Turning the tables: a tiny bird uses alarm calls and mimicry to deceive its nest predator.

IF 2.8 2区 生物学 Q2 BIOLOGY
Biology Letters Pub Date : 2025-03-01 Epub Date: 2025-03-12 DOI:10.1098/rsbl.2024.0710
Lauren Ascah, Branislav Igic, Robert Magrath
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Animals often eavesdrop on other species' alarm calls to gain information about danger, but this can allow for deception by callers. Such deception often uses 'aerial' alarm calls, which normally warn of airborne predators and prompt immediate fleeing. The calls are deceptive if they are given when no flying predator is present and the caller benefits from the victim's response, typically by gaining food dropped when the listener flees. We studied deceptive alarm calling by brown thornbills, Acanthiza pusilla, defending offspring against predatory pied currawongs, Strepera graculina. Thornbills give their own and mimetic aerial alarm calls when defending nestlings against currawongs, who are fooled into scanning for danger or flying away. We tested whether deception works by exploiting the predator's response to aerial alarm calls, and what role mimicry plays. Currawongs were more likely to flee, and delayed feeding longer, after playback of purely aerial compared with purely mobbing alarm choruses. They responded the same regardless of what type of mimetic alarm followed the thornbill's aerial alarm. We conclude that vocal deception is effective because it exploits currawong response according to call meaning, while mimicry likely creates an illusion of a multi-species alarm chorus.

扭转局面:一只小鸟利用警报声和模仿来欺骗巢中的捕食者。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
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来源期刊
Biology Letters
Biology Letters 生物-进化生物学
CiteScore
5.50
自引率
3.00%
发文量
164
审稿时长
1.0 months
期刊介绍: Previously a supplement to Proceedings B, and launched as an independent journal in 2005, Biology Letters is a primarily online, peer-reviewed journal that publishes short, high-quality articles, reviews and opinion pieces from across the biological sciences. The scope of Biology Letters is vast - publishing high-quality research in any area of the biological sciences. However, we have particular strengths in the biology, evolution and ecology of whole organisms. We also publish in other areas of biology, such as molecular ecology and evolution, environmental science, and phylogenetics.
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