scholarly journals Habituation, task solving and memorization may facilitate biological invasions: the Starling example

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Rodriguez ◽  
Martine Hausberger ◽  
Philippe Clergeau ◽  
Laurence Henri
Keyword(s):  
Biological Invasions ◽  
Learning Task ◽  
Sturnus Vulgaris ◽  
European Starling ◽  
Novel Object ◽  
Novel Foods ◽  
Behavioural Characteristics ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
Migrant Birds ◽  
New Habitats

Invasions ecology deals more and more with behavioural characteristics of invasive species. Particularly, research have focused on the personality of invaders and on their way of coping with novelty in new habitats. Traits of neophobia may limit individuals in their exploration of novel objects or the consumption of novel foods, they may stop the access to valuable ressources. Actually, in novel environments like cities, food can be unreachable in throwaway dishes with lids or hidden in the garbage or even close to frightening objects. Animals may either left the place and waste these resources, or they can express low neophobia from the beginning and manipulate the objects to reach food. They may also habituate progressively to the context and use the ressources. Here we analyzed the behavioural responses of individuals from three populations of European starling Sturnus vulgaris: a population anciently settled in a rural region, a population that has recently colonized a urban area and a population of wintering migrant birds. We used a series of tests in order to explore if individuals would habituate to a novel object and if they could remember it eight months later. We explored if individuals would be less neophobic when confronted to two novel objects successively and we tested them in a learning task involving a novel object and an attractive food. Our results show that Sturnus vulgaris habituates rapidly to novel objects and that categorization facilitates neophobia lost when confronted to two different novel objects. Initially young birds appeared to be more skilled than adults in the learning task. Individuals from this species seem to be able to remember an object durably. We suggest that habituation, task solving and memorization are three mechanisms enhancing biological invasions.

scholarly journals Disfluencies signal reference to novel objects for adults but not children

2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 581-609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah J. OWENS ◽  
Justine M. THACKER ◽  
Susan A. GRAHAM
Keyword(s):  
Young Children ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Novel Object ◽  
Filled Pauses ◽  
Novel Objects ◽  
Novel Targets ◽  
The Way ◽  
Familiar Objects

AbstractSpeech disfluencies can guide the ways in which listeners interpret spoken language. Here, we examined whether three-year-olds, five-year-olds, and adults use filled pauses to anticipate that a speaker is likely to refer to a novel object. Across three experiments, participants were presented with pairs of novel and familiar objects and heard a speaker refer to one of the objects using a fluent (“Look at the ball/lep!”) or disfluent (“Look at thee uh ball/lep!”) expression. The salience of the speaker's unfamiliarity with the novel referents, and the way in which the speaker referred to the novel referents (i.e., a noun vs. a description) varied across experiments. Three- and five-year-olds successfully identified familiar and novel targets, but only adults’ looking patterns reflected increased looks to novel objects in the presence of a disfluency. Together, these findings demonstrate that adults, but not young children, use filled pauses to anticipate reference to novel objects.

Effects of an introduced, novel prey on diet and reproduction in the diet-specialist European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

2019 ◽  
Vol 97 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-231
Author(s):  
T.D. Williams ◽  
A. Cornell ◽  
C. Gillespie ◽  
A. Hura ◽  
M. Serota
Keyword(s):  
Prey Item ◽  
Brood Size ◽  
Natural Experiment ◽  
Prey Species ◽  
Sturnus Vulgaris ◽  
European Starling ◽  
Tarsus Length ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Diet Specialization ◽  
Specialized Diet

Diet specialization has important consequences for how individuals or species deal with environmental change that causes changes in availability of prey species. We took advantage of a “natural experiment” — establishment of a commercial insect farm — that introduced a novel prey item, black soldier flies (Hermetia illucens (Linnaeus, 1758)), to the diet-specialist European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758). We investigated evidence for individual diet specialization (IDS) and the consequences of diet specialization and exploitation of novel prey on breeding productivity. In all 4 years of our study, tipulid larvae were the most common prey item. Soldier flies were not recorded in diets in 2013–2014; however, coincident with the establishment of the commercial insect farming operation, they comprised 22% and 30% of all prey items in the diets of European Starling females and males, respectively, in 2015. There was marked individual variation in use of soldier flies (4%–48% and 2%–70% in females and males, respectively), but we found little evidence of dichotomous IDS, i.e., where only some individuals have a specialized diet. We found no evidence for negative effects of use of soldier flies on breeding productivity: brood size at fledging and chick quality (mass, tarsus length) were independent of the number and proportion (%) of soldier flies returned to the nest.

scholarly journals Global change affects differently at local scales animal populations: why Starlings still expands to the south while other temperate species go to the north?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Rodriguez ◽  
Giuseppe La Gioia ◽  
Patricia Le Quilliec ◽  
Damien Fourcy ◽  
Philippe Clergeau
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Change ◽  
Sturnus Vulgaris ◽  
European Starling ◽  
Distribution Area ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
Animal Populations ◽  
The World ◽  
Landscape Transformations

Global change, which regroups global warming, landscape transformations and other anthropic modifications of ecosystems, has effects on populations and communities and produces modifications in the expansion area of species. While some species disappear, other ones are beneficiated by the new conditions and some of them evolve in new adapted forms or leave their ancient distribution area. As climate change tends to increase the temperature in several regions of the world, some species have been seen to leave areas in equatorial regions in order to join colder areas either towards the north of the northern hemisphere or towards the south of the southern one. Many birds as have moved geographically in direction to the poles and in many cases they have anticipated their laying dates. Actually, two tit species that use to lay their eggs in a period that their fledging dates synchronize with the emerging dates of caterpillars are now evolving to reproductive in periods earlier than before the climate change. Several species are reacting like that and other ones are moving to the north in Europe for example. Nevertheless, and very curiously, European starling, Sturnus vulgaris, populations are behaving on the contrary: their laying dates are moving towards later spring and their distribution area is moving towards the south. In this study we explore and discuss about different factors that may explain this difference from other birds.

Visual pigments, oil droplets and cone photoreceptor distribution in the european starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

1998 ◽  
Vol 201 (9) ◽  
pp. 1433-1446 ◽  
Author(s):  
N S Hart ◽  
J C Partridge ◽  
I C Cuthill
Keyword(s):  
Visual Pigment ◽  
Sturnus Vulgaris ◽  
European Starling ◽  
Visual Pigments ◽  
Double Cone ◽  
Temporal Region ◽  
Oil Droplets ◽  
Tetrazolium Chloride ◽  
Oil Droplet ◽  
Single Cone

Microspectrophotometric measurements of retinal photoreceptors from the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris) revealed four classes of single cone, containing visual pigments with wavelengths of maximum absorbance (<IMG src="/images/symbols/lambda.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="12" ALIGN="BOTTOM" NATURALSIZEFLAG= "3">max) at 563, 504, 449 and close to 362 nm. The two longer-wave-sensitive single cones contained brightly coloured oil droplets which cut off light below 572 and 514 nm, respectively. The 449 nm <IMG src="/images/symbols/lambda.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="12" ALIGN="BOTTOM" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3">max pigment was associated with a 'colourless' oil droplet with peak measured absorptance below 400 nm. The ultraviolet-sensitive visual pigment was paired with a transparent oil droplet which showed no significant absorption above 350 nm. A single class of double cone was identified, both members of which contained the longwave-sensitive (<IMG src="/images/symbols/lambda.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT= "12" ALIGN="BOTTOM" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3">max 563 nm) visual pigment. The principal member of the double cone contained an oil droplet with a topographically variable cut-off wavelength below 471 nm; the oil droplet found in the accessory member was only measured in the ventral retina and displayed three distinct peaks of absorption at approximately 430, 450 and 480 nm. Rod photoreceptors had a <IMG src="/images/symbols/lambda.gif" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="12" ALIGN="BOTTOM" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3">max at 503 nm. A new polynomial for fitting visual pigment templates to ultraviolet-sensitive visual pigment data is given. Topographic density measurements of the different cone classes were made using Nitroblue-tetrazolium chloride to label selectively bleached photoreceptors. The two classes of shortwave-sensitive single cone were more abundant in the dorsal retina, and longwave-sensitive single cones were notably less abundant in the dorso-temporal region of the retina, which subserves binocular vision.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document