Research at the KLF

Social complexity in greylag geese

funded by:

project leader: Dr. Isabella Scheiber

Animals living in stable social groups are likely to face significant cognitive demands. Social species must be able to recognize other individuals and maintain specific relationships with them despite dynamic changes in age, reproductive status and dominance rank between group members. This seemingly has favoured the evolution of relatively large parts of the brain, particularly in primates (‘social brain hypothesis’). There are only very few tests of the social brain hypothesis in birds, despite the marked similarities in their social systems even with primates. Social cognition in birds was so far only studied in altricial birds, mainly in large brained corvids and parrots, and primarily in the laboratory or with birds kept in aviaries. Here we intend to study social cognition in a smaller-brained, precocial bird with complex social life, the greylag goose (Anser anser). The human-habituated greylag flock at the Konrad Lorenz Research Station in Grünau, Upper Austria, provides us with the unique opportunity to study social cognition in an intact social environment. Since foraging seems not as cognitively demanding in geese as it may be in corvids, any particular cognitive abilities are, therefore, likely to be related to social organization. In this flock, we were recently able to show primate-like features of social complexity. Not much, however, is known about the cognitive capabilities of geese. This makes them an ideal avian model to investigate if indeed a small brain seems to be an obstacle for the evolution of ‘social intelligence’, which is fundamental to establishing complex social networking behaviour. The social features of greylag geese allow us to make clear predictions about their cognitive abilities, i.e. test the social brain hypothesis. We will study both basic cognitive skills with well-established experimental paradigms and use an experimental design, which involves all participating members of the flock. In particular, we plan to investigate with greylag goslings, hand-raised for this purpose, (i) the ability to follow the gaze of others into distant space as well as around barriers; (ii) object permanence, and (iii) transitive inference. Furthermore, we aim at determining through audio and video recordings as well as photographs of all individuals within the flock, whether greylag geese are capable of individual -, kin – and 3^rd party recognition. Particularly, we like to study long-term recognition of individuals not only with recordings of the geese, but also when natural losses (deaths, departure from the area), which are relatively common, occur.