Dear Enemy Effect

Tumulty, James P.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-47829-6_693-1

Cited by 24 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…In support of the dear enemy hypothesis [54,55], reactivity by juveniles was demonstrated by their response to calls of neighbours but not of strangers. Such reactivity, however, was confined to non-vocal behaviour, confirming that it is important not just to measure vocal responses but other changes of behaviour as well.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Development of Meaningful Vocal Signals in a Juvenile Territorial Songbird (Gymnorhina tibicen) and the Dilemma of Vocal Taboos Concerning Neighbours and Strangers

Kaplan

2018

Animals

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Simple SummaryOwnership of a territory is very important for many vertebrates. Some songbird species, such as the Australian magpie, have all-year-round, not just seasonal, territories. Hence, there is a good deal at stake in holding on to such a territory. It requires vigilance, experience, an excellent memory, and most of all, effective vocal communication. There is a strong relationship between successful territorial ownership, strong social bonds, and the health, survival, even the life-span and overall cognitive development of offspring. Yet, we know next to nothing as to how juveniles acquire their vocal skills and apply these appropriately, including territorial signals. Clearly, juveniles need to learn about territoriality, i.e., learn about potential enemies, recognise which birds are neighbours, and what constitutes an incursion into territory. The results of this extensive field study unexpectedly revealed that juveniles did not use more than half of all the vocalisations adults expressed and they needed a long time (three months post fledging) to distinguish between neighbour and stranger calls, attributing differential importance to each. It also showed that the territorial call was learned but was expected by adults not be used by juveniles, limiting their ability to communicate. A range of other calls associated with territoriality were also not expressed, possibly because only territory owners could do so.AbstractYoung territorial songbirds have calls to learn, especially calls that may be vital for maintaining territory. Territoriality is largely reinforced and communicated by vocal signals. In their natal territory, juvenile magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen) enjoy protection from predators for 8–9 months. It is not at all clear, however, when and how a young territorial songbird learns to distinguish the meaning of calls and songs expressed by parents, conspecifics, neighbours, and heterospecifics, or how territorial calls are incorporated into the juvenile’s own repertoire. This project investigated acquisition and expression of the vocal repertoire in juvenile magpies and assessed the responses of adults and juveniles to playbacks of neighbour and stranger calls inside their territory. The results reported here identify age of appearance of specific vocalisations and the limits of their expression in juveniles. One new and surprising result was that many types of adult vocalisation were not voiced by juveniles. Playbacks of calls of neighbours and strangers inside the natal territory further established that adults responded strongly but differentially to neighbours versus strangers. By contrast, juveniles needed months before paying any attention to and distinguishing between neighbour and stranger calls and eventually did so only in non-vocal ways (such as referral to adults). These results provide evidence that auditory perception not only includes recognition and memory of neighbour calls but also an assessment of the importance of such calls in the context of territoriality.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Development of Meaningful Vocal Signals in a Juvenile Territorial Songbird (Gymnorhina tibicen) and the Dilemma of Vocal Taboos Concerning Neighbours and Strangers

Kaplan

2018

Animals

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“…Lacertid lizards are also able to remember the spatial location of scent marks (Carazo et al, 2008), so males could build a spatial map of neighboring rivals. In this way, they can decide which neighbors could exert a major threat to their territories and address aggression against their direct competitors, minimizing both the energetic costs of territory defense and the risks of suffering injuries or predation, according to the paradigm of the “dear‐enemy effect” (Carazo et al, 2008; Tumulty, 2018; Whiting, 1999; Ydenberg, 1988).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Close encounters of the three morphs: Does color affect aggression in a polymorphic lizard?

Scali

Sacchi

Coladonato

et al. 2021

Aggressive Behavior

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Color polymorphism is genetically controlled, and the process generating and maintaining morphs can affect speciation/extinction rates. Color badges are useful signals in intraspecific communication because they convey information about alternative strategies and can potentially decrease unnecessary conflicts among different color morphs. Competition and aggressive interactions among color morphs can contribute to polymorphism maintenance. This could lead to an uneven spatial distribution of morphs in a population because the local frequency of each morph establishes the intensity of the competition and the fitness of each male. We used a polymorphic lizard, Podarcis muralis, to assess if aggression varies among morphs under two contrasting hypotheses: a heteromorphic versus homomorphic aggression. We used laboratory mirror tests after lizard color manipulation, and we verified the consistency of results with an analysis of the spatial distribution of morphs in a wild population. Both the experiments confirmed that aggression is more common during homomorphic than heteromorphic contests. The adoption of alternative behavioral strategies that minimize risks and costs could facilitate the stable coexistence of the phenotypes and reduce competition. A bias in aggression would advantage rarer morph, which would suffer less harassment by common morphs obtaining a fitness advantage. This process would be negatively‐frequency‐dependent and would stabilize polymorphism, possibly contributing to sympatric speciation.

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“…Consider a neighborhood where many individuals are defending territories across a landscape. Territory holders often recognize neighbors and only respond aggressively to strangers, producing a phenomenon called the "dear enemy effect" (Fisher, 1954;Wilson, 1975;Tumulty, 2018). Even if every territory holder recognizes neighbors, they won't agree on which individuals belong to this social category.…”

Section: Recognition Systems Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

What Drives Diversity in Social Recognition Mechanisms?

Tumulty

Sheehan

2020

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Recognition allows animals to categorize social partners and differentiate among them in adaptive ways. Recognition systems are a fundamental component of social interactions, and a major goal for behavioral and evolutionary ecology is to understand the factors that influence the diversity of traits involved in social recognition across species and contexts. Here we argue that recognition is best understood as the interaction between a population of diverse senders and receivers with different perspectives and experiences. Receivers vary in the extent to which they agree on the category membership of senders and this variation is a key parameter that may explain the diverse evolutionary pressures shaping recognition systems. High receiver agreement (e.g., sex recognition) should favor uniformity in signals and innate recognition templates in receivers, while low receiver agreement (e.g., neighbor recognition) should tend to favor diversity in signals and flexible learning in receivers. Further, variation in how specifically receivers categorize senders may constrain the evolution of signals that need to function for multiple audiences. It remains an open question how receivers integrate multiple signals of different types of social categories. By framing recognition systems in a population context we hope this perspective will help spur new efforts to model and empirically investigate the mechanisms underlying the diversity of recognition systems across animals.

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Dear Enemy Effect

Cited by 24 publications

References 9 publications

Development of Meaningful Vocal Signals in a Juvenile Territorial Songbird (Gymnorhina tibicen) and the Dilemma of Vocal Taboos Concerning Neighbours and Strangers

Development of Meaningful Vocal Signals in a Juvenile Territorial Songbird (Gymnorhina tibicen) and the Dilemma of Vocal Taboos Concerning Neighbours and Strangers

Close encounters of the three morphs: Does color affect aggression in a polymorphic lizard?

What Drives Diversity in Social Recognition Mechanisms?

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