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Hissing calls improve survival in incubating female great tits (Parus major)

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Abstract

Nest predation is among the most important selective pressure shaping nest-site selection and nest defense behavior in many avian species. In this study, we tested whether the production of one such nest defense behavior—hissing calls—may improve survival of incubating female great tits (Parus major). We found that 72.5 % of incubating females gave hissing calls when they were exposed to a stuffed woodpecker in their nest boxes. The repeatability of the number of hissing calls given was high, as was the latency to give the call. Additionally, natural nest predators attacked hissing and nonhissing females equally often. However, hissing females survived better than silent females. We tested responses of feral cats to playbacks of hissing call during their attacks of nest boxes and found that hissing calls prevented the predator attacks. Taken together, our findings indicate that hissing calls can deter predator attacks and potentially increase survival rates of nesting great tits or their offspring, or both. The propensity to give hissing calls may be related to personality type of incubating female great tits, which needs to be tested experimentally.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by research grant 09.11.86 of Latvian Council of Science T.K. and I.K. Social Fund within the project “Support for the implementation of doctoral studies at Daugavpils University” Nr.2009/0140/1DP/1.1.2.1.2/ 09/IPIA/VIAA/015 supported J.V. V.T. was supported by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Science (target-financing project number 0180004 s09) and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (Center of Excellence FIBIR). The experiments comply with the current laws of the Republic of Latvia and Estonia. We thank Todd M. Freeberg for comments on the manuscript and the sonogram.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Systematic Biology, University of Daugavpils, 5401, Daugavpils, Latvia

    Indrikis Krams, Jolanta Vrublevska & Tatjana Krama

  2. Institute of Ecology and Earth Sciences, University of Tartu, 51014, Tartu, Estonia

    Indrikis Krams, Kaarin Koosa & Vallo Tilgar

  3. Environmental Management Centre, Mykolas Romeris University, 08303, Vilnius, Lithuania

    Pranas Mierauskas

  4. Department of Biology, University of Turku, 20024, Turku, Finland

    Markus J. Rantala

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  1. Indrikis Krams
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  2. Jolanta Vrublevska
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Correspondence to Indrikis Krams.

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Krams, I., Vrublevska, J., Koosa, K. et al. Hissing calls improve survival in incubating female great tits (Parus major). acta ethol 17, 83–88 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10211-013-0163-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10211-013-0163-3

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