Social Learning and Culture in Birds: Emerging Patterns and Relevance to Conservation

Lucy Aplin, Ross Crates, Andrea Flack, Peter McGregor

There is now abundant evidence for a role of social learning and culture in shaping behaviour in a range of avian species across multiple contexts, from migration routes in geese and foraging behaviour in crows, to passerine song. Recent emerging evidence has further linked culture to fitness outcomes in some birds, highlighting its potential importance for conservation. Here, we first summarise the state of knowledge on social learning and culture in birds, focusing on the best-studied contexts of migration, foraging, predation, and song. We identify extensive knowledge gaps for some taxa, but argue that existing evidence suggests that: 1) social learning and culture is taxonomically clustered, and that 2) reliance on social learning in one behavioural domain does not predict reliance across others. Together, we use this to build a predictive framework to aid conservationists in species-specific decision-making under imperfect knowledge. Second, we review evidence for a link between culture and conservation in birds. We argue that understanding which behaviours birds are likely to learn socially can help refine conservation strategies, improving the trajectories of threatened populations. Lastly, we present practical steps for how consideration of culture can be integrated into conservation actions including reintroductions, translocations, and captive breeding programmes.