Beek, B. van (2024) No strings attached: social bonds, cooperative feeding and neophobia in free-flying common ravens (Corvus corax). Research Project 2 (major thesis), Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences.
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Abstract
Cooperation occurs regularly in nature and can entail direct fitness benefits and indirect costs. Individual animals should cooperate when the benefits of such cooperation outweigh the costs, especially if cooperation occurs frequently. Relatedness, group selection and reciprocity can skew the benefits of an interaction towards cooperation. Group-living social animals can therefore often be seen cooperating, as is the case in common ravens (Corvus corax). We investigated how coordinated feeding and problem-solving behaviour are influenced by social bonds in a free-flying population of common ravens. We expected raven dyads with strong social bonds to be present during feeding and to solve a string-pulling task more often together than alone. We measured parameters related to relationship value and reciprocity in 24 raven dyads during the breeding season. In addition, we recorded presence during a daily feeding service to captive wild boars and the raven’s interest in a string-pulling task. Although reciprocity parameters showed no significant effect on dyad presence at the feeding, one parameter of relationship quality did show an effect. However, the correlation was negative, suggesting ravens prefer coordinating in dyads with a low relationship quality. Interestingly, no ravens approached our string-pulling setup, most likely due to neophobia.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Research Project 2 (major thesis)) |
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| Supervisor name: | Verhulst, S. |
| Degree programme: | Behavioural and Cognitive Neurosciences |
| Thesis type: | Research Project 2 (major thesis) |
| Language: | English |
| Date Deposited: | 16 Oct 2024 07:44 |
| Last Modified: | 16 Oct 2024 07:44 |
| URI: | https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/34304 |
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