Referential calls coordinate multi-species mobbing in a forest bird community.
Japanese great tits (Parus minor) use a sophisticated system of anti-predator communication when defending their offspring: they produce different mobbing calls for different nest predators (snake versus non-snake predators) and thereby convey this information to conspecifics (i.e. functionally referential call system). The present playback experiments revealed that these calls also serve to coordinate multi-species mobbing at nests; snake-specific mobbing calls attracted heterospecific individuals close to the sound source and elicited snake-searching behaviour, whereas non-snake mobbing calls attracted these birds at a distance. This study demonstrates for the first time that referential mobbing calls trigger different formations of multi-species mobbing parties.
grid.275033.0000000041763208XDepartment of Evolutionary Studies of Biosystems, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies (SOKENDAI), Hayama, 240-0193 Kanagawa Japan.
Toshitaka N
TN
Suzuki
Birds; Mobbing calls; Multi-species mobbing; Playback experiment; Referential signal