The association between evidence of a predator threat and responsiveness to alarm calls in Western Australian magpies (Cracticus tibicen dorsalis).

ABSTRACT: Alarm calls are a widespread form of antipredator defence and being alerted to the presence of predators by the alarm calls of conspecifics is considered one of the benefits of group living. However, while social information can allow an individual to gain additional information, it can also at times be inaccurate or irrelevant. Such variation in the accuracy of social information is predicted to select for receivers to discriminate between sources of social information. In this study, we used playback experiments to determine whether Western Australian magpies (Cracticus tibicen dorsalis) respond to the predator information associated with alarm calls. Magpies were exposed to the alarm calls of two group members that differed in the threat associated with the alarm call: one call w

SUBMITTER: Silvestri A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6714966 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature