How far will a behaviourally flexible invasive bird go to innovate?

• Main Author: Corina J. Logan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Royal Society 2016-01-01
• Series: Royal Society Open Science
• Subjects: behavioural flexibility; innovativeness; string pulling; tool use; grackle; icteridae
• Online Access: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsos.160247

Behavioural flexibility is considered a key factor in the ability to adapt to changing environments. A traditional way of characterizing behavioural flexibility is to determine whether individuals invent solutions to novel problems, termed innovativeness. Great-tailed grackles are behaviourally flexible in that they can change their preferences when a task changes using existing behaviours; however, it is unknown how far they will go to invent solutions to novel problems. To begin to answer this question, I gave grackles two novel tests that a variety of other species can perform: stick tool use and string pulling. No grackle used a stick to access out-of-reach food, even after seeing a human demonstrate the solution. No grackle spontaneously pulled a vertically oriented string, but one did pull a horizontally oriented string twice. Additionally, a third novel test was previously conducted on these individuals and it was found that no grackle spontaneously dropped stones down a platform apparatus to release food, but six out of eight did become proficient after training. These results support the idea that behavioural flexibility is a multi-faceted trait because grackles are flexible, but not particularly innovative. This contradicts the idea that behavioural flexibility and innovativeness are interchangeable terms.