Responses of wild skuas (Catharacta antarctica ssp. lonnbergi) to human cues in cooperative and competitive social contexts.

• Published in: Journal of Comparative Psychology
• Main Authors: Danel, Samara, Rebout, Nancy, Pinto, Laura, Carette, Pierre, Bonadonna, Francesco, Biro, Dora
• Other Authors: Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud )-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Institut Agro Montpellier, Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Université de Montpellier (UM), Centre Scientifique de Monaco (CSM)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: Charadriiformes; cups task; human cues; interspecific communication; skua; [SCCO]Cognitive science; [SDV.BA.ZV]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Animal biology/Vertebrate Zoology; [SDV.EE.IEO]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Ecology; environment/Symbiosis; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04248599; https://hal.science/hal-04248599/document; https://hal.science/hal-04248599/file/HAL%20Danel%20et%20al%20%20J%20Comp%20Psychol.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1037/com0000345

International audience Many animals respond to and use social cues emitted by other species (e.g., head direction). In the context of human–animal communication, these capacities have been attributed to regular and longstanding exposure to humans. We presented wild brown skuas (Catharacta antarctica ssp. lonnbergi) with two versions of an object-choice paradigm. In the cooperative version (Experiment 1), one human experimenter provided a simple and salient cue indicating which of two containers covered a food reward. The cues administered consisted of touching, looking at, pointing at, or pointing and looking at the container hiding food. In Experiment 1, skuas could thus cooperate with an experimenter by using the cues provided to locate the rewarded container. In the competitive version (Experiment 2), two human experimenters presented a platform with a visible food reward. In six experimental conditions, we varied experimenters’ body orientation, head orientation, eye-gaze direction, face occlusion, and mouth occlusion, as well as the platform’s location, ensuring that in each case only one experimenter had visual access to the rewarded platform. Here, birds could compete with the experimenters by robbing the human who does not see the food. Skuas failed to use human-given cues spontaneously in Experiment 1, and took the reward regardless of whether the experimenters could see in Experiment 2. Our results contrast with those obtained on other wild birds with pre-experience with humans. Hopefully, our findings will stimulate further research in order to illuminate the potential role of such experience in the capacity to respond to and use human-given cues.