Florida Scrub‐Jays (Aphelocoma coerulescens) are cooperative breeders endemic to Florida’s oak scrub. In autumn, Florida Scrub‐Jays cache thousands of acorns and exhibit behaviors that appear to balance cache site selection against food degradation or cache robbery. However, both experience and position within a social dominance hierarchy could affect individual cache preferences. We examined the cache site preferences of birds with differing levels of caching experience and at different strata within a complex social dominance hierarchy. Our objective was to determine how experience, social position, and social context when caching influenced microhabitat preferences, and if these change as jays age, gain experience, and their social position changes. Naïve first‐year birds preferred to cache in well‐hidden, densely vegetated sites with relatively high soil moisture content. Naïve birds also cached farther from provisioning points if observed by a socially dominant bird than when they were alone or in the presence of birds of equal social status. Experienced adults preferred to cache in open, dry sandy sites and social context at the time of caching did not influence their preferences. As naïve birds aged, they gained experience and their social position changed. Experienced second‐year birds shifted their preference to more open, drier sites, and did so more often when they remained subordinate within their group rather than becoming dominant breeders. Second‐year birds that remained subordinate did not alter their caching behavior if observed by dominant birds. These patterns suggest that after gaining experience, jays learned which sites were more appropriate for caching and shifted their preference, regardless of their changing social status. We suggest that the risk of cache loss to food degradation might be greater than the risk of pilfering for Florida Scrub‐Jays, especially for birds in any social strata except the most subordinate, but this requires additional study.

中文翻译：

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年轻的佛罗里达灌丛杰伊人的食物缓存场所偏好的个体发生学：学习或社会地位改变的证据？

佛罗里达灌木丛（Aphelocoma coerulescens）是佛罗里达州橡树灌木特有的合作育种者。在秋天，佛罗里达灌木丛杰伊（Florida Scrub-Jays）缓存了数千个橡子，并表现出一些行为，似乎平衡了缓存地点的选择与食物的降解或抢劫。但是，社会支配等级中的经验和职位都可能影响各个缓存的偏好。我们研究了具有不同缓存经验级别以及在复杂的社会优势层次中处于不同层次的鸟类的缓存站点首选项。我们的目标是确定缓存时的体验，社交位置和社交环境如何影响微栖息地的偏好，以及这些条件是否随着周杰伦年龄的增长而变化，获得经验以及他们的社交地位发生变化。幼稚的一年级鸟类更喜欢在土壤水分含量相对较高的，隐蔽且茂密的植被场所中栖息。如果从社会上占主导地位的鸟观察，比起单独或在具有相同社会地位的鸟的情况下观察，幼稚的鸟还远离预备点。有经验的成年人更喜欢在开放，干燥的沙质场所中进行缓存，缓存时的社交环境不会影响他们的偏好。随着幼鸟的衰老，他们获得了经验，社会地位也发生了变化。经验丰富的二年级鸟类将其偏爱转移到更开放，更干燥的地方，并且当它们仍处于从属地位而不是成为主要繁殖者时，这样做的频率更高。如果占优势的鸟类观察到，则仍属于从属的二年级鸟类不会改变其缓存行为。这些模式表明，杰伊人在获得经验之后，了解到哪些站点更适合缓存，并改变了他们的偏好，不论他们的社会地位如何变化。我们建议，因佛罗里达州灌木灌丛而造成的食物损失造成的食品损失的风险可能大于偷窃的风险，特别是对于除了最下属以外的任何社会阶层的鸟类而言，但这都需要进一步的研究。