First explorations: ontogeny of central-place-foraging directions in two tropical seabirds

A widespread hypothesis for the ontogeny of behaviour and decision-making is the early-exploration-later-canalization hypothesis. It postulates that juveniles are more exploratory and adults more consistent in their behavior. In addition, it is often assumed that naïve juveniles could overcome the costs of individual experience building by copying more the decisions of others than adults (early-conformism-later-self-defining hypothesis). Here we compare the central-place-foraging movements of adults and post-fledging juveniles in their first flights around the colony before dispersal and migration, in two sympatric species of tropical seabirds: red-footed boobies and great frigatebirds. Using GPS records of individual movements, we analyzed the foraging directions of seabirds from the colony across successive trips. Juveniles of both species showed significant within-individual consistency in foraging direction but at lower levels than adults. Juveniles leaving the colony within the sam...