Johan Lind (‡, et al. "Vigilance Benefits And Competition Costs In Groups: Do Individual Redshanks Gain An Overall Foraging Benefit?." Animal Behaviour 75.(2008): 1869-1875. ScienceDirect. Web. 5 Mar. 2012.
The main purpose of this article is the observation of how Redshanks benefit from vigilance and competition. There was an observation of groups of Redshanks and individual Redshanks. A Redshank is a type of a type of a bird. The observations were made in Tyninghame, Scotland from December 2005 in periods until February 2006. The main observations made was how the birds’ feeding, prey, and prey change when the bird was either individual or in a group. In the article it is stated that, “Animals gain antipredation benefits from being in larger groups through increased probability of predator detection, dilution of individual risk of being attacked and confusion of predators during attack”. When the observation of the group of Redshanks was made, it was found that prey was harder to find. The reason being because, “Interference competition increased with group size because individuals travelled more to find prey”. When observing Individual birds, it was found they had more vigilance. The less competitive Redshanks had more protection because they were always individual. “Although the group size effect on vigilance did not accrue direct foraging benefits, larger groups formed, conferring other antipredation benefits.” The main contrast found between the individuals and the groups is the trade-off between food and safety.
I thought it was interesting that the birds have to choose to have more food available in exchange to lose protection and vice versa. I wanted to see if I can compare this to humans, how some like to work alone in projects and others prefer groups. I found it hard to compare because we live in more civilized area. It can maybe go into the same concept when observing more tribal people in dangerous areas like war lands. I will try to look into that.
