Individual and ecological determinants of social information transmission in the wild

Social information, acquired through the observation of others, has been documented in a variety of adaptive contexts. The transmission of social information relies on social connections and therefore it is important to consider that individuals may vary in their access to, and use of, such information. Social network analysis allows for the consideration of individual variation in social connections, which until recently has been ignored in the study of social processes. Furthermore, few previous studies of social information use have considered the potential effects of traits such as dominance and personality, which have been found to influence group social structure. We used network-based diffusion analysis, which incorporates information on individual social associations, to examine whether wild flocks of black-capped chickadees, Poecile atricapillus, utilize social information when locating novel foraging patches. Additionally, we incorporated individual traits (age, sex, dominance and exploratory personality) while examining flocks from rural and urban environments, to assess the influence of individual and habitat level characteristics on the rate of information transmission. Social information transmission was found to occur in all flocks, as individual time of discovery of the novel foraging patches was explained by network connections as predicted. However, the only individual level variable found to influence social transmission was dominance rank: dominant individuals had higher rates of information transmission than subordinates. We also found that the rate of social information transmission was higher in rural than urban environments. Our results highlight the importance of considering social associations when examining social information use. Additionally, our results suggest that dominant individuals have greater access to social information than more subordinate individuals, which may demonstrate a previously undocumented additional benefit provided by social dominance.