Behaviour of domestic ducks exposed to mobile predator stimuli. 2. The association of individual duckling attributes with relative position in a flock

Abstract

1. We investigated whether an individual duckling's ( Anas platyrhynchos domesticus ) attributes were associated with its response to an approaching human when it was a member of one of three flocks of 12. 2. Each individual was scored according to its response to (i) an approaching human when alone and feeding, (ii) a taxidermist's model fox when alone and feeding, and (iii) an approaching human when alone in a 9 m annulus, and its nearest neighbour distance in the home pen, competitiveness for food in a series of paired encounters, running ability and physical characteristics. 3. Each flock was herded around a 7 m diameter annulus in separate trials by a human walking at 0.5ms-1. The distance maintained by each duckling from the human, and hence its relative flock position, was calculated. 4. Individual flight distance maintained from an approaching human when alone in an annulus was the attribute that predicted distance maintained from an approaching human when part of a flock. 5. Some ducklings had reduced average distances from an approaching human when they were in a flock compared to when they were tested alone, and inter-individual variation in distance from the human was greatly reduced when birds were part of a flock.