How Important Are Bird Colonies as Information Centers?

Abstract

Proponents of the information center hypothesis suggest that colonially breeding birds learn the location of good feeding sites by following successful birds from a colony, that such information exchange was critical to the evolution of coloniality and that colonies acting as information centers are important for birds in all colonial taxa. The evidence supporting this hypothesis is indirect and could result from behaviors other than information exchange. Information exchange may not be as important as other mechanisms whereby birds may more effectively exploit their food resources by nesting colonially.