Kith or Kin? Familiarity as a Cue to Kinship in Social Birds

Leedale, Amy E.; Li, Jianqiang; Hatchwell, Ben J.

doi:10.3389/fevo.2020.00077

Cited by 20 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 105 publications

(167 reference statements)

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“…Further investigation into the learning and development of vocal cues in situations where there are multiple potential tutors is a worthwhile avenue for further study. Familiarity is the most widely supported mechanism of kin recognition in cooperatively breeding birds (71,72), with kin association during extended brood care providing the sensitive period during which reliable recognition templates can form (7). In long-tailed tits, it is very likely that first-order kin are associated during this crucial period, but there are instances in which this is not the case.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Helping decisions and kin recognition in long-tailed tits: is call similarity used to direct help towards kin?

Leedale

Lachlan

Robinson

et al. 2020

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Most cooperative breeders live in discrete family groups, but in a minority, breeding populations comprise extended social networks of conspecifics that vary in relatedness. Selection for effective kin recognition may be expected for more related individuals in such kin neighbourhoods to maximize indirect fitness. Using a long-term social pedigree, molecular genetics, field observations and acoustic analyses, we examine how vocal similarity affects helping decisions in the long-tailed tit Aegithalos caudatus . Long-tailed tits are cooperative breeders in which help is typically redirected by males that have failed in their own breeding attempts towards the offspring of male relatives living within kin neighbourhoods. We identify a positive correlation between call similarity and kinship, suggesting that vocal cues offer a plausible mechanism for kin discrimination. Furthermore, we show that failed breeders choose to help males with calls more similar to their own. However, although helpers fine-tune their provisioning rates according to how closely related they are to recipients, their effort was not correlated with their vocal similarity to helped breeders. We conclude that although vocalizations are an important part of the recognition system of long-tailed tits, discrimination is likely to be based on prior association and may involve a combination of vocal and non-vocal cues. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Signal detection theory in recognition systems: from evolving models to experimental tests’.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Helping decisions and kin recognition in long-tailed tits: is call similarity used to direct help towards kin?

Leedale

Lachlan

Robinson

et al. 2020

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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“…Early-life associations can be a cue for kin discrimination (e.g. [17]) and lead to strong preferences later in life [18][19][20][21]. For example, newborn pipistrelle bats (Pipistrellus kuhlii) raised in separate groups for six weeks preferred to associate with and groom familiar conspecifics and heterospecifics after being released into a common flight cage [20,21].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forced proximity promotes the formation of enduring cooperative relationships in vampire bats

2022

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Spatial assortment can be both a cause and a consequence of cooperation. Proximity promotes cooperation when individuals preferentially help nearby partners, and conversely, cooperation drives proximity when individuals move towards more cooperative partners. However, these two causal directions are difficult to distinguish with observational data. Here, we experimentally test if forcing randomly selected pairs of equally familiar female common vampire bats ( Desmodus rotundus ) into close spatial proximity promotes the formation of enduring cooperative relationships. Over 114 days, we sampled 682 h of interactions among 21 females captured from three distant sites to track daily allogrooming rates over time. We compared these rates before, during and after a one-week period, during which we caged random triads of previously unfamiliar and unrelated vampire bats in proximity. After the week of proximity when all bats could again freely associate, the allogrooming rates of pairs forced into proximity increased more than those of the 126 control pairs. This work is the first to experimentally demonstrate the causal effect of repeated interactions on cooperative investments in vampire bats. Future work should determine the relative importance of mere association versus interactions (e.g. reciprocal allogrooming) in shaping social preferences.

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“…Relatedness and familiarity are often inherently linked within siblings due to their shared raising environment and are difficult to tease apart (Leedale et al, 2020): even when studies have found evidence that siblings preferentially associate over unrelated individuals, they rarely separate genetic relatedness from more simple cue-based familiarity (e.g. Bonadonna and Sanz-Aguilar, 2012; Kurvers et al, 2013).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Intergenerational effects from spatial and genetic environment predict early-life social network structure

Franks

Thorogood

Brekke

2022

Preprint

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Early independence is a crucial stage in the ontogeny of social environments, but it is often challenging to study in the wild. Genetics may structure groups if young animals associate with familiar kin, but association opportunities also develop as a by-product of environmental processes such as spatial resource distribution. The contribution of these alternate factors in initial opportunities for bonding outside direct relatives is difficult to pick apart, despite its importance in shaping later life. However, species where genetics and spatial structure are less closely coupled (for example, via extra-pair mating) provide a natural opportunity to disentangle these effects. We addressed this gap by investigating the contribution of relatedness versus spatiotemporal synchrony (natal nest-box location and fledge timing) to early-life social structure in newly-independent young hihi (Notiomystis cincta). We also investigated the contribution of inbreeding in both juveniles and their parents, to individual-level sociality, as this genetic factor has had limited focus in studies of social structure. Using a long-term genetic pedigree, detailed breeding records, and social network data collected across three cohorts, we found that juvenile social associations were predicted by natal nest-box location, irrespective of relatedness between juveniles. Therefore, the physical environment can create initial opportunities for associations to develop once young animals disperse from natal sites. Furthermore, juvenile sociability was predicted by their father’s (but not mother’s) inbreeding, highlighting how genetics may have indirect and intergenerational effects on social behaviour. Overall, social structure in wild animals can emerge early in life if the natal environment determines association opportunities. These patterns may even be pre-determined across generations if breeding and settlement decisions made by parents affect the physical and social environments experienced by their offspring. Ultimately, our study highlights how influences on early life social structure may have important consequences for population dynamics and evolutionary potential.

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Kith or Kin? Familiarity as a Cue to Kinship in Social Birds

Cited by 20 publications

References 105 publications

Helping decisions and kin recognition in long-tailed tits: is call similarity used to direct help towards kin?

Helping decisions and kin recognition in long-tailed tits: is call similarity used to direct help towards kin?

Forced proximity promotes the formation of enduring cooperative relationships in vampire bats

Intergenerational effects from spatial and genetic environment predict early-life social network structure

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