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Dominguez JS, Rakovic M, Li D, Pollock HS, Lawson S, Novcic I, Su X, Zeng Q, Al-Dhufari R, Johnson-Cadle S, Boldrick J, Chamberlain M, Hauber ME. What's the rumpus? Resident temperate forest birds approach an unfamiliar neotropical alarm call across three continents. Biol Lett 2023; 19:20230332. [PMID: 37788715 PMCID: PMC10547545 DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2023.0332] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/19/2023] [Accepted: 09/18/2023] [Indexed: 10/05/2023] Open
Abstract
Alarm signals have evolved to communicate pertinent threats to conspecifics, but heterospecifics may also use alarm calls to obtain social information. In birds, mixed-species flocks are often structured around focal sentinel species, which produce reliable alarm calls that inform eavesdropping heterospecifics about predation risk. Prior research has shown that Neotropical species innately recognize the alarm calls of a Nearctic sentinel species, but it remains unclear how generalizable or consistent such innate signal recognition of alarm-calling species is. We tested for the responses to the alarm calls of a Neotropical sentinel forest bird species, the dusky-throated antshrike (Thamnomanes ardesiacus), by naive resident temperate forest birds across three continents during the winter season. At all three sites, we found that approaches to the Neotropical antshrike alarm calls were similarly frequent to the alarm calls of a local parid sentinel species (positive control), while approaches to the antshrike's songs and to non-threatening columbid calls (negative controls) occurred significantly less often. Although we only tested one sentinel species, our findings indicate that temperate forest birds can recognize and adaptively respond globally to a foreign and unfamiliar tropical alarm call, and suggest that some avian alarm calls transcend phylogenetic histories and individual ecological experiences.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jonah S. Dominguez
- Department of Evolution, Ecology & Behavior, School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
- Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
| | - Marko Rakovic
- Department of Biology and Inland Waters Protection, University of Belgrade-Institute for Multidisciplinary Research, Despota Stefana Boulevard 142, Belgrade 11060, Serbia
| | - Donglai Li
- Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Resource and Epidemic Disease Prevention, College of Life Sciences, Liaoning University, Shenyang, People's Republic of China
| | - Henry S. Pollock
- Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
| | - Shelby Lawson
- Carl R Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
| | - Ivana Novcic
- Faculty of Biology, University of Belgrade, Studentski trg 16, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia
| | - Xiangting Su
- Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Resource and Epidemic Disease Prevention, College of Life Sciences, Liaoning University, Shenyang, People's Republic of China
| | - Qisha Zeng
- Provincial Key Laboratory of Animal Resource and Epidemic Disease Prevention, College of Life Sciences, Liaoning University, Shenyang, People's Republic of China
| | - Roqaya Al-Dhufari
- Department of Evolution, Ecology & Behavior, School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
| | - Shanelle Johnson-Cadle
- Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
| | - Julia Boldrick
- Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
| | - Mac Chamberlain
- Department of Evolution, Ecology & Behavior, School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
| | - Mark E. Hauber
- Department of Evolution, Ecology & Behavior, School of Integrative Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
- Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
- Carl R Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA
- Advanced Science Research Center and Program in Psychology, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 85 Saint Nicholas Terrace, New York, NY 10031, USA
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He QL, Deng K, Wang XP, Chen QH, Wang TL, Wang JC, Cui JG. Heterospecific eavesdropping on disturbance cues of a treefrog. Anim Cogn 2023; 26:515-522. [PMID: 36131103 DOI: 10.1007/s10071-022-01690-w] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2022] [Revised: 08/30/2022] [Accepted: 09/04/2022] [Indexed: 11/01/2022]
Abstract
Alarm signals and cues are crucial to animal survival and vary greatly across species. Eavesdropping on heterospecific alarm signals and cues can provide eavesdroppers with information about potential threats. In addition to acoustic alarm signals, evidence has accumulated that chemical alarm cues and disturbance cues can also play a role in alerting conspecifics to potential danger in adult anurans (frogs and toads). However, there is very little known about whether disturbance cues are exploited by heterospecifics. In the present study, we conducted a binary choice experiment and a prey chemical discrimination experiment, respectively, to test the responses of a sympatric anuran species (red webbed treefrogs, Rhacophorus rhodopus) and a sympatric predator species (Chinese green tree vipers, Trimeresurus stejnegeri) to disturbance odors emitted by serrate-legged small treefrogs (Kurixalus odontotarsus). In the binary choice experiment, we found that the presence of disturbance odors did not significantly trigger the avoidance behavior of R. rhodopus. In the prey chemical discrimination experiment, compared with odors from undisturbed K. odontotarsus (control odors) and odorless control, T. stejnegeri showed a significantly higher tongue-flick rate in response to disturbance odors. This result implies that disturbance odor cues of K. odontotarsus can be exploited by eavesdropping predators to detect prey. Our study provides partial evidence for heterospecific eavesdropping on disturbance cues and has an important implication for understanding heterospecific eavesdropping on chemical cues of adult anurans.
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Affiliation(s)
- Qiao-Ling He
- CAS Key Laboratory of Mountain Ecological Restoration and Bioresource Utilization and Ecological Restoration and Biodiversity Conservation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.9 Section 4, Renmin South Road, Chengdu, 610041, China.,University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100049, China
| | - Ke Deng
- CAS Key Laboratory of Mountain Ecological Restoration and Bioresource Utilization and Ecological Restoration and Biodiversity Conservation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.9 Section 4, Renmin South Road, Chengdu, 610041, China.
| | - Xiao-Ping Wang
- CAS Key Laboratory of Mountain Ecological Restoration and Bioresource Utilization and Ecological Restoration and Biodiversity Conservation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.9 Section 4, Renmin South Road, Chengdu, 610041, China.,University of Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, 100049, China
| | - Qing-Hua Chen
- Ministry of Ecology and Environment, South China Institute of Environmental Sciences, Guangzhou, 510530, China
| | - Tong-Liang Wang
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Ecology of Tropical Islands, Key Laboratory of Tropical Animal and Plant Ecology of Hainan Province, College of Life Sciences, Hainan Normal University, Haikou, 571158, China
| | - Ji-Chao Wang
- Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Ecology of Tropical Islands, Key Laboratory of Tropical Animal and Plant Ecology of Hainan Province, College of Life Sciences, Hainan Normal University, Haikou, 571158, China
| | - Jian-Guo Cui
- CAS Key Laboratory of Mountain Ecological Restoration and Bioresource Utilization and Ecological Restoration and Biodiversity Conservation Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.9 Section 4, Renmin South Road, Chengdu, 610041, China.
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Martínez AE, Parra E, Gomez JP, Vredenburg VT. Shared predators between primate groups and mixed species bird flocks: the potential for forest‐wide eavesdropping networks. OIKOS 2021. [DOI: 10.1111/oik.08274] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Ari E. Martínez
- Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and Dept of Integrative Biology, Univ. of California Berkeley CA USA
- Dept of Biological Sciences, California State Univ. Long Beach CA USA
| | - Eliseo Parra
- Dept of Biology, San Francisco State Univ. San Francisco CA USA
| | - Juan Pablo Gomez
- Depto de Química y Biología, Univ. del Norte Barranquilla Colombia
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4
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Jedlikowski J, Polak M, Koperski P, Ręk P. Response to heterospecific calls in non‐passerine species: can two Rallidae species recognise each other based on their vocalisations? Ethology 2021. [DOI: 10.1111/eth.13208] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/30/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Jan Jedlikowski
- Faculty of Biology Biological and Chemical Research Centre University of Warsaw Warszawa Poland
| | - Marcin Polak
- Department of Zoology and Nature Protection Institute of Biological Sciences Maria Curie–Skłodowska University Lublin Poland
| | - Paweł Koperski
- Department of Hydrobiology Faculty of Biology Biological and Chemical Research Centre University of Warsaw Warszawa Poland
| | - Paweł Ręk
- Department of Behavioural Ecology Institute of Environmental Biology Faculty of Biology Adam Mickiewicz University Poznań Poland
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Rutt CL, Stouffer PC. Seasonal dynamics of flock interaction networks across a human-modified landscape in lowland Amazonian rain forest. ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS : A PUBLICATION OF THE ECOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 2021; 31:e02235. [PMID: 33048392 DOI: 10.1002/eap.2235] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/06/2020] [Revised: 07/07/2020] [Accepted: 08/16/2020] [Indexed: 06/11/2023]
Abstract
Although lowland tropical rain forests were once widely believed to be the archetype of stability, seasonal variation exists. In these environments, seasonality is defined by rainfall, leading to a predictable pattern of biotic and abiotic changes. Only the full annual cycle reveals niche breadth, yet most studies of tropical organisms ignore seasonality, thereby underestimating realized conditions. If human-modified habitats display more seasonal stress than intact habitats, then ignoring seasonality will have particularly important repercussions for conservation. We examined the seasonal dynamics of Amazonian mixed-species flocks, an important species interaction network, across three habitats with increasing human disturbance. We quantified seasonal space use, species richness and attendance, and four ecological network metrics for flocks in primary forest, small forest fragments, and regenerating secondary forest in central Amazonia. Our results indicate that, even in intact, lowland rain forest, mixed-species flocks exhibit seasonal differences. During the dry season, flocks included more species, generally ranged over larger areas, and displayed network structures that were less complex and less cohesive. We speculate that-because most flocking species nest during the dry season, a time of reduced arthropod abundance-flocks are simultaneously constrained by these two competing pressures. Moreover, these seasonal differences were most pronounced in forest fragments and secondary forest, habitats that are less buffered from the changing seasons. Our results suggest that seasonality influences the conservation value of human-modified habitats, raising important questions about how rain forest organisms will cope with an increasingly unstable climate.
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Affiliation(s)
- Cameron L Rutt
- Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Manaus, AM, Brazil
- School of Renewable Natural Resources, Louisiana State University AgCenter and Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 70803, USA
| | - Philip C Stouffer
- Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Manaus, AM, Brazil
- School of Renewable Natural Resources, Louisiana State University AgCenter and Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 70803, USA
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Fang WH, Hsu YH, Lin WL, Yen SC. The function of avian mobbing: an experimental test of ‘attract the mightier’ hypothesis. Anim Behav 2020. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2020.10.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
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7
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Does Liolaemus lemniscatus eavesdrop on the distress calls of the sympatric weeping lizard? J ETHOL 2020. [DOI: 10.1007/s10164-020-00666-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Abstract
AbstractFor a prey, its best ticket to stay alive is to get early and accurate information on predation risk and so, escape from predation at low cost. Some prey species have evolved the ability to eavesdrop signals intended for others, which contain information on predation risk. This is the case for the vocalizations produced by prey species when interacting with predators. Although primarily studied in birds and mammals, eavesdropping on vocal signals has been recorded in some lizard species. Here, we explored whether the lizard Liolaemus lemniscatus eavesdrops on the distress calls of its sympatric species, the Weeping lizard (L. chiliensis). Individuals of the Weeping lizard respond to these calls by displaying antipredator behaviours (i.e., reduced movement), and individuals of L. lemniscatus may potentially display similar defences if they decode the information contained in these calls. Our playback experiments showed that individuals of L. lemniscatus responded to the sound stimuli (distress calls and white noise), reducing their activity, but they did not discriminate between these two stimuli, suggesting that L. lemniscatus does not eavesdrop on the distress calls of its sympatric lizard species. We discuss some hypotheses to explain the lack of eavesdropping by L. lemniscatus on the Weeping lizard distress calls.
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Ocampo-Ariza C, Denis K, Njie Motombi F, Bobo KS, Kreft H, Waltert M. Extinction thresholds and negative responses of Afrotropical ant-following birds to forest cover loss in oil palm and agroforestry landscapes. Basic Appl Ecol 2019. [DOI: 10.1016/j.baae.2019.06.008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/29/2022]
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9
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Macedo G, Silva M, Amaral FRD, Maldonado-Coelho M. Symmetrical discrimination despite weak song differentiation in 2 suboscine bird sister species. Behav Ecol 2019. [DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arz066] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Abstract
Song mediates territorial competition and mate choice in birds and population divergence in this signal can have important evolutionary consequences. For example, divergent songs can act in specific recognition and limit gene flow and, hence, have a fundamental role on the origin and/or integrity of evolutionary lineages. Especially interesting systems to test the role of song in specific recognition are species pairs that present small structural differences in this signal. Here, we perform song play-back experiments on males of a long-diverged sister pair of Neotropical Suboscine species, the squamate antbird (Myrmoderus squamosus) and the white-bibbed antbird (Myrmoderus loricatus), which occur in parapatry in the Atlantic Forest and that overlap extensively in song variation. Previous evidence indicates that genetic introgression between these species is either absent or negligible, suggesting that vocal discrimination or other mechanisms function as effective barriers to gene flow. Our results show that responses to heterospecific songs were symmetrical and intermediary compared with responses to conspecific songs in both species. A stronger response to conspecific territorial songs suggests that conspecific individuals pose greater competitive threat than heterospecifics. An important implication of our study is that even small song differences can play an important role in specific recognition.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gabriel Macedo
- Instituto de Ciências Ambientais, Químicas e Farmacêuticas, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Diadema, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Marco Silva
- SAVE Brasil, BirdLife International, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Fábio Raposo do Amaral
- Instituto de Ciências Ambientais, Químicas e Farmacêuticas, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Diadema, São Paulo, Brazil
| | - Marcos Maldonado-Coelho
- Instituto de Ciências Ambientais, Químicas e Farmacêuticas, Universidade Federal de São Paulo, Diadema, São Paulo, Brazil
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Huang X, Metzner W, Zhang K, Wang Y, Luo B, Sun C, Jiang T, Feng J. Acoustic similarity elicits responses to heterospecific distress calls in bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera). Anim Behav 2018. [DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2018.10.018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 8] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/26/2022]
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Pollock HS, Martínez AE, Kelley JP, Touchton JM, Tarwater CE. Heterospecific eavesdropping in ant-following birds of the Neotropics is a learned behaviour. Proc Biol Sci 2018; 284:rspb.2017.1785. [PMID: 29046379 DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.1785] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/09/2017] [Accepted: 09/18/2017] [Indexed: 11/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Animals eavesdrop on other species to obtain information about their environments. Heterospecific eavesdropping can yield tangible fitness benefits by providing valuable information about food resources and predator presence. The ability to eavesdrop may therefore be under strong selection, although extensive research on alarm-calling in avian mixed-species flocks has found only limited evidence that close association with another species could select for innate signal recognition. Nevertheless, very little is known about the evolution of eavesdropping behaviour and the mechanism of heterospecific signal recognition, particularly in other ecological contexts, such as foraging. To understand whether heterospecific eavesdropping was an innate or learned behaviour in a foraging context, we studied heterospecific signal recognition in ant-following birds of the Neotropics, which eavesdrop on vocalizations of obligate ant-following species to locate and recruit to swarms of the army ant Eciton burchellii, a profitable food resource. We used a playback experiment to compare recruitment of ant-following birds to vocalizations of two obligate species at a mainland site (where both species are present) and a nearby island site (where one species remains whereas the other went extinct approx. 40 years ago). We found that ant-following birds recruited strongly to playbacks of the obligate species present at both island and mainland sites, but the island birds did not recruit to playbacks of the absent obligate species. Our results strongly suggest that (i) ant-following birds learn to recognize heterospecific vocalizations from ecological experience and (ii) island birds no longer recognize the locally extinct obligate species after eight generations of absence from the island. Although learning appears to be the mechanism of heterospecific signal recognition in ant-following birds, more experimental tests are needed to fully understand the evolution of eavesdropping behaviour.
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Affiliation(s)
- Henry S Pollock
- Program in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 505 S. Goodwin Avenue, Champaign, IL 61801, USA .,Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, Colorado State University, 1474 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA
| | - Ari E Martínez
- Department of Biology, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132, USA
| | - J Patrick Kelley
- Department of Zoology and Biodiversity Research Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1Z4.,Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University Avenue, Laramie, WY 82071, USA
| | | | - Corey E Tarwater
- Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming, 1000 E. University Avenue, Laramie, WY 82071, USA
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