Copying of diving behavior in the Eurasian Coot Fulica atra

Abstract

Animals often copy behaviors from their group mates as copying may be a faster and easier way of obtaining important environmental information. We examined whether Eurasian Coots Fulica atra copy diving behavior from their neighbors, predicting that decision-making in focal birds is strongly influenced by diving activities of close neighbors. According to generalized linear mixed models we used, positive significant predictors of diving events in focal birds for a given moment were the occurrence of diving activities of neighbors up to five body lengths in the previous moment, as well as the interaction between the proportion of diving neighbors and the total number of nearby neighbors. By contrast, behavior of focal individuals was a negative significant predictor; diving activities of nearest neighbors did not reach statistical significance. Our study shows that decision-making of group foragers may be influenced not only by the actions of nearest neighbors but also of a greater number of individuals in their vicinity, as well as their own behavior, which should be taken into account in future research.