Doctoral Dissertations
Date of Award
12-2024
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy
Major
Psychology
Major Professor
Todd M. Freeberg
Committee Members
Gordon M. Burghardt, Elizabeth Derrberry, Garriy Shteynberg, David A. Buehler
Abstract
Mixed-species groups are known to provide foraging and anti-predator benefits to group members. These benefits may be due to an increase in behavioral diversity unique to mixed-species groups. This dissertation examines boldness behavioral differences among individuals in mixed-species flocks of Carolina chickadees (Poecile carolinensis) and tufted titmice (Baeolophus bicolor). The studies in this dissertation applied the Behavioral Syndromes framework (personality-like components of correlated behaviors), principal component analysis, cluster analysis, and multiple-response permutation procedures to examine group differences in behavioral variability between species and flock composition conditions (mixed- vs single-species flocks). These identified behavioral types became predictors for individual behavior involving a novel foraging task, an approach that differs with more typical single-test predictive models common in the literature. Finally, to test for differences in social-context versus isolated-context behavioral testing, a Novel Environment Test was given to two different sets of individual tufted titmice, one set surrounded by a familiar flock and one set removed from theirs. Results indicated that mixed-species groups do show greater variability in their boldness principal component scores, with chickadees in mixed-species groups showing substantially more variation in their boldness behaviors than either titmice or single-species chickadee flocks. These same principal component scores out-performed all single-test predictors of novel foraging behaviors, finding that the two species differed slightly in the types of neophilia that correlated positively with novel foraging success. Between-group comparisons confirmed that the Novel Environment test depended on social/asocial context, possibly due to effects of sudden isolation and social inhibition. These findings confirm the expected condition of increased behavioral diversity in mixed-species flocks and effects of isolated testing, helping to explain the apparent diversity effect in novel foraging efficiency found in previous studies.
Recommended Citation
Benson, Scott Alan, "Behavioral Diversity in Mixed-Species Flocks. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2024.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/11309
