“Cognition in nest construction in birds?”

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• Felicity Muth (School of Biology, University of St Andrews)
• Wednesday 16 May 2012, 12:30-13:30
• Library, Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, Madingley.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Diane Pearce.

Nest building is widespread across bird species. Although it has generally been assumed to be unaffected by learning, this has rarely been tested. Here I present experiments investigating what role learning may play in nest building behaviour in zebra finches, in both adults and young birds. I also present results from an experiment addressing whether birds were able to select material appropriate for a nest building ‘task’, using a similar design to that used in some experiments on tool-use in animals. Taken together, my results show evidence for a role of cognition in nest building: experience changes zebra finches’ preferences for nest materials and they are also able to select materials appropriate to the conditions under which they are building. There appears to be at least some similarity between these results and the data on tool use.

This talk is part of the Madingley Lunchtime Seminars series.

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• Library, Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour, Madingley

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