Personal information about danger trumps social information from avian alarm calls.

ABSTRACT: Information about predators can mean the difference between life and death, but prey face the challenge of integrating personal information about predators with social information from the alarm calls of others. This challenge might even affect the structure of interspecific information networks: species vary in response to alarm calls, potentially because different foraging ecologies constrain the acquisition of personal information. However, the hypothesis that constrained personal information explains a greater response to alarm calls has not been experimentally tested. We used a within-species test to compare the antipredator responses of New Holland honeyeaters, Phylidonyris novaehollandiae, during contrasting foraging behaviour. Compared with perched birds, which hawk for insects and

SUBMITTER: McLachlan JR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6452073 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature