| Summary: | When different foraging specialists in a homospecific group have the option of joining each other's food discoveries, a skill pool may be established. Two field experiments on urban populations of feral pigeons (Columba livia) show that this species has the first prerequisite of the skill pool effect, the presence of individual foraging specialisations. Urban pigeons show marked individual variation in daily feeding site use patterns and food preferences. Two aviary experiments on a captive flock of C. livia show that pigeons also have the second prerequisite of skill pools, exchangeable producer-scrounger roles. Different individuals adopt producer or scrounger roles depending on patch type and flock composition when given four different food discovery tasks. Scrounging increases an individual's tendency to associate with producers, while simultaneously inhibiting observational learning of the food finding technique.
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