Evidence for individual discrimination and numerical assessment in collective antipredator behaviour in wild jackdaws (<i>Corvus monedula</i>).

ABSTRACT: Collective responses to threats occur throughout the animal kingdom but little is known about the cognitive processes underpinning them. Antipredator mobbing is one such response. Approaching a predator may be highly risky, but the individual risk declines and the likelihood of repelling the predator increases in larger mobbing groups. The ability to appraise the number of conspecifics involved in a mobbing event could therefore facilitate strategic decisions about whether to join. Mobs are commonly initiated by recruitment calls, which may provide valuable information to guide decision-making. We tested whether the number of wild jackdaws responding to recruitment calls was influenced by the number of callers. As predicted, playbacks simulating three or five callers tended to recruit more

SUBMITTER: Coomes JR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6832194 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature