Srx. Dall et al., LEARNING ABOUT FOOD - STARLINGS, SKINNER BOXES, AND EARTHWORMS, Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 67(2), 1997, pp. 181-192
Despite its importance as a tool for understanding a wide range of ani
mal behavior, the study of reinforcement schedules in the laboratory h
as suffered from difficulties in the biological interpretation of its
findings. This study is an operant-laboratory investigation of the abi
lity of European starlings, Sturnus vulgaris, to learn to respond adap
tively to the problem of foraging on patchily distributed prey that ar
e uncertainly located in space. In order to maximize the biological re
levance of the laboratory study, variation in the aggregation of earth
worms, Lumbricus terrestris (a prey species), was rigorously quantifie
d from the field, and the experimental birds were presented with reinf
orcement schedules designed to represent the extremes of the observed
variation. The results demonstrate that, even for a single prey specie
s, the degree to which individuals are aggregated can vary markedly ov
er a range of spatial scales, and that starlings can rapidly learn to
respond, in an adaptive manner, to these variations. These findings su
ggest that starlings are capable of adjusting their behavior to facili
tate the efficient exploitation of prey that occurs in patches of an u
ncertain nature, and thus illustrate the heuristic value of an ecologi
cally informed operant-laboratory approach to studying foraging behavi
or.