Among cooperatively-breeding birds and mammals, offspring from previous broods delay independent breeding, remain with their parents, and assist in rearing subsequent broods. One possible explanation for this behavior is the "skills" hypothesis, which argues that young need this period of time to learn the skills required for successful foraging and nesting. Using a mixture of field experimental and descriptive techniques, Dr. Vehrencamp and her students will investigate the process by which young birds acquire adult foraging skills in the cooperatively-breeding magpie jay, an intelligent, tropical species with an extremely broad diet and diverse array of foraging tactics. By determining the types of information transmitted by social learning and the mechanisms that promote social learning (copying or imitation) in this species, Dr. Vehrencamp will be better able to assess the relative importance of individual (trial-and-error) learning and social learning of complex behavior in animals. Ultimately, such research on animals should help to pinpoint the constraints upon the reliance on social learning for the acquisition of novel behavior and thus why copying and cultural variation are primarily human traits.
