Food-associated vocalizations in mammals and birds: what do these calls really mean?
Highlights
► We examined whether food-associated calls documented in birds and mammals communicate characteristic features of food. ► We explored the literature to determine whether a single unifying explanation exists for these calls. ► Variability and specificity of food-associated calls appear to be linked to social/environmental factors. ► A few species show evidence of referential calling, but in most species, food-associated calls more reflect arousal. ► Evidence of multiple functions does not support a unified explanation for food-associated calls.
Section snippets
Functionally referential food-associated calls?
To date, the most convincing cases of functional reference in the feeding context come from studies of fowl (Evans and Marler, 1994, Evans and Evans, 1999, Evans and Evans, 2007). Upon discovery of a food item in the presence of a hen, male fowl produce a specific food-associated vocalization. Consistent with the criteria described above, fowl’s food-associated calls are produced specifically within the context of food, have an acoustically distinct structure, and playback experiments have
Food-associated versus food-specific vocalizations
Acoustic specificity between stimulus and signal, such as has been demonstrated for fowl food calls, is a key prerequisite for functional reference. The notable problem for a unifying concept of functionally referential food-associated calls is that, for a considerable number of species, calls produced during feeding are also produced in nonfood contexts (e.g. toque macaque, Macaca sinica: Dittus 1984; spider monkey, Ateles geoffroyi: Chapman & Lefebvre 1990; rhesus macaque, Macaca mulatta:
What information do food-associated calls convey?
Related to the question of acoustic specificity is determining what information may be conveyed by food-associated calls. The arousal-based perspective suggests that food-associated calls most likely relate to the signaller’s level of excitement or arousal in response to the feeding event (e.g. Owren & Rendall 2001). In this sense, receivers may be responding to the signaller’s increased level of excitement, which has been triggered by the presence of food, rather than the specific expectation
Acoustic variation in food-associated calls
Although variation in call rate is the most common form of acoustic variation in food-associated signalling, some species produce food-associated calls whose acoustic structure covaries with features of the feeding event (golden-lion tamarins: Benz 1993; rhesus macaques: Hauser & Marler, 1993a; ravens: Bugnyar et al. 2001; chimpanzees: Slocombe & Zuberbühler 2006; bonobos: Clay & Zuberbühler 2009). Furthermore, playback experiments in some of these species have also demonstrated that these
What is the function of food-associated calls?
Along with the information conveyed by food-associated calls, an important related question concerns the ultimate function of these calls. Although this is a discrete question, logically separate from the meaning of food calls, an integrative Tinbergian approach to understanding the phenomena warrants some discussion of function. Indeed, by understanding the function of these calls, we may evaluate the question of whether there is a unifying explanation for the evolution of functionally
Conclusions
The widespread evidence of selective food-associated signalling suggests that, compared to other contexts in which functionally referential signals have been identified (i.e. alarm or agonistic interactions), food-associated calls may be produced or withheld in response to the signaller’s own ecological, social and reproductive pressures. The contrast between the production of alarm signals and food-associated calls may reflect the difference in the pressures that would have selected for
Acknowledgments
This paper emerged from a meeting, Vocal Communication and Social Cognition, organized by Marta Manser and Simon Townsend, and supported by the Gleichstellung, University of Zurich. Z.C. was supported by The Leverhulme Trust, with many thanks to Prof. K. Zuberbühler. D.T.B. was supported by National Science Foundation grant NSF IDBR-0754247. We thank Dorothy Cheney and two anonymous referees for their particularly insightful comments.
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