DOI: 10.5061/dryad.92jr204
title: Data from: Urbanization and the temporal patterns of social networks and group foraging behaviours

description: Urbanization causes dramatic and rapid changes to natural environments,
 which can lead the animals inhabiting these habitats to adjust their
 behavioral responses. For social animals, urbanized environments may alter
 group social dynamics through modification of the external environment
 (e.g., resource distribution). This might lead to changes in how
 individuals associate or engage in group behaviors, which could alter the
 stability and characteristics of social groups. However, the potential
 impacts of urban habitat use, and of habitat characteristics in general,
 on the nature and stability of social associations remain poorly
 understood. Here, we quantify social networks and dynamics of group
 foraging behaviors of black‐capped chickadees (N = 82, Poecile
 atricapillus), at four urban and four rural sites weekly throughout the
 nonbreeding season using feeders with radio frequency identification of
 individual birds. Because anthropogenic food sources in urban habitats
 (e.g., bird feeders) provide abundant and reliable resources, we predicted
 that social foraging associations may be of less value in urban groups,
 and thus would be less consistent than in rural groups. Additionally,
 decreased variability of food resources in urban habitats could lead to
 more predictable foraging patterns (group size, foraging duration, and the
 distribution of foraging events) in contrast to rural habitats. Networks
 were found to be highly consistent through time in both urban and rural
 habitats. No significant difference was found in the temporal clumping of
 foraging events between habitats. However, as predicted, the repeatability
 of the clumping of foraging events in time was significantly higher in
 urban than rural habitats. Our results suggest that individuals living in
 urban areas have more consistent foraging behaviors throughout the
 nonbreeding season, whereas rural individuals adjust their tactics due to
 less predictable foraging conditions. This first examination of
 habitat‐related differences in the characteristics and consistency of
 social networks along an urbanization gradient suggests that anthropic
 habitat use results in subtle modifications in social foraging patterns.
 Future studies should examine potential implications of these differences
 for variation in predation risk, energy intake, and information flow.
description: Daily group foraging
 data 
 Daily group foraging data for all 8 study sites (4 Urban (U) and 4 Rural (R), as indicated by the column urbrur), including number of unique individuals detected that day (n), total number of number of visits to the feeder at that site per day (nvisit), total number of foraging events detected that day (nevent), clumpiness of arrival (c.arrival), clumpiness of foraging events (c.event), day and month (month2) (both continuous counts from the first day of data collection). daydata.csv Individual foraging data Individual data file of recorded visits to electronic feeder. Included site (8 sites), individual id (unique PIT tag code per bird), time arrived at the feeder (arrivetime), time of departure from feeder (departtime), duration of visit (totaltime), gap between visits (difftime), and habitat type of site (urban (U) or Rural (R)). individualdata.csv