Abstract
AbstractEven within a single population, individuals can display striking differences in behavior, with consequences for their survival and fitness. In reintroduced populations, managers often attempt to promote adaptive behaviors by controlling the early life experiences of individuals, but it remains largely unknown whether this early life training has lasting effects on behavior. We investigated the behavior of reintroduced whooping cranes (Grus americana) trained to migrate using two different methods to see whether their migration behavior remained different or converged over time. We found that the behavior of the two groups converged relatively rapidly, indicating that early life training may not produce lasting effects, especially in species that display lifelong learning and behavioral adaptation. In some cases, managers may consider continual behavioral interventions after release if desired behaviors are not present. Understanding the roles early life experience and animal cultures play in determining behavior is crucial for successful reintroduction programs.
Highlights
Animal cultures, which are specific behaviors that exist across a social group and continue across generations (Claidière & Sperber, 2010), include crucial behaviors such as migration and foraging (Laland & Janik, 2006)
During their first winter, conspecific-trained birds overwintered 510 km farther north than aircraft-trained birds, but this difference decreased each year, until the two groups were indistinguishable by age 6. In this population of reintroduced whooping cranes, birds trained to migrate by aircraft and those that learned by following conspecifics differed in their migration behavior for the first few years of life, but their behavior converged with both age and time
The convergence of behavior apparently resulted from aircraft-trained birds adopting the behavior of conspecific-trained birds; there was a dramatic change in migration distance with age among aircraft-trained birds, where 5-year-olds overwintered 713 km farther north than 1-year-olds
Summary
Animal cultures, which are specific behaviors that exist across a social group and continue across generations (Claidière & Sperber, 2010), include crucial behaviors such as migration and foraging (Laland & Janik, 2006). One common way to promote conservation of animal culture is to introduce specific behaviors via early life training. Understanding to what extent early life experiences determine adult behavior is critical for effective management of threatened species, in reintroduction programs of long-lived species that rely on captive-reared individuals (Kleiman, 1989; Sutherland et al, 2010). In these programs, captive-rearing methods determine conditions during early development, but individuals’ behavior is unrestricted after release.
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