Wild skuas can follow human-given behavioural cues when objects resemble natural food

• Published in: Animal Cognition
• Main Authors: Danel, Samara, Rebout, Nancy, 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)
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: Charadriiformes; cups task; human cues; interspecific communication; skua; [SDV.BA.ZV]Life Sciences [q-bio]/Animal biology/Vertebrate Zoology; [SCCO]Cognitive science; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-04154122; https://hal.science/hal-04154122/document; https://hal.science/hal-04154122/file/Hal%20Samara%20et%20al%202022%20%28human%20cues%29.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-022-01692-8

International audience The capacity to follow human cues provides animals with information about the environment and can hence offer obvious adaptive benefits. Most studies carried out so far, however, have been on captive animals with previous experience with humans. Further comparative investigation is needed in order to properly assess the factors driving the emergence of this capacity under natural conditions, especially in species that do not have longstanding interactions with humans. Wild brown skuas (Catharacta antarctica ssp. lonnbergi) are non-neophobic seabirds that live in human-free habitats. In test 1: food objects, we assessed this species’ capacity to use human behavioural cues (i.e., pecking at the same object previously picked up and lifted by a human experimenter) when the items presented were food objects: anthropogenic objects (wrapped muffins) and resembling-natural food objects (plaster eggs). In test 2: non-food objects, we tested the response of another skua population towards non-food objects (sponges). Although all skuas in test 1: food objects pecked at an object, they pecked significantly more at the same previously handled items when they resembled natural food (plaster eggs). Most skuas in test 2: non-food objects, however, did not approach or peck the non-food objects presented. Our results lead us to suggest that the use of human-behavioural cues may be influenced by skuas’ foraging ecology, which paves the way to further field studies assessing whether this capacity develops specifically towards food objects or after previous interaction with humans