Estimating the long-term repeatability of food-hoarding behaviours in an avian predator

Food-hoarding behaviour is widespread in the animal kingdom and enables
predictable access to food resources in unpredictable environments.
Within-species, consistent variation among individuals in food-hoarding
behaviours may indicate the existence of individual strategies, as it
likely captures intrinsic differences in how individuals cope with risks
(e.g. starvation, pilferage). Using 17 years of data, we estimated the
long-term repeatability of 10 food-hoarding behaviours in a population of
Eurasian pygmy owls (Glaucidium passerinum), a small avian predator
subject to high temporal fluctuations in its main prey abundance. We found
low repeatability in the proportion of shrews and the average prey mass
stored for both sexes while females were moderately repeatable in the mass
and the number of preys stored. These two pairs of behaviours were tightly
correlated among-individuals and might represent two different sets of
individual strategies to buffer against starvation risks. Whether the
existence of such strategies can facilitate populations’ persistence and
adaptation to climate change remains to be investigated.