That's amazing!!! Congratulations 🎉

Adorable 🤩

Congratulations for your PhD ☺️🎉

This study was a team effort so thank you to: @katywillcox.bsky.social Reinoud Allaert @anneleendewulf.bsky.social Wen Zhang @camilletroisi.bsky.social Sophia Knoch, An Martel, Luc Lens, @fredverb.bsky.social @ecobird.bsky.social

1) Quails raised in small groups had worse inhibition, but no group difference in aggression. 2) Quails more aggressive towards unfamiliar individuals pecked more at the transparent cylinder. Aggression and inhibition are partly linked, but other factors mediate the influence of social group size.

We raised 120 Japanese quails in small groups of 5 or large groups of 15 and evaluated 1) the effect of social group size on response inhibition (inhibitory control, RI) and aggression at a group-level, and 2) whether deficits in inhibition were linked to increased aggression at an individual-level.

Big thank you to Nanxi Huang for her help with data collection, Abdelrahman Elzayadi for his help with video scoring, and to Debbie Kelly for her guidance and advice!

Picture by the Bandelier National Monument

#corvids #birdcognition #caching

Both species used the trays differently: birds moved their stored seeds around more in the tray given to the thief once the observers were gone, but only when the observers were conspecifics. We then discussed the ability to discriminate between individuals when caching.

We gave the choice to highly-social pinyon jays and non-social Clark’s nutcrackers to store food between two trays that either a thief or a non-thieving observer could have access to. Observers could either be conspecifics or heterospecifics, and their roles were consistent throughout the study.