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How flexible is tool use in Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius)?

Piero Amodio, Markus Boeckle, Sarah A. Jelbert, Ljerka Ostoijc, Nicola S. Clayton
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/803700
Piero Amodio
1Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK
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  • For correspondence: pa393@cam.ac.uk
Markus Boeckle
1Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK
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Sarah A. Jelbert
1Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK
2School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, UK
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Ljerka Ostoijc
1Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK
3Institute for Globally Distributed Open Research and Education (IGDORE)
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Nicola S. Clayton
1Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, UK
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Abstract

Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius) do not habitually use tools, yet they can be trained to solve object-dropping tasks, i.e. to insert a tool into an apparatus to release a food reward. Previous research suggests the these jays can learn a preference toward functional tools – objects allowing to obtain a food reward placed inside an apparatus – according to their density (Cheke et al., 2011). However, it is not yet known whether they can also select functional tools (tool selectivity) according to other physical properties such as size and shape, and use different kinds of tools to solve a similar task. Here we conducted three object-dropping experiments aimed at exploring these abilities in Eurasian jays. In Experiment 1, jays tended to select large stones as tools irrespective of the diameter of the apparatus. However, jays progressively developed a preference for the small tool, which was functional with both the wide and the narrow apparatuses. In Experiment 2, only vertically-oriented long stones could fit into the narrow apparatus, whereas both long and round stones were functional with the wide apparatus. Jays showed a preference for the long stone and, with the narrow apparatus, tended to achieve the correct manipulation after one or more unsuccessful attempts. In Experiment 3, jays were able to use sticks and adopt a novel technique on the same object-dropping apparatus, thus providing the first evidence that Eurasian jays can use sticks as tools. Taken together, these results indicate that Eurasian jays may have limited tool selectivity abilities but nonetheless can use different kinds of tools to solve similar tasks.

Footnotes

  • https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3471706

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted October 13, 2019.
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How flexible is tool use in Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius)?
Piero Amodio, Markus Boeckle, Sarah A. Jelbert, Ljerka Ostoijc, Nicola S. Clayton
bioRxiv 803700; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/803700
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How flexible is tool use in Eurasian jays (Garrulus glandarius)?
Piero Amodio, Markus Boeckle, Sarah A. Jelbert, Ljerka Ostoijc, Nicola S. Clayton
bioRxiv 803700; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/803700

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