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Author Giraldeau, L.-A.; Lefebvre, L. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Exchangeable producer and scrounger roles in a captive flock of feral pigeons: a case for the skill pool effect Type Journal Article
  Year (up) 1986 Publication Animal Behaviour Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 34 Issue 3 Pages 797-803  
  Keywords  
  Abstract We investigated the foraging producer-scrounger system of a captive flock of feral pigeons (Columba livia) by monitoring the number of food patches each individual produced. In one experiment, three different patch types were tested on the whole flock while, in a second, flock composition was varied for one patch type. In all cases we found non-uniform distributions of the number of patches produced per individual, which suggests the existence of producer and scrounger roles. This result could not be explained by either dominance or variability in individual learning ability. Individuals switched roles in response to changes both in food patch type and flock composition. These results are discussed in light of the skill pool hypothesis, which suggests that, in a group, different foraging specialists will profit by parasitizing each other's food discoveries.  
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  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 6012  
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Author Giraldeau, L.-A.; Lefebvre, L. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Scrounging prevents cultural transmission of food-finding behaviour in pigeons Type Journal Article
  Year (up) 1987 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 35 Issue 2 Pages 387-394  
  Keywords  
  Abstract Living in groups should promote the cultural transmission of a novel behaviour because opportunities for observing knowledgeable individuals are likely to be more numerous in this condition. However, in this study pigeons who shared the food discoveries of others (scroungers) did not learn the food-finding technique used by the discoverers (producers). Individually-caged pigeons prevented from scrounging easily learned the technique from a conspecific tutor. When caged pigeons obtained food from the tutor's performance, most naïve observers failed to learn. In a flock, scroungers selectively followed producers. In individual cages, scrounging during the tutor's demonstration was equivalent to getting no demonstration at all. This effect of scrounging did not interfere with subsequent acquisition of the food-finding behaviour when scrounging was no longer possible.  
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  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
  Area Expedition Conference  
  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 5265  
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Author Templeton, J.J.; Giraldeau, L.-A. url  openurl
  Title Public information cues affect the scrounging decisions of starlings Type Journal Article
  Year (up) 1995 Publication Abbreviated Journal  
  Volume 49 Issue 6 Pages 1617-1626  
  Keywords  
  Abstract The foraging decisions that individuals make within groups should depend on the information available to them. An aviary experiment was conducted to examine whether a starling's, Sturnus vulgaris, decisions either to approach and feed from (scrounge) or to avoid the patches exploited by a partner bird are influenced by the information the partner provides. Both the type of information a subject could recognize and the point at which this information became available during the partner's exploitation of a patch were manipulaed. Information concerning the quality of a patch was available in the form of a concealed colour cue and from the behaviour of the partner bird. The foraging environment was manipulated such that colour cues were either present or absent, and provided either correct or incorrect information concerning the presence of food. When cues corresponded with past foraging experience, test subjects responded selectively and profitably to the patch exploitations of the partner; they scrounged from a higher proportion of profitable patches than control birds, which lacked the ability to recognize colour cues. Test subjects also arrived more quickly at profitable patches that the partner bird discovered than did control birds; and consequently, were able to obtain more food at each food patch scrounged. Finally, test subjects avoided scrounging when the partner discovered empty patches and thus saved foraging time. Responding selectively to public information, therefore, allows an individual to compete more effectively for resources within a foraging group.  
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  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 2190  
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Author Templeton, J.J.; Giraldeau, L.-A. url  doi
openurl 
  Title Vicarious sampling: the use of personal and public information by starlings foraging in a simple patchy environment Type Journal Article
  Year (up) 1996 Publication Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology Abbreviated Journal Behav. Ecol. Sociobiol.  
  Volume 38 Issue 2 Pages 105-114  
  Keywords Social foraging ? Patch sampling ? Public information ? Sturnidae  
  Abstract Group foragers may be able to assess patch quality more efficiently by paying attention to the sampling activities of conspecifics foraging in the same patch. In a previous field experiment, we showed that starlings foraging on patches of hidden food could use the successful foraging activities of others to help them assess patch quality. In order to determine whether a starling could also use another individual's lack of foraging success to assess and depart from empty patches more quickly, we carried out two experimental studies which compared the behaviour of captive starlings sampling artificial patches both when alone and when in pairs. Solitary starlings were first trained to assess patch quality in our experimental two-patch system, and were then tested on an empty patch both alone and with two types of partner bird. One partner sampled very few holes and thus provided a low amount of public information; the other sampled numerous holes and thus provided a high amount of public information. In experiment 1, we found no evidence of vicarious sampling. Subjects sampled a similar number of empty holes when alone as when with the low and high information partners; thus they continued to rely on their own personal information to make their patch departure decisions. In experiment 2, we modified the experimental patches, increasing the ease with which a bird could watch another's sampling activities, and increasing the difficulty of acquiring accurate personal sampling information. This time, subjects apparently did use public information, sampling fewer empty holes before departure when with the high-information partner than when with the low-information partner, and sampling fewer holes when with the low-information partner than when alone. We suggest that the degree to which personal and public information are used is likely to depend both on a forager's ability to remember where it has already sampled and on the type of environment in which foraging takes place.  
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  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4198  
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Author Lefebvre, L.; Giraldeau, L.-A. isbn  openurl
  Title Is social learning an adaptive specialisation? Type Book Chapter
  Year (up) 1996 Publication Social learning in animals: The root of culture Abbreviated Journal  
  Volume Issue Pages 107-128  
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  Publisher Academic Press. Place of Publication San Diego Editor Heyes, C. M. ;B. G. Galef B. G..Jr.  
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  ISSN ISBN 978-0122739651 Medium  
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  Notes Approved no  
  Call Number Equine Behaviour @ team @ Serial 4415  
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Author Livoreil, B.; Giraldeau, L. openurl 
  Title Patch departure decisions by spice finches foraging singly or in groups Type Journal Article
  Year (up) 1997 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 54 Issue 4 Pages 967-977  
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  Abstract The marginal value theorem predicts that when resources are clumped in space, a forager can maximize its rate of intake by deciding to leave a patch when its current feeding rate falls below the average for the habitat. A group version of the model predicts that when rate-maximizing group members share a patch, they should leave sooner, and each with less gain, than single animals exploiting the same patch. We tested these predictions in the laboratory by measuring patch departure decisions of spice finches, Lonchura punctulataexploiting food patches alone or in groups of three under two habitats that require different travel times. As predicted, group members left the patch sooner and with fewer seeds than single foragers. Unlike the model's assumptions, however, birds did not share the patch equally, and their exploitation curves could not be simply derived from those of single foragers. Grouping decreased the effect of travel time on patch exploitation. Moreover, within each group the bird expected to leave first delayed its departure although it collected fewer seeds than the others. This delayed departure could aim to maintain group membership. We noted an increased variability in seed number collected by group members compared with single foragers, which could be a cost of group foraging.Copyright 1997 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour1997The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour  
  Address Department of Biology, Concordia University  
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  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:9344448 Approved no  
  Call Number Serial 2138  
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Author Giraldeau, L.A.; Beauchamp, G. openurl 
  Title Food exploitation: searching for the optimal joining policy Type Journal Article
  Year (up) 1999 Publication Abbreviated Journal Trends In Ecology And Evolution  
  Volume 14 Issue 3 Pages 102-106  
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  Abstract Commonly invoked foraging advantages of group membership include increased mean food intake rates and/or reduced variance in foraging success. These foraging advantages rely on the occurrence of 'joining': feeding from food discovered or captured by others. Joining occurs in most social species but the assumptions underlying its analysis have been clarified only recently, giving rise to two classes of model: information-sharing and producer-scrounger models. Recent experimental evidence suggests that joining in ground-feeding birds might be best analysed as a producer-scrounger game, with some intriguing consequences for the spatial distribution of foragers and patch exploitation.  
  Address Dept of Biology, Concordia University, 1455 Ouest Blvd de Maisonneuve, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 1M8  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0169-5347 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:10322509 Approved no  
  Call Number Serial 2137  
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Author Mottley, K.; Giraldeau, L.A. doi  openurl
  Title Experimental evidence that group foragers can converge on predicted producer-scrounger equilibria Type Journal Article
  Year (up) 2000 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 60 Issue 3 Pages 341-350  
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  Abstract When foraging together, animals are often observed to feed from food discoveries of others. The producer-scrounger (PS) game predicts how frequently this phenomenon of food parasitism should occur. The game assumes: (1) at any moment all individuals can unambiguously be categorized as either playing producer (searching for undiscovered food resources) or scrounger (searching for exploitation opportunities), and (2) the payoffs received from the scrounger tactic are negatively frequency dependent; a scrounger does better than a producer when the scrounger tactic is rare, but worse when it is common. No study to date has shown that the payoffs of producer and scrounger conform to the game's assumptions or that groups of foragers reach the predicted stable equilibrium frequency (SEF) of scrounger, whereby both tactics obtain the same payoff. The current study of three captive flocks of spice finches, Lonchura punctulata, provides the first test of the PS game using an apparatus in which both assumptions of the PS game are met. The payoffs to the scrounger, measured as feeding rate (seeds/s), were highly negatively frequency dependent on the frequency of scrounger. The feeding rate for scrounger declined linearly while the rate for producer either declined only slightly or not at all with increasing scrounger frequency. When given the opportunity to alternate between tactics, the birds changed their use of each, such that the group converged on the predicted SEF of scrounger after 5-8 days of testing. Individuals in this study, therefore, demonstrated sufficient plasticity in tactic use such that the flock foraged at the SEF of scrounger. Copyright 2000 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.  
  Address Department of Biology, Concordia University  
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  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:11007643 Approved no  
  Call Number Serial 2136  
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Author Galef BG, J.; Giraldeau, L.A. doi  openurl
  Title Social influences on foraging in vertebrates: causal mechanisms and adaptive functions Type Journal Article
  Year (up) 2001 Publication Animal Behaviour. Abbreviated Journal Anim. Behav.  
  Volume 61 Issue 1 Pages 3-15  
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  Abstract We summarize 20 years of empirical and theoretical research on causes and functions of social influences on foraging by animals. We consider separately studies of social influence on when, where, what and how to eat. Implicit in discussion of the majority of studies is our assumption that social influences on foraging reflect a biasing of individual learning processes by social stimuli rather than action of independent social-learning mechanisms. Our review of theoretical approaches suggests that the majority of formally derived hypotheses concerning functions of social influence on foraging have not yet been tested adequately and many models are in need of further refinement. We also consider the importance to the future of the field of integrating 'top-down' and 'bottom-up' approaches to the study of social learning. Copyright 2001 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.  
  Address Department of Psychology, McMaster University  
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  ISSN 0003-3472 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:11170692 Approved no  
  Call Number Serial 2135  
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Author Dubois, F.; Giraldeau, L.-A. openurl 
  Title The forager's dilemma: food sharing and food defense as risk-sensitive foraging options Type Journal Article
  Year (up) 2003 Publication The American Naturalist Abbreviated Journal Am Nat  
  Volume 162 Issue 6 Pages 768-779  
  Keywords Animals; Competitive Behavior/*physiology; *Environment; Feeding Behavior/*physiology; *Game Theory; *Models, Biological; Population Density; Population Dynamics  
  Abstract Although many variants of the hawk-dove game predict the frequency at which group foraging animals should compete aggressively, none of them can explain why a large number of group foraging animals share food clumps without any overt aggression. One reason for this shortcoming is that hawk-dove games typically consider only a single contest, while most group foraging situations involve opponents that interact repeatedly over discovered food clumps. The present iterated hawk-dove game predicts that in situations that are analogous to a prisoner's dilemma, animals should share the resources without aggression, provided that the number of simultaneously available food clumps is sufficiently large and the number of competitors is relatively small. However, given that the expected gain of an aggressive animal is more variable than the gain expected by nonaggressive individuals, the predicted effect of the number of food items in a clump-clump richness-depends on whether only the mean or both the mean and variability associated with payoffs are considered. More precisely, the deterministic game predicts that aggression should increase with clump richness, whereas the stochastic risk-sensitive game predicts that the frequency of encounters resulting in aggression should peak at intermediate clump richnesses or decrease with increasing clump richness if animals show sensitivity to the variance or coefficient of variation, respectively.  
  Address Departement des Sciences Biologiques, Universite du Quebec a Montreal, Case postale 8888, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montreal, Quebec H3C 3P8, Canada. fdubois@u-bourgogne.fr  
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  Series Volume Series Issue Edition  
  ISSN 0003-0147 ISBN Medium  
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  Notes PMID:14737714 Approved no  
  Call Number Serial 2132  
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