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Savanna habitat drives birds, and perhaps others, to cooperative breeding

08-16-2007 · EurekAlert!

Birds of a feather flock together, but for African starlings, this is true primarily in savannas, where cooperation improves survival in the unpredictable habitat, according to UC-Berkeley and Cornell researchers. Cooperative breeding, where helpers forego breeding to gather food for the offspring of other group members, seems to be a successful survival strategy with the highly variable rainfall of the savanna. Savanna habitats may have led to cooperative social behavior in other species also.

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Keywords: savanna, habitat, drives, birds, perhaps, cooperative, breeding, drive, bird, perhap

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