Competitive advantage of rare behaviours induces adaptive diversity rather than social conformity in skill learning.

ABSTRACT: Recent studies have emphasized the role of social learning and cultural transmission in promoting conformity and uniformity in animal groups, but little attention has been given to the role of negative frequency-dependent learning in impeding conformity and promoting diversity instead. Here, we show experimentally that under competitive conditions that are common in nature, social foragers (although capable of social learning) are likely to develop diversity in foraging specialization rather than uniformity. Naive house sparrows that were introduced into groups of foraging specialists did not conform to the behaviour of the specialists, but rather learned to use the alternative food-related cues, thus forming groups of complementary specialists. We further show that individuals in such gro

SUBMITTER: Aljadeff N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7482281 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature