Communication in crested tits and the risk of predation

doi:10.1006/anbe.2001.1702

Animal Behaviour

Volume 61, Issue 6, June 2001, Pages 1065-1068

https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2001.1702 Get rights and content

Abstract

It is usually assumed that communication between forest birds is costly in terms of predation. However, there is no direct empirical evidence of these costs. I examined whether contact calls of crested tits, Parus cristatus, could attract predators during the nonbreeding season. I compared attack rates on life-like stuffed specimens with and without playbacks of trilled long-range calls and high-pitched, short-range calls. Crested tit models without playbacks were used as controls. Crested tit models with playbacks of long-range contact calls were attacked significantly more often by sparrowhawks,Accipiter nisus , than the models with playbacks of high-pitched sounds and those without playbacks. These results suggest that calling increases the risk of predation for wintering tits and provide support for the assumption that conspicuous long-distance calling is costly in terms of predation. That models with playbacks of high-pitched signals were attacked at lower rates may indicate that predators cannot hear short-range communication calls as well as the long-range calls.

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^f1: Correspondence: I. Krams, Department of Sciences, Daugavpils University, LV-5400 Daugavpils, Latvia (email:[email protected]).

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Regular ArticlesCommunication in crested tits and the risk of predation

Abstract

Animal Behaviour

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Noise reduction by vegetation and ground

Journal of Acoustical Society of America

Stimmen der Vögel Europas

Principles of Animal Communication

Song as a pursuit-deterrence signal and its occurrence relative to other antipredator behaviors of the skylark on attack by merlins

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

Coherence, composition and territories of winter social groups of the willow tit Parus montanus and the crested tit P. cristatus

Ornis Scandinavica

Tree use and predator vulnerability of wintering passerines

Ornis Scandinavica

Signalling of need by offspring to their parents

Nature

Physiological constraints on sexual selection

Experimental evidence that nestlings' begging behaviour incurs a cost due to nest predation

Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series B

The Evolution of Communication

Social rank and antipredator behaviour of willow tits Parus montanus in winter flocks

Ibis

Winter mortality and food supply in tits Parus spp

Oikos

The effects of provision of food in winter on a population of the great tit Parus major and the blue tit P. caeruleus

Ornis Scandinavica

Acoustic behaviour of birds and mammals in the predator context. I. Factors affecting the structure of alarm signals. II. The functional significance and evolution of alarm signals

Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie

The hearing of an avian predator and its avian prey

Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

Do subordinates expose themselves to predation? Field experiments on feeding site selection by willow tits

Journal of Avian Biology

Predation risk and shifts of foraging sites in mixed willow and crested tit flocks

Journal of Avian Biology

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Communication in crested tits and the risk of predation