Espresso Knowledge #66 - Foraging humans, birds & mammals living in same area have similar behaviours

Foraging human populations, birds, and mammals, all living in the same area, behave similarly.

Researchers analyzed data from over 300 locations globally, observing behaviours of foraging humans together with other mammal and birds living in the same place. For almost all behaviours, including foraging, reproduction, and social, humans were more likely to behave similarly to most birds and mammals living in the same place than those elsewhere.

For example, environments where humans get a large portion of their calories from hunting have more carnivorous mammals and birds than elsewhere. At locations where humans have children later, local mammals and birds are similarly, on average, older when they first reproduced than mammals and birds living in places where humans reproduce early.

Knowing environmental conditions of a place helped predict what behaviours to expect there. But we still don't know which environmental factors are important for which behaviours or how they are linked.

Original article:

The environment shapes behaviour

Original study:

Local convergence of behavior across species