response of chimangos, along with other correlated noncognitivebehavioural traits, which act in combination to increase the chances that novel problems could be quickly solved,and the resulting new behaviours established in city populations of this species.