Seed and color preferences of wild carrion crows

Birds can cause significant damage to agricultural fields, notably in Europe, where corvid species like carrion crows (Corvus corone) and rooks (Corvus frugilegus) target spring crops, posing challenges for conservation and wildlife management. Among targeted crops, sunflower and maize suffer the highest levels of damage from corvids’ foraging. While both lethal and non-lethal strategies are employed to mitigate bird damage, their effectiveness is limited and context-dependent. Consequently, there is growing interest in identifying natural bird repellents. To improve our understanding of corvid food selection and explore potential non-lethal management strategies, we conducted (1) cafeteria trials with five common seed types (maize, sunflower, soy, pea, and wheat) and (2) two-choice color tests with maize seeds in four colors (blue, green, orange and red) on an urban population of carrion crows accustomed to human presence. Results indicated a marked preference for sunflower and wheat, ..., , , # Code and data for: Seed and color preferences of wild carrion crows from cafeteria experiments

Reproducibility data for the manuscript \"*Seed and color preferences of wild carrion crows from cafeteria experiments*\", contains data and R script used in the main analysis.

## **Study aim:**

* **SEEDS**
* Determine the seed types that wild crows prefer using a using a negative binomial mixed-effects model (NBMM)
* **COLORS**
* Test if they display a particular aversion for a given color using a GLM with binomial error structure

## *Data Description*

1. `seeds.csv`
`.csv` file with seeds' dataset , contains the following variables:
* `$ID`: test ID
* `$date`
* `$n_indiv`: number (in categories) of individuals present at a test when available
* `$type`: seed species; Wheat=\"B\",Maize=\"M\",Pea=\"P\",Soy=\"S\",Sunflower=\"T\"
* `$n_cons`: number of consumed seeds
* `$ratio_cons`: proportion of consumed seeds
* `$total_cons`: total of consumed seeds per test ID
* `$...,