Great-tailed grackle behavioral flexibility and problem solving experiments, Santa Barbara, CA USA 2014-2015

Behavioral flexibility is considered an important trait for adapting to environmental change, but it is unclear what it is, how it works, and whether it is a problem solving ability. I investigated behavioral flexibility and problem solving experimentally in great- tailed grackles, an invasive bird species and thus a likely candidate for possessing behavioral flexibility. Grackles demonstrated behavioral flexibility in two contexts, the Aesop’s Fable paradigm and a color association test. Contrary to predictions, behavioral flexibility did not correlate across contexts. Four out of 6 grackles exhibited efficient problem solving abilities, but problem solving efficiency did not appear to be directly linked with behavioral flexibility. Problem solving speed also did not significantly correlate with reversal learning scores, indicating that faster learners were not the most flexible. These results reveal how little we know about behavioral flexibility, and provide an immense opportunity for future research to explore how individuals and species can use behavior to react to changing environments.

行为灵活性（behavioral flexibility）被视作适应环境变化的关键性状，但目前学界对其定义、作用机制以及是否属于问题解决能力仍尚未明确。本研究以入侵性鸟类大尾拟八哥（great-tailed grackles）为实验对象展开探究——鉴于其入侵物种的特性，该类群被认为是具备行为灵活性的潜在候选类群。受试大尾拟八哥在两项实验范式中均表现出行为灵活性：伊索寓言范式（Aesop’s Fable paradigm）与颜色联想测试（color association test）。与实验预期相悖的是，不同实验情境下的行为灵活性并未呈现出相关性。6只受试个体中有4只展现出高效的问题解决能力，但问题解决效率与行为灵活性之间并未存在直接关联。此外，问题解决速度与反转学习（reversal learning）得分也无显著相关性，这表明学习速度更快的个体并非灵活性最强的个体。本研究结果凸显了当前学界对行为灵活性的认知不足，同时为未来探索个体与物种如何通过行为响应环境变化提供了广阔的研究契机。