Alert signals enhance animal communication in "noisy" environments.

ABSTRACT: Environmental noise that reduces the probability that animals will detect communicative signals poses a special challenge for long-range communication. The application of signal-detection theory to animal communication lead to the prediction that signals directed at distant receivers in noisy environments will begin with conspicuous "alerting" components to attract the attention of receivers, before delivery of the information-rich portion of the signal. Whether animals actually adopt this strategy is not clear, despite suggestions that alerts might exist in a variety of taxa. By using a combination of behavioral observations and experimental manipulations with robotic lizard "playbacks," we show that free-living territorial Anolis lizards add an "alert" to visual displays when communicati

SUBMITTER: Ord TJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2596256 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature