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

Dreiss, Amélie N.; Ruppli, Charlène A.; Roulin, Alexandre

doi:10.1111/jeb.12277

Cited by 18 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…As in human conversation (Stivers et al, 2009), the basic turn-taking rules demonstrated here do not depend on family, context of the social interaction, age hierarchy or hunger level. Although seniority influences vocal production with juniors producing more, longer and louder calls than seniors (Dreiss, Lahlah, et al, 2010;Dreiss et al, 2014; present study), turn-taking rules are similar in junior and senior siblings. Turn-taking rules, which allow each individual to determine when and how to start signalling, have only been described in a cooperative vocal exchange, such as duetting birds (Logue, Chalmers, & Gowland, 2008) and contact calls in some monkeys (Biben, Symmes, & Masataka, 1986;Hauser & Fowler, 1992;Takahashi et al, 2013), during antiphonal exchange of rapid phrases.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 73%

“…The senior individual was 5 days older than its junior sibling on average (range in age difference 1e15 days). We examined the effect of seniority rather than absolute age, because previous studies showed that seniority has a stronger effect on vocalization than absolute age (Dreiss, Ruppli, Faller, & Roulin, 2013;Dreiss, Ruppli, & Roulin, 2014). Nestlings were kept in these boxes for 2 days and 3 nights and then returned to their original nest in the field.…”

Section: Recording Vocal Interactions Between Pairs Of Siblingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, results were qualitatively similar if we modified the criteria (previous 1 or 3 min and last three calls, not shown). Because individuals vary in their mean call duration (Dreiss et al, 2014), we used a standardized measure of call duration for each individual by dividing each call duration by the average value of all calls. The focal nestling identity nested in both the pair of siblings and in the brood identity was a random factor.…”

Section: Social Vocal Rulesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social rules govern vocal competition in the barn owl

et al. 2015

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To resolve the share of limited resources, animals often compete through exchange of signals about their relative motivation to compete. When two competitors are similarly motivated, the resolution of conflicts may be achieved in the course of an interactive process. In barn owls, Tyto alba, in which siblings vocally compete during the prolonged absence of parents over access to the next delivered food item, we investigated what governs the decision to leave or enter a contest, and at which level. Siblings alternated periods during which one of the two individuals vocalized more than the other. Individuals followed turn-taking rules to interrupt each other and momentarily dominate the vocal competition. These social rules were weakly sensitive to hunger level and age hierarchy. Hence, the investment in a conflict is determined not only by need and resource-holding potential, but also by social interactions. The use of turn-taking rules governing individual vocal investment has rarely been shown in a competitive context. We hypothesized that these rules would allow individuals to remain alert to one another's motivation while maintaining the cost of vocalizing at the lowest level.© 2015 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour. Published by Elsevier Ltd.Natural selection has favoured the evolution of behaviours and weapons to outcompete conspecifics, or of communication systems to resolve the share of resources (Maynard Smith, 1982;Parker, 1974). The term 'negotiation' is usually used for humans who bargain for resources and the process typically ends with a decision about which part of the resource each participant obtains (Nash, 1950). Evolutionary ecologists also use this concept to define situations in which animals communicate to reach an agreement about how a resource is shared or how to invest in a collaborative task (Johnstone & Hinde, 2006;Johnstone & Roulin, 2003;McNamara, Gasson, & Houston, 1999;Patricelli, Krakauer, & McElreath, 2011;Sirot, 2012). An individual that presents conspicuous ornaments or signals at higher levels than its opponents (e.g. produces louder begging calls in nestling birds) usually gains easier access to these limited resources (Godfray, 1991;Kilner, Noble, & Davies, 1999), but, for transient signals, this average signal level can vary over short periods of time, independently of variation in need or condition (Briffa, Elwood, & Dick, 1998;Greenfield, Tourtellot, & Snedden, 1997). The contest outcome is then the result of an interactive process settled during repeated interactions (Briffa et al., 1998;Enquist & Leimar, 1983;Enquist, Leimar, Ljungberg, Mallner, & Segerdahl, 1990;Payne & Pagel, 1996). These variations in signal level during competitive interactions raise the possibility that animals assess the temporal dynamics of signal production and not only the absolute signalling level of conspecifics to adjust their behaviour (Patricelli, Uy, Walsh, & Borgia, 2002). Game theory has dominated the way evolutionary biologists envisage social interactions (Dobler & Koll...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 73%

Section: Recording Vocal Interactions Between Pairs Of Siblingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Social Vocal Rulesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Social rules govern vocal competition in the barn owl

et al. 2015

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“…PIC values represent the ratio of the coefficient of variance for the entire dataset to the within-individual coefficient of variance. Thus, a PIC value >1 indicates that a particular variable exhibits greater inter-individual than intra-individual variation, making it a likely candidate for containing individually distinc tive information (Charrier et al 2002, Dreiss et al 2014). …”

Section: Potential For Individuality Codingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Calls of North Atlantic right whales Eubalaena glacialis contain information on individual identity and age class

McCordic¹,

Root‐Gutteridge²,

Cusano³

et al. 2016

Endang. Species. Res.

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Passive acoustic monitoring is a powerful tool that allows remote detection of marine mammals through their vocalizations. While call detection provides information on species presence, additional information may be contained within the vocalizations that could provide more information regarding the demographics and/or number of individuals in a particular area based on passive acoustic detections. The North Atlantic right whale Eubalaena glacialis produces a stereotyped upswept call, termed the upcall, that is thought to function as a long-distance contact call in this species. As such, the call is likely to contain cues providing information about the individual producing it. The goal of this study was to test whether the right whale upcall could potentially encode information related to the identity and age of the caller. Using upcalls recorded from 14 known individuals through non-invasive suction cup archival acoustic tags, we demonstrate that the upcall does contain sufficient information to discriminate individual identity and age class, with average classification levels of 72.6 and 86.1%, respectively. Parameters measured from the fundamental frequency, duration, and formant structure were most important for discrimination among individuals. This study is the first step in demonstrating the feasibility of obtaining additional data from passive acoustic monitoring to aid in the conservation efforts for this highly endangered species.

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“…Visual scanning of recordings were done to verify the accuracy of the method ; for an acoustic description of calls, see Dreiss et al 2014).…”

Section: Playback Experimentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vocal communication regulates sibling competition over food stock

Dreiss

Gaime

Delarbre

et al. 2016

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Animals resolve conflicts over the share of resources by competing physically or signalling motivation with honest signals of need. In some species, young siblings vocally signal to each other their hunger level and the most vocal individual deters its siblings from competing for the non-divisible food item delivered at the next parental visit. This so-called sibling negotiation for forthcoming food has been studied only in this context. It therefore remains unclear whether siblings could also negotiate access to a pool of divisible resources, a situation that is similar to a group of individuals competing for an accessible food resource. To tackle this issue, we placed barn owl (Tyto alba) nestlings singly in artificial nests containing several mice, and we simulated the presence of a sibling calling at low or high rate using playback experiments. If nestling barn owls vocally negotiate over a divisible food stock, we propose the following two predictions. First, nestlings would vocally signal before eating from this stock of food, and second, numerous playback vocalizations would inhibit feeding. Accordingly, singleton nestlings vocalized just before consuming food stored in their artificial nest and they delayed the consumption of the food stock if hearing many playback calls. The production of such food-associated vocalizations has been observed in foraging adults in various birds and mammals, but never in young animals and when resource is divisible and easily accessible. Our study raises the possibility that vocal communication could evolve in a variety of competitive contexts. Significance statementWe present here the first experimental evidence that sibling barn owls use food-associated vocalizations to compete over the preys stored in the nest. Owlets emit calls just before consuming an available food item and broadcasting calls induces nestlings to temporarily refrain from eating from the food stock. This raises the possibility that vocal communication can mediate the share of a food stock accessible to all competitors.

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

Cited by 18 publications

References 61 publications

Social rules govern vocal competition in the barn owl

Social rules govern vocal competition in the barn owl

Calls of North Atlantic right whales Eubalaena glacialis contain information on individual identity and age class

Vocal communication regulates sibling competition over food stock

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