Begging coordination between siblings in Black-headed Gulls.
Communication behaviours are now considered from a signallers-receivers network perspective. This concept seems well suited to the study of interactions between parents and offspring in birds, so far mainly treated as a dyadic signalling system involving the brood or a single chick as a signaller and the parent as a receiver. Family conflicts over resource allocation drive parent-offspring and sib-sib communication. In the Black-headed Gull Larus ridibundus, parents respond to the whole-brood begging intensity and siblings often synchronize their begging signalling thus limiting individual effort. By monitoring five nests of two-chick broods during the whole rearing period in the nest, we show how an intra-brood simultaneity of begging emerges from successive phases of solitary begging of junior and senior nestlings. Although this result remains preliminary due to the sample size, it underlines a dynamical aspect of chicks' behaviour. Because they always favour coordinated begging and because they elevate their response threshold across the rearing period, parents may play a major role in the plasticity of begging behaviour.
Blanc
Alain
A
Equipe de neuro-éthologie sensorielle ENES/CNPS, CNRS UMR 8195, université de Saint-Etienne, rue Michelon, Saint-Etienne, France.
Ogier
Nicolas
N
Roux
Angélique
A
Denizeau
Sébastien
S
Mathevon
Nicolas
N
D000367:Age Factors; D000818:Animals; D046091:Charadriiformes / Q000254:growth & development / Q000502:physiology*; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D005247:Feeding Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D057045:Laryngopharyngeal Reflux; D008297:Male; D012801:Sibling Relations; D013997:Time Factors