SOCIAL-DOMINANCE, FOOD CACHING AND RECOVERY BY BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEES PARUS-ATRICAPILLUS - IS THERE A CHEATER STRATEGY

Black-capped Chickadees cache and recover food items as members of a flock. This social context raises the question of whether an individual might increase its food intake rate by observing conspecifics place caches then stealing them. We examined this idea experimentally. We found that an observer chickadee who watched another make a cache did not find it faster or with less searching than if the cache was made in its absence. In the presence of a dominant, subordinates searched many sites and took relatively long to find a seed cached by the dominant. When searching for a seed cached by the experimenter in the absence of the birds, however, subordinates searched fewer sites and took a shorter time to find the seed. Recovery success of dominants was uninfluenced by the presence of subordinates. Our results suggest that a "cheater" strategy has not evolved in this population.