Howard, M and Hoppitt, WJE orcid.org/0000-0003-0815-5720 (2017) Ospreys do not teach offspring how to kill prey at the nest. Biology Letters, 13 (8). 20170346. ISSN 1744-9561
Abstract
There is strong evidence for teaching in only a handful of species, most of which are cooperative breeders, leading some researchers to suggest that teaching may be more likely to evolve in such species. Alternatively, this initial distribution could be an artefact of the popularity and tractability of cooperative breeders as behavioural study systems. Therefore, establishing or refuting this potential evolutionary link requires researchers to assess potential cases of teaching in more non-cooperatively breeding species. We tested for teaching in the osprey (Pandion haliaetus), a non-cooperatively- breeding bird anecdotally reported to teach hunting skills to their offspring. We tested whether parents brought back more live prey to the nest as their offspring got older, allowing the latter to practice killing prey in a manner analogous to the progressive teaching seen in meerkats. We found the oppo- site trend to that predicted by the teaching hypothesis, indicating that ospreys do not teach their young at the nest.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2017 The Author(s). Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Biology Letters. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | teaching; social learning; hunting; cooperative breeding; evolution of teaching |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 10 Aug 2017 11:13 |
Last Modified: | 23 Aug 2018 00:38 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | The Royal Society |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rsbl.2017.0346 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:119971 |