Personality and social foraging tactic use in free-living Eurasian tree sparrows (Passer montanus)

Group-foraging individuals often use alternative behavioral tactics to acquire food: some individuals, the producers, actively search for food, while others, the scroungers, look for opportunities to exploit the finders’ discoveries. Although the use of social foraging tactics is partly flexible, yet some individuals tend mainly to produce, while others largely prefer to scrounge. This between-individual variation in tactic use closely resembles the phenomenon of animal personality, however the connection between personality and social foraging tactic use has rarely been investigated in wild animals. Here, we studied this relationship in free-living Eurasian tree sparrows (Passer montanus) during two winters. We found that in females, but not in males, social foraging tactic use was predicted by personality: more exploratory (i.e. more active in a novel environment) females scrounged more. Regardless of sex, the probability of scrounging increased with the density of individuals foragin...