Domestication effects on social information transfer in chickens

Area of Science:

• Animal Behavior
• Cognitive Ethology
• Evolutionary Biology

Background:

• Red junglefowl (RJF) are the ancestors of domestic chickens and are highly social.
• Domestication has led to selection for living in large, dynamic groups, potentially influencing social cognition.
• Understanding social information transfer is key to understanding behavioral evolution.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate social information transfer in female Red Junglefowl (RJF) and White Leghorn (WL) chickens.
• To compare the ability of RJF and WL to learn from observing others.
• To determine if domestication has influenced social problem-solving skills.

Main Methods:

• Birds were trained to open a puzzle-box feeder.
• Behavior was recorded for naive birds and those that observed a trained individual (guided).
• Approach and pecking behaviors towards the puzzle-box feeder were analyzed.

Main Results:

• White Leghorn (WL) chickens approached and pecked the feeder more readily than RJF, irrespective of social demonstration.
• Both RJF and WL showed improved performance after observing a conspecific, but the effect was significantly stronger in WL.
• WL demonstrated a significantly greater enhancement in problem-solving after social guidance compared to RJF.

Conclusions:

• Both Red Junglefowl and White Leghorn chickens can utilize social information to solve novel problems.
• The ability to use social information for problem-solving appears to have increased during chicken domestication.
• Further research is needed to differentiate between social learning and stimulus enhancement, and to control for factors like fearfulness and dominance.