Juvenile socio-ecological environment shapes material technology in nest-building birds

Variation in animal material technology, such as tool use and nest construction, is thought to be caused, in part, by differences in the early-life socio-ecological environment—that is, who and what is around—but this developmental hypothesis remains unconfirmed. We used a tightly controlled developmental paradigm to determine whether adult and/or raw-material access in early life shape first-time nest construction in captive zebra finches Taeniopygia guttata at sexual maturity. We found that juvenile access to both an unrelated adult and raw material of one color led to a majority preference (75%) by novice builders for this color of material over that for either natal-nest or novel colored material, whereas a lack of juvenile access to both an unrelated adult and raw material led to a four- and nearly three-fold reduction in the speed at which novice builders initiated and completed nest construction, respectively. Contrary to expectation, neither the amount of time juveniles nor thei...