A comparative study of how British tits encode predator threat in their mobbing calls

Carlson, Nora V.; Healy, Susan D.; Templeton, Christopher N.

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2017.01.011

Cited by 49 publications

(97 citation statements)

References 69 publications

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“…If auditory masking can explain great tit responses to D-FME calls, we hypothesized that would not the same hold true for coal tits. Coal tits could be indeed more sensitive to FME notes when they are artificially placed after the D notes compared to great tits, because their mobbing calls are more complex (Carlson, Healy, et al, 2017a), composed of combinations of many different calls, and they are more high pitched (unpublished data). One other hypothesis could be used to explain the behaviour of coal tits.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Mobbing calls have been well described in the Paridae (Carlson, Healy, & Templeton, ; Jung & Freeberg, ) and are usually composed of combinations of frequency modulated elements (Hetrick & Sieving, ) referred to hereafter as FME , followed by a string of a repeated loud broadband elements (Templeton, Greene, & Davis, ), referred to hereafter as D notes. As suggested by several authors, such a pattern could well arise from a hierarchized organization following a “syntactic‐like” rule (Hailman & Ficken, ; Hailman, Ficken, & Ficken, ; Lucas & Freeberg, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Syntax manipulation changes perception of mobbing call sequences across passerine species

2019

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Many species approach predators to harass them and drive them away. Both the intensity of this antipredator strategy and its success are positively related to the size of the group that carries out this mobbing. To recruit individuals to the mob, members of prey species produce mobbing calls. In some songbirds—the Japanese tit, Parus minor, and the southern pied babbler, Turdoides bicolor—mobbing calls are structurally complex and it has been suggested that they convey information by means of compositional syntax, when meaningful items are combined into larger units. These two species combine alert and recruitment calls into an alert and recruitment sequence when attracting conspecifics to cooperate in mobbing a predator. Whether this rudimentary, two‐call, compositional structure is used by other bird species in mobbing calls and how it can alter the ability of heterospecifics to adequately recognize mobbing calls is not well understood. Heterospecifics’ responses to mobs are critical to the success of the mobbing strategy, so it is of great importance to understand whether and how syntax influences these responses. To address these questions, we conducted two playback experiments. Firstly, we investigated whether the great tit, Parus major, extracts different meanings from different individual motifs (i.e., component calls), and from combined motifs in both natural and artificially reversed order. We found that great tits extract different meanings from the two motifs involved in mobbing calls and that they also discriminate for motif order reversal in the mobbing call sequence. Secondly, we investigated whether heterospecifics (the coal tit, Periparus ater, and the common chaffinch, Fringilla coelebs) are sensitive to syntax alteration of great tit mobbing calls. While chaffinches did not respond to great tit mobbing calls, coal tits were sensitive to mobbing call sequence reversal although they did not react in the same way as conspecific subjects. Overall, whereas our results indicate that tits are sensitive to call reversal, this is not to say that tits actually use compositional syntax to increase the information content.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Syntax manipulation changes perception of mobbing call sequences across passerine species

2019

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“…This kind of alarm system can help prey animals to share information about predators and to recruit prey individuals into a mobbing group (Hurd, ; Lima & Dill, ; Peres, ; Cooper & Blumstein, ). Similar alarm communication systems exist in birds (e.g., Carlson, Templeton, & Healy , ; Ficken & Popp, ; Gill & Bierema, ; Suzuki, , ) where various characteristics of the alarm vocalizations may carry information about predator type (Fasanella & Fernández, ; Griesser, ; Naguib et al, ; Yorzinski & Vehrencamp, ), predator size (Templeton, Greene, & Davis, ), degree of threat (Soard & Ritchinson, ; Carlson et al, ), predator behavior (Griesser, ), or a predator's facial orientation (Book & Freeberg, ; Freeberg, Krama, Vrublevska, Krams, & Kullberg, ). The information about the predator may be coded in the use of different types of calls/notes and in the number/proportion of notes of each type as well as in detailed temporal and frequency characteristics of the notes (Templeton et al, ; Carlson et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…Species from the family Paridae (tits and chickadees) are known for the diversity of alarm calls that they produce (Carlson et al, ; Hailman, ; Latimer, ). There are two major alarm call element types present across species in this family.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental study of alarm calls of the oriental tit (Parus minor) toward different predators and reactions they induce in nestlings

Lee

Yang

et al. 2020

Ethology

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Anti‐predatory strategies of birds are diverse and may include predator‐specific alarm calls. For example, oriental tit (Parus minor) parents can distinguish snakes from other predators and produce snake‐specific referential vocalizations ("jar" call) when a snake poses a threat to their nest. The “jar” call has a very specific function to induce fledging of nestlings close to fledging age. This reaction ensures nestlings' survival in natural encounters with snakes that are capable of entering nest cavities and kill entire broods. Sciurid rodents, like chipmunks, may pose a similar threat to cavity‐nesting birds. We explored the hypothesis that parents use the fledging‐inducing alarm vocalizations in this situation, because chipmunks, like snakes, can kill the brood upon entering the nest cavity. We compared alarm calls of parents toward two predators (chipmunk and snake) who pose a similar threat to the nestlings in a nest cavity, and toward an avian predator (Eurasian jay) who cannot enter nest cavities and poses no threat to the nestlings in a nest. Our results show that the vocal responses of oriental tits were different among the three predators. This suggests that the acoustic properties of vocal responses to predators are different between predators of a similar hunting strategy (nest‐cavity entering). The playback of recorded vocal responses of parents to chipmunks did not trigger the fledging of old nestlings, whereas the vocalizations toward a snake did, as shown by earlier studies. Our study suggests that the vocal response of parents does not carry information about the ability of predators to enter the nest cavity and confirms the special status of alarm calls triggered by snakes.

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“…Because this work was being directed at animals in the wild, it meant that the typical laboratory methods of testing animals were rarely available (outside an acoustic context, e.g. Coye et al 2016;Carlson et al 2017) until the implementation of "problem-solving," which typically entailed requiring an animal to get into a container to reach food. The animal getting into the container may have required quite a lot of dexterity (e.g.…”

Section: Abilitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The face of animal cognition

Healy

2019

Integrative Zoology

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As an increasing number of researchers investigate the cognitive abilities of an ever-wider range of animals, animal cognition is currently among the most exciting fields within animal behavior. Tinbergen would be proud: all four of his approaches are being pursued and we are learning much about how animals collect information and how they use that information to make decisions for their current and future states as well as what animals do not perceive or choose to ignore. Here I provide an overview of this productivity, alighting only briefly on any single example, to showcase the diversity of species, of approaches and the sheer mass of research effort currently under way. We are getting closer to understanding the minds of other animals and the evolution of cognition at an increasingly rapid rate.

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A comparative study of how British tits encode predator threat in their mobbing calls

Abstract: Click here to view linked References heterospecifics might provide insights about why some species encode information about 24 predator threat in multiple ways. 25 26

Cited by 49 publications

References 69 publications

Syntax manipulation changes perception of mobbing call sequences across passerine species

Syntax manipulation changes perception of mobbing call sequences across passerine species

Experimental study of alarm calls of the oriental tit (Parus minor) toward different predators and reactions they induce in nestlings

The face of animal cognition

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