Supplementary material from "Breeding density affects the movements of gull chicks, the size of their home ranges, and their association with neighbours"

Colonies of ground-nesting species often have heterogeneous nest densities, so their offspring experience different social conditions. In semi-precocial gulls, unintentional territory crossing by mobile chicks can provoke strong aggression from neighbouring adults. This would be expected to shape chicks' movement tendencies, exploratory behaviour and propensity for social contact through aversive feedback learning or prenatal maternal effects, as mothers may pre-adapt their offspring’s behaviour to the expected early life conditions. Therefore, we hypothesize that lesser black-backed gull chicks reared in denser areas of the breeding colony will move less, have smaller home ranges, and have fewer social contacts. To test this, we first cross-fostered full clutches between and within high- and low-density parts of the colony, and then used ultra-wideband tags to track free-ranging chicks. In line with our predictions, we found that chicks reared in denser areas had a lower movement activity and smaller home ranges. However, these chicks were still in contact with a higher number of neighbouring chicks. Prenatal breeding density had no significant effect on any of the parameters. We conclude that parental nest choice strongly affects the early social environment of their chicks, which can shape the development of their (social) phenotype, with potentially long-lasting consequences.