Provisioning calls of the cooperatively breeding bell miner 'Manorina melanophrys' encode sufficient information for individual discrimination

Title
Provisioning calls of the cooperatively breeding bell miner 'Manorina melanophrys' encode sufficient information for individual discrimination
Publication Date
2007
Author(s)
McDonald, Paul
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9541-3304
Email: pmcdon21@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:pmcdon21
Heathcote, CF
Clarke, MF
Wright, Jonathan
Kazem, AJN
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Place of publication
United Kingdom
DOI
10.1111/j.2007.0908-8857.03753.x
UNE publication id
une:8151
Abstract
Acoustically-mediated individual discrimination has been the focus of much investigation in ornithology. For cooperatively breeding species, strong selection pressure favouring individual recognition during acts of altruism is predicted under many of the most interesting hypotheses proposed to account for helping behaviour. We investigated differences in 157 calls given by 12 different individuals as they provisioned nestlings, including both breeding and helper bell miners 'Manorina melanophrys' (Meliphagidae), a cooperatively breeding honeyeater endemic to south-eastern Australia. Individual differences were apparent in all 15 call parameters analysed, many with a high level of repeatability. Moreover, the information capacity of mew calls allows as many as 515 different signatures to exist in the system. As many parameters showed strong sex differences, separate discriminant functions were used to predict individual identity within each sex. Five parameters were used in a function that correctly identified over 90% of female calls in both a training (n=35) and test dataset (n=11) not used to generate the function. Among males, a separate function used six parameters to correctly assign individual identity in 89.3% (n=84; training) and 77.8% (n=27; test) of cases. Three original parameters, including spectral and spatial characteristics, were highly correlated with functions predicting identity in both sexes. The accuracy of functions was not influenced by a signaller's sex, breeding status, or by sampling period which was spread over as much as two breeding seasons within individuals. Significant potential therefore exists for bell miners to use these simple provisioning calls in individual discrimination. If this is the case, call information also has the potential to be used by receivers as predicted by signalling hypotheses proposed to account for cooperative helping behaviour, such as the pay-to-stay and social prestige hypotheses.
Link
Citation
Journal of Avian Biology, 38(1), p. 113-121
ISSN
1600-048X
0908-8857
Start page
113
End page
121

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