Barn owls do not interrupt their siblings

Dreiss, Amélie N.; Ruppli, Charlène A.; Oberli, Fréderic; Antoniazza, Sylvain; Henry, Isabelle; Roulin, Alexandre

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2013.04.019

Cited by 18 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 41 publications

(56 reference statements)

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“…Taken together, our results suggest that barn owl nestlings might be able to recognize siblings individually. This ability should be facilitated by the fact that usually one barn owl nestling calls alone during long periods of time (Bühler & Epple, ; Bunn et al ., ) and nestlings actively avoid to call simultaneously as their nestmates (Dreiss et al ., ). This implies that nestlings usually hear every sibling call and thereby can perceive all acoustic features useful to recognize the identity of their siblings.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Individual vocal signatures in barn owl nestlings: does individual recognition have an adaptive role in sibling vocal competition?

Dreiss

Ruppli

Roulin

2013

J of Evolutionary Biology

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To compete over limited parental resources, young animals communicate with their parents and siblings by producing honest vocal signals of need. Components of begging calls that are sensitive to food deprivation may honestly signal need, whereas other components may be associated with individualspecific attributes that do not change with time such as identity, sex, absolute age and hierarchy. In a sib-sib communication system where barn owl (Tyto alba) nestlings vocally negotiate priority access to food resources, we show that calls have individual signatures that are used by nestlings to recognize which siblings are motivated to compete, even if most vocalization features vary with hunger level. Nestlings were more identifiable when food-deprived than food-satiated, suggesting that vocal identity is emphasized when the benefit of winning a vocal contest is higher. In broods where siblings interact iteratively, we speculate that individual-specific signature permits siblings to verify that the most vocal individual in the absence of parents is the one that indeed perceived the food brought by parents. Individual recognition may also allow nestlings to associate identity with individual-specific characteristics such as position in the within-brood dominance hierarchy. Calls indeed revealed age hierarchy and to a lower extent sex and absolute age. Using a cross-fostering experimental design, we show that most acoustic features were related to the nest of origin (but not the nest of rearing), suggesting a genetic or an early developmental effect on the ontogeny of vocal signatures. To conclude, our study suggests that sibling competition has promoted the evolution of vocal behaviours that signal not only hunger level but also intrinsic individual characteristics such as identity, family, sex and age.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Individual vocal signatures in barn owl nestlings: does individual recognition have an adaptive role in sibling vocal competition?

Dreiss

Ruppli

Roulin

2013

J of Evolutionary Biology

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“…To reduce predation risk, nestlings may therefore be selected to produce informative vocal signals without having to call very loudly (Briskie, Martin, & Martin, 1999). More specifically, nestling barn owls follow specific turn-taking rules (Dreiss, Ruppli, Faller, et al, 2015) allowing them to avoid calling simultaneously (Dreiss, Ruppli, Oberli, et al, 2013). Hence, they would not need to call very loudly to overcome siblings.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

No need to shout: Effect of signal loudness on sibling communication in barn owls Tyto alba

et al. 2017

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In animal communication, signal loudness is often ignored and seldom measured. We used a playback experiment to examine the role of vocal loudness (i.e., sound pressure level) in sibling to sibling communication of nestling barn owls Tyto alba. In this species, siblings vocally negotiate among each other for priority access to parental food resources. Call rate and call duration play key roles in this vocal communication system, with the most vocal nestlings deterring their siblings from competing for access to the food item next delivered by parents. Here, we broadcast calls at different loudness levels and call rate to live nestlings. The loudness of playback calls did not affect owlets' investment in call rate, call duration or call loudness. The rate at which playback calls were broadcast affected owlets' call rate but did not influence their response in terms of loudness. This suggests that selection for producing loud signals may be weak in this species, as loud calls may attract predators. Moreover, given that owlets do not overlap their calls and that they communicate to nearby siblings in the silence of the night, loud signals may not be necessary to convey reliable information about food need.

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“…sibling's call overlaps to limit signal interference (Dreiss et al, 2013;Ducouret et al, 2018) and second, by favoring alternation of monologs (Dreiss et al, 2015). Indeed, during free vocal interactions between two siblings, 67% of calls are transmitted in monologs (i.e., 10 calls produced by one nestling without being interrupted by a sibling; Dreiss et al, 2015).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Art of Diplomacy in Vocally Negotiating Barn Owl Siblings

et al. 2019

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To resolve conflicts over limited resources, animals often communicate about their motivation to compete. When signals are transient, the resolution of conflicts may be achieved after an interactive process, with each contestant adjusting its signaling level according to the rival's behavior. Unfortunately, the importance of the real-time signal adjustment in conflict resolution remains understudied, especially using experimental approaches. Here we developed a novel "automatic interactive playback" that interacts real-time with a live individual. It allowed us to experimentally test the efficacy of different behavioral strategies to dominate conflicts in nestling barn owls (Tyto alba). In this species, nestlings vocally negotiate for priority access to the impending food item in the absence of parents. Two opposite vocal strategies were tested for their prospects of success: under the "matching" vs. "mismatching" strategy, the playback behaves in the same vs. opposed way as the nestling, respectively. We evaluated how these two strategies affected the two main negotiation parameters: call duration and call rate. We found that the best strategies to reduce the nestling's vocalizations and hence dominate the negotiation are to match the call duration of the opponent and to mismatch its call rate. However, the latter strategy is the only one that allowed the playback to dominate the vocal interaction by inducing the opponent to become totally silent. Therefore, to prevail in a negotiation session, barn owl nestlings should delay the transmission of signals rather than simultaneously escalate vocalizations as commonly observed in animal competitive interactions. In addition, we showed that matching call duration and mismatching call rate require a larger investment by the playback, in terms of number and duration of calls, than the less effective strategies. Assuming that vocalizations are costly, this suggests that such behavioral strategies are honest. Our results highlight the importance of real-time signaling adjustment in communication processes over resource competition and emphasize the power of using interactive playback settings to investigate conflict resolution in animals.

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Barn owls do not interrupt their siblings

Cited by 18 publications

References 41 publications

Individual vocal signatures in barn owl nestlings: does individual recognition have an adaptive role in sibling vocal competition?

Individual vocal signatures in barn owl nestlings: does individual recognition have an adaptive role in sibling vocal competition?

No need to shout: Effect of signal loudness on sibling communication in barn owls Tyto alba

The Art of Diplomacy in Vocally Negotiating Barn Owl Siblings

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