Abstract
Exploration is among one of the most studied of animal personality traits (i.e., individual-level behavioural responses repeatable across time and contexts). However, not all species show clear evidence of this personality trait, and this is particularly so for members of the Corvidae family. We assessed the exploratory behaviour of four food-caching corvid species: pinyon jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus), Clark’s nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana), California scrub jays (Aphelocoma californica), and black-billed magpies (Pica hudsonia). Contextual repeatability was assessed through examining behavioural measures during the Novel Environment task and the Novel Object task, whereas temporal repeatability was assessed by examining changes in these measures over repeated trials. Our results suggest that, for corvids, an individual’s exploratory behaviour was not repeatable across contexts or over time. Hence, we found no evidence that exploration constitutes a personality trait for these species of corvid. We did find differences in exploratory behaviour, at a species level, that may be explained by relative reliance on cached food.
Highlights
Exploration is among one of the most studied of animal personality traits
We investigated whether corvids differed in their exploration by comparing the behavioural responses of four closely-related North American corvid species
We found that the behavioural measures of exploration at the individual level did not correlate between tasks, suggesting an individual’s exploratory behaviour was not contextually repeatable
Summary
Exploration is among one of the most studied of animal personality traits (i.e., individual-level behavioural responses repeatable across time and contexts). During the Novel Object task, an individual is presented with a single novel object within a familiar environment (such as a home cage), and the latency to approach the object is viewed as a measure of object exploration[13,14] Both tasks have been used to investigate whether an individual’s exploratory behaviour changes during its development[15], or correlates with other personality traits[13], fitness[8] or cognitive abilities[16]. To investigate whether an individual’s exploratory behaviour is repeatable across different contexts, previous studies have administered the Novel Environment and the Novel Object tasks together to assess whether the main behaviours measured during these tasks correlate at an individual level[14,18,19,20]. Investigating corvids’ exploratory behaviour, including whether it is context-dependent, provides us with an opportunity to understand the potential uniqueness of this bird family among other animal species
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