Why Animals Lie: How Dishonesty and Belief Can Coexist in a Signaling System

Rowell, Jonathan T.; Ellner, Stephen P.; Reeve, H. Kern

doi:10.1086/508809

Cited by 49 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…Note that skipping signalling steps is not deceptive in the usual sense of the word, as the subjects are not 'exaggerating' their aggressive intentions, but 'understating' them. Theoretical models of deceptive signalling have always focused on exaggeration [38][39][40][41] and we are not aware of any model that predicts the high levels of under-signalling that we found in the present study. Whether natural interactions also contain significant amounts of under-signalling is not known.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Song type matching is an honest early threat signal in a hierarchical animal communication system

et al. 2013

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Aggressive encounters between animals often involve significant amounts of signalling before or in lieu of physical fights. When, as is often the case, these apparent threat signals are neither inherently costly nor inherently indicative of fighting ability, we should ask whether they are in fact honest signals, i.e. do they predict that escalation is imminent? While signalling theories have indicated that such 'conventional' threat signals can honestly predict escalation, attempts to gather supporting empirical evidence have mostly failed. For example, recent studies in songbirds of song type matching (replying to an opponent's song with the same song type he has just sung) have failed to confirm that it predicts an eventual attack by the signaller. In the present study of song sparrows (Melospiza melodia), we tested the hypothesis that song type matching is an early threat signal in a hierarchical signalling system. We used an improved model-playback design that simulated an escalating intrusion onto the subject's territory: the simulated opponent first sang in hiding from the boundary before moving to the centre of the territory, where he revealed himself and continued to sing. We found that type matching beginning in the boundary phase and continuing into the escalation phase, or beginning immediately after the escalation, reliably predicted both subsequent escalated signalling (soft songs and wing waves) and subsequent attack on the model, supporting the hypothesis that type matching is a reliable early threat signal.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 62%

Song type matching is an honest early threat signal in a hierarchical animal communication system

et al. 2013

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“…This type of cost may be widespread as signals often provide public information accessible by multiple receivers. The effect of multiple receivers on signal evolution has been investigated both conceptually and theoretically [26,27]. These studies tended to focus on interactions among senders, receivers and eavesdroppers, ignoring variation in the states of the senders; however, in signalling evolution, considering variation in the states of senders (e.g.…”

Section: Discussion (A) Ecological Cost Of Signals With Multiple Recementioning

confidence: 99%

Cry-wolf signals emerging from coevolutionary feedbacks in a tritrophic system

et al. 2015

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For a communication system to be stable, senders should convey honest information. Providing dishonest information, however, can be advantageous to senders, which imposes a constraint on the evolution of communication systems. Beyond single populations and bitrophic systems, one may ask whether stable communication systems can evolve in multitrophic systems. Consider cross-species signalling where herbivore-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs) attract predators to reduce the damage from arthropod herbivores. Such plant signals may be honest and help predators to identify profitable prey/plant types via HIPV composition and to assess prey density via the amount of HIPVs. There could be selection for dishonest signals that attract predators for protection from possible future herbivory. Recently, we described a case in which plants release a fixed, high amount of HIPVs independent of herbivore load, adopting what we labelled a ‘cry-wolf’ strategy. To understand when such signals evolve, we model coevolutionary interactions between plants, herbivores and predators, and show that both ‘honest’ and ‘cry-wolf’ types can emerge, depending on the assumed plant–herbivore encounter rates and herbivore population density. It is suggested that the ‘cry-wolf’ strategy may have evolved to reduce the risk of heavy damage in the future. Our model suggests that eco-evolutionary feedback loops involving a third species may have important consequences for the stability of this outcome.

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“…Finally, our study also underscores the importance of considering the coupling between communication and behavioral effects when studying communication systems (33), which is rarely taken into account in current analytical and gametheoretical models (34,35). Evolutionary robotic systems implicitly encompass many behavioral components, such as the inadvertent production of information through foraging behavior, thus allowing for an unbiased investigation of the factors driving signal evolution.…”

Section: Within-populationmentioning

confidence: 92%

The evolution of information suppression in communicating robots with conflicting interests

Mitri

Floreano

Keller

2009

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Reliable information is a crucial factor influencing decision-making and, thus, fitness in all animals. A common source of information comes from inadvertent cues produced by the behavior of conspecifics. Here we use a system of experimental evolution with robots foraging in an arena containing a food source to study how communication strategies can evolve to regulate information provided by such cues. The robots could produce information by emitting blue light, which the other robots could perceive with their cameras. Over the first few generations, the robots quickly evolved to successfully locate the food, while emitting light randomly. This behavior resulted in a high intensity of light near food, which provided social information allowing other robots to more rapidly find the food. Because robots were competing for food, they were quickly selected to conceal this information. However, they never completely ceased to produce information. Detailed analyses revealed that this somewhat surprising result was due to the strength of selection on suppressing information declining concomitantly with the reduction in information content. Accordingly, a stable equilibrium with low information and considerable variation in communicative behaviors was attained by mutation selection. Because a similar coevolutionary process should be common in natural systems, this may explain why communicative strategies are so variable in many animal species.cues ͉ signals ͉ variation A nimals acquire information through trial-and-error while interacting with the physical environment (personal information) or by monitoring the behavior of conspecifics (social information) (1). Social information can be based on traits or behaviors that were selected to regulate information transmission (signals) or on cues provided inadvertently (1, 2). Cues are thought to be common sources of information in nature. Indeed, in many species, individuals have been shown to monitor each other to decide how to behave (3-9). For example, when foraging, simply observing the behavior of conspecifics can inform an animal about the location of a source of food (10, 11). In many situations, producing inadvertent cues will also affect an individual's own fitness and should thus be under selection, with the consequence that cues providing inadvertent social information should evolve into signals. Importantly, selection on inadvertent cues may frequently take the form of decreasing the social information provided. An example of this would be birds living in a roost trying to hide information from other group members about a food source they have discovered (12).Although the evolution of signals has been extensively studied, most research has focused on signaling as an independent behavior, decoupled from its social and behavioral context (13). As a result, relatively little attention has been given to social information provided by cues and its influence on signal evolution. To address this issue we devised a system of experimental evolution with groups of competin...

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Why Animals Lie: How Dishonesty and Belief Can Coexist in a Signaling System

Cited by 49 publications

References 50 publications

Song type matching is an honest early threat signal in a hierarchical animal communication system

Song type matching is an honest early threat signal in a hierarchical animal communication system

Cry-wolf signals emerging from coevolutionary feedbacks in a tritrophic system

The evolution of information suppression in communicating robots with conflicting interests

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