Individual distinctiveness in the mobbing call of a cooperative bird, the noisy miner 'Manorina melanocephala'

Title
Individual distinctiveness in the mobbing call of a cooperative bird, the noisy miner 'Manorina melanocephala'
Publication Date
2009
Author(s)
Kennedy, RAW
Evans, CS
McDonald, Paul
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9541-3304
Email: pmcdon21@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:pmcdon21
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Place of publication
United Kingdom
DOI
10.1111/j.1600-048X.2008.04682.x
UNE publication id
une:8034
Abstract
Individual differentiation is usually advantageous in maximising the fitness benefits of interactions with conspecifics. In social species, where intraspecific interactions are frequent, this is likely to be particularly important. Indeed, some form of differentiation underpins most hypotheses proposed to account for cooperative behaviour in birds. The auditory modality is a likely candidate for this function, particularly for species where individuals are widely spaced and in dense vegetation. In this study, we examined the acoustic structure of a distinctive mobbing signal, the 'chur' call, of the cooperatively breeding noisy miner 'Manorina melanocephala'. Using 250 calls from 25 individuals, a combination of spectrographic-based measurement of call parameters, cross-correlation and multi-dimensional scaling was used to test for systematic individual differences in call structure. Strong differences between individuals were observed in all measures, indicating that this call encodes sufficient information to facilitate individual differentiation. We then conducted a series of field playbacks to test the effect of the behaviour on conspecifics. Results demonstrated that the call, in isolation, has a clear attractant effect. Given that chur calls are synonymous with the characteristic cooperative mobbing behaviour of this species, these findings suggest they are likely to have an important function in coordinating complex social behaviour.
Link
Citation
Journal of Avian Biology, 40(5), p. 481-490
ISSN
1600-048X
0908-8857
Start page
481
End page
490

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