ArticleNature communications2015
Experimental resource pulses influence social-network dynamics and the potential for information flow in tool-using crows.
Article in Nature communications, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 58 citations in OpenAlex.
- The growing methodological toolkit for identifying and studying social learning and culture in non-human animals.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Cavity nesting birds show behavioural plasticity to simulated territorial intrusions in response to natural resource pulses.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Fission-fusion dynamics in sheep: the influence of resource distribution and temporal activity patterns.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Group and individual social network metrics are robust to changes in resource distribution in experimental populations of forked fungus beetles.The Journal of animal ecology · 2022Article
- Social dynamics and individual hunting tactics of white sharks revealed by biologging.Biology letters · 2022Article
- Future trends in measuring physiology in free-living animals.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Multiyear social stability and social information use in reef sharks with diel fission-fusion dynamics.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2020Article
- Thinking small: Next-generation sensor networks close the size gap in vertebrate biologging.PLoS biology · 2020Article
- Measuring social networks in primates: wearable sensors versus direct observations.Proceedings. Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2020Article
- Optimizing the use of biologgers for movement ecology research.The Journal of animal ecology · 2020Article
- Article
- Proximity sensors on common noctule bats reveal evidence that mothers guide juveniles to roosts but not food.Biology letters · 2019Article
- What constitutes "social complexity" and "social intelligence" in birds? Lessons from ravens.Behavioral ecology and sociobiology · 2019Review
- Does detection range matter for inferring social networks in a benthic shark using acoustic telemetry?Royal Society open science · 2017Article
- Inferring animal social networks and leadership: applications for passive monitoring arrays.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2016Article
- Article
- Strong between-site variation in New Caledonian crows' use of hook-tool-making materials.Biological journal of the Linnean Society. Linnean Society of London · 2016Article
- Automated proximity sensing in small vertebrates: design of miniaturized sensor nodes and first field tests in bats.Ecology and evolution · 2016Article
- Social learning in nest-building birds: a role for familiarity.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2016Article
- How New Caledonian crows solve novel foraging problems and what it means for cumulative culture.Learning & behavior · 2016Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Social-network dynamics have profound consequences for biological processes such as information flow, but are notoriously difficult to measure in the wild. We used novel transceiver technology to chart association patterns across 19 days in a wild population of the New Caledonian crow--a tool-using species that may socially learn, and culturally accumulate, tool-related information. To examine the causes and consequences of changing network topology, we manipulated the environmental availability of the crows' preferred tool-extracted prey, and simulated, in silico, the diffusion of information across field-recorded time-ordered networks. Here we show that network structure responds quickly to environmental change and that novel information can potentially spread rapidly within multi-family communities, especially when tool-use opportunities are plentiful. At the same time, we report surprisingly limited social contact between neighbouring crow communities. Such scale dependence in information-flow dynamics is likely to influence the evolution and maintenance of material cultures.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.