Cooperative bird differentiates between the calls of different individuals, even when vocalizations were from completely unfamiliar individuals

Abstract

Hypotheses proposed to explain the evolution of cooperative behaviour typically require differentiation between either groups of conspecifics (e.g . kin/non-kin) or, more typically, individuals (e.g. reciprocal altruism). Despite this, the mechanisms that facilitate individual or class recognition have rarely been explored in cooperative species. This study examines the individual differentiation abilities of noisy miners ( Manorina melanocephala ), a species with one of the most complex avian societies known. Miners permanently occupy colonies numbering into hundreds of individuals. Within these colonies, cooperative coalitions form on a fission–fusion basis across numerous contexts, from social foraging through to mobbing predators. Birds often use individually distinctive ‘chur’ calls to recruit others to a caller's location, facilitating coalition formation. I used the habituation–discrimination paradigm to test the ability of miners to differentiate between the chur calls of two individuals that were both either: (i) familiar, or (ii) unfamiliar to the focal subject. This technique had not, to my knowledge, been used to assess vocalization differentiation in cooperative birds previously, but here demonstrated that miners could correctly use the spectral features of signals to differentiate between the vocalizations of different individuals, regardless of their familiarity. By attending to individual differences in recruitment calls, miners have a communication system that is capable of accommodating even the most complex cooperative hypotheses based upon acoustic information.

Prospecting precedes dispersal and increases survival chances in cooperatively breeding cichlids

“…First, familiarity among group members is often crucial for the maintenance of cooperation and group stability (Barber & Wright, 2001;Carter & Wilkinson, 2013;McDonald, 2012;Roberts & Sherratt, 1998). Second, dispersal may diminish an individual's relative rank or destabilize the hierarchy in the target group (Dey, Reddon, O'Connor, & Balshine, 2013;Jordan, Wong, & Balshine, 2010;Taborsky & Oliveira, 2012;Wong & Balshine, 2011b).…”

Individual recognition in a wild cooperative mammal using contact calls

“…This has been underscored by recent research on meerkat, Suricata suricatta, vocalizations (Schibler & Manser 2007;Townsend et al 2010). Using a habituationedishabituation playback experiment, McDonald (2012) showed that captive noisy miners, Manorina melanocephala, can discriminate between the mobbing calls of different individuals but it remains unknown whether the species uses this ability. Although studies have confirmed that cooperative species show class-level recognition, of kin or group members (Payne et al 1988;Price 1999;McDonald & Wright 2011;Leclaire et al 2013), 'true' individual recognition, apart from the recognition of offspring (Muller & Manser 2008) or the group's dominant female (Reber et al 2013), remains unverified.…”

Kin Signatures Learned in the Egg? Red-Backed Fairy-Wren Songs Are Similar to Their Mother's In-Nest Calls and Songs

“…This could be due to the critical importance of accurate kin recognition in a nest provisioning context, since there is a strong threat of brood parasitism from many cuckoo species (Cuculinae spp. ; Langmore et al, 2003;Colombelli-Négrel et al, 2012), and in a cooperative breeding context, since auxiliary helpers must ensure they assist adult kin (i.e., parents) and care only for siblings that are genetically related (McDonald and Wright, 2011;McDonald, 2012).…”

“…In birds specifically, associative learning of kin signatures appears to be the primary kin recognition mechanism, especially in cooperatively breeding species (Sharp et al, 2005;Caspers et al, 2013;Amo et al, 2014), and vocalizations are the most common communication modality used for avian kin recognition (Beecher, 1988;Riehl and Stern, 2015). Vocal kin signatures have been described in many taxonomic groups (Price, 1998;McDonald and Wright, 2011;Knörnschild et al, 2012) and vocal kin recognition has been experimentally supported in several mammal (Rendall et al, 1996) and bird species (Price, 1999;Sharp et al, 2005;McDonald, 2012;Akcay et al, 2013). Although these avian studies have laid excellent groundwork, our understanding of the occurrence and extent of vocal kin recognition across avian groups remains incomplete.…”