Meeting Abstract

47.5  Tuesday, Jan. 5  Behavioral Profile and Aggression in Mountain Chickadees FOX, R.A.*; LADAGE, L.D.; ROTH, T.C.; PRAVOSUDOV, V.V.; University of Nevada, Reno; University of Nevada, Reno; University of Nevada, Reno; University of Nevada, Reno rfox@unr.edu

Research suggests that individual variation in stable behavioral traits (often referred to as behavioral profiles or temperament) may explain variation in ecologically-relevant behaviors such as the acquisition of dominance. In mountain chickadees (Poecile gambeli), a North American parid that lives in dominance-structured winter flocks, individuals’ exploratory behavior in an unfamiliar flight room (a commonly used measure of behavioral profile in birds) may predict the outcome of dyadic dominance encounters. Birds that visited fewer locations in a novel flight room (low-exploring birds) are significantly more likely to become dominant in brief, pairwise encounters with birds that visited more locations (high-exploring birds). However, it is unclear whether exploratory behavior directly affects the acquisition of dominance status, or whether it simply covaries with some other behavioral characteristic, such as aggression. In this study, we tested the hypothesis that low-exploring birds are more aggressive than high-exploring birds by measuring individuals’ responses to mirror image stimulation. We report on the relationship between individuals’ responses to mirror image stimulation, exploration scores, and dominance.