Audience effects in a group‐living bird: How contact call rate is affected by vegetation and group size and composition

Meaux, Estelle; He, Chao; Zeng, Xiaolei; He, Ruchuan; Jiang, Aiwu; Goodale, Eben

doi:10.1002/ece3.9909

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 121 publications

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“…The social context is also likely to modulate the emission of contact calls. Swinhoe's White-eyes (Zosterops simplex), for instance, change their contact calling rates with experimental modifications of group size [75]. Meerkats (Suricata suricatta) adjust their calling rates to the number and distance of neighbours [44].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Calling to the collective: contact calling rates within groups of disc-winged bats do not vary by kinship or association

Chaverri,

Sagot,

Stynoski

et al. 2024

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Many group-living animals coordinate social behaviours using contact calls, which can be produced for all group members or targeted at specific individuals. In the disc-winged bat, Thyroptera tricolor , group members use ‘inquiry’ and ‘response’ calls to coordinate daily movements into new roosts (furled leaves). Rates of both calls show consistent among-individual variation, but causes of within-individual variation remain unknown. Here, we tested whether disc-winged bats produce more contact calls towards group members with higher kinship or association. In 446 experimental trials, we recorded 139 random within-group pairs of one flying bat (producing inquiry calls for roost searching) and one roosting bat (producing response calls for roost advertising). Using generalized linear mixed-effect models (GLMM), we assessed how response and inquiry calling rates varied by sender, receiver, genetic kinship and co-roosting association rate. Calling rates varied consistently across senders but not by receiver. Response calling was influenced by inquiry calling rates, but neither calling rate was higher when the interacting pair had higher kinship or association. Rather than dyadic calling rates indicating within-group relationships, our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that bats produce contact calls to maintain contact with any or all individuals within a group while collectively searching for a new roost site. This article is part of the theme issue 'The power of sound: unravelling how acoustic communication shapes group dynamics'.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Calling to the collective: contact calling rates within groups of disc-winged bats do not vary by kinship or association

Chaverri,

Sagot,

Stynoski

et al. 2024

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Maximum count per minute can also be indicative of cue rates. Contact calls, which is the vocalization type we used for the tanager, are used for cohesion and movement coordination within groups (Kondo & Watanabe, 2009), and are associated with social contexts (Radford & Ridley, 2008), rather than with environmental conditions (Meaux et al., 2023). Consequently, we reasoned that a direct effect of habitat disturbance on cue rates would be unlikely in this species.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, an indirect effect, mediated through group size, could be possible. It has been shown that individuals increase their cue rates in contact calls with increasing group size (Meaux et al., 2023; Striedter et al., 2003). Thus, in the tanager, the lower values of MAX observed at sites with greater anthropogenic habitat disturbance might represent a combination of smaller group sizes due to family members not rejoining and decreased cue rates due to smaller group sizes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, a high cue rate causes vocalizations to be temporally clumped on a recording. High cue rates are common in songs (Pérez‐Granados et al., 2018; Price, 2013), alarm calls (Suzuki, 2016), contact calls (Meaux et al., 2023), and territorial calls (Enriquez‐Rocha & Rangel‐Salazar, 2001). Cue rates can vary with breeding status (Upham‐Mills et al., 2020), resource availability, and the presence of competitors and predators (Clay et al., 2012; Morales et al., 2014; Wheatcroft, 2015), and have been used to estimate absolute bird abundance in some methodological approaches (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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How to count bird calls? Vocal activity indices may provide different insights into bird abundance and behaviour depending on species traits

Hutschenreiter,

Andresen,

Briseño‐Jaramillo

et al. 2024

Methods Ecol Evol

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Passive acoustic monitoring (PAM) has become an important tool for surveying birds, and there is a growing demand for approaches to obtain abundance and behavioural information from PAM recordings. Changes in bird populations have been assessed by counting recorded calls and calculating the vocal activity rate (VAR, i.e. the number of calls per recording time). However, bird calls could be counted in various ways and depending on species traits, these call counts could give us different insights on bird abundance, vocal behaviour and/or habitat use. Our study had two goals: (1) to present and evaluate two new indices based on call counts, the detection rate (DR, i.e. the number of 1‐min recordings in which the presence of a target vocalization is detected) and the maximum count per minute (MAX, i.e. the maximum number of calls found in a 1‐min recording); and (2) to present a conceptual framework showing how the interpretations of VAR, DR and MAX could depend on the index and on species traits. For three Neotropical bird species with distinct traits, we calculated VAR, DR and MAX based on PAM data from 25 sites in the Yucatan Peninsula (Mexico) that varied in their degree of anthropogenic habitat disturbance. We found moderate to high correlations between the indices and higher temporal variability in VAR compared to DR and MAX. We also found different effect sizes of habitat disturbance on the three species and indices. We suggest that DR might be a more reliable index of relative abundance than VAR for species whose calling behaviour exhibits a high cue rate and that MAX may be suitable for estimating family or flock size in gregarious birds. Our findings show the potential usefulness of developing new indices based on call counts to generate ecological hypotheses and assess changes in bird abundance and behaviour.

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