Abstract
In some avian species, individuals spend most of their lives in complex social groups. A recent hypothesis argues that social complexity will drive complexity in signaling systems. According to this hypothesis, individuals living in more complex groups (larger and with greater diversity of interactions) require larger and more diverse repertoires of signals, compared to individuals living in groups that are relatively simple in social structure. Social complexity has also been argued to be an important driver of social cognition and cooperation. Although many of these arguments have been based on empirical findings with non-human primates, similar evidence is beginning to emerge from avian studies. Here, we discuss some of this avian evidence, with an emphasis on two model species: Carolina chickadees, Poecile carolinensis (Paridae), and pied flycatchers, Ficedula hypoleuca. In Carolina chickadees, variation in the structure of chick-a-dee calls influences behavior of receivers in pro-social and potentially cooperative ways in anti-predator and food detection contexts. In pied flycatchers, breeding individuals were much less likely to travel greater distances to assist in mobbing predators near their conspecific neighbors if those neighbors had failed to assist them in mobbing earlier. More research is needed to determine whether communicative complexity per se makes sophisticated social cognition possible, such as reconciliation and cooperation (and whether the latter might stem from reciprocal altruism or less cognitively demanding processes like conspecific by-product mutualism).
Zusammenfassung
Die Individuen einiger Vogelarten verbringen die meiste Zeit ihres Lebens in komplexen sozialen Gruppen. Eine aktuelle Hypothese argumentiert, dass soziale Komplexität die Komplexität in Signalsystemen beeinflusst. Nach dieser Hypothese sollten Individuen, die in komplexeren Gruppen (größer und mit einer größeren Vielfalt von Interaktionen) ein größeres und vielfältigeres Repertoire an Signalen aufweisen im Vergleich zu Individuen, die in Gruppen mit relativ einfacher Sozialstruktur leben. Soziale Komplexität wird auch als ein wichtiger Antriebsfaktor für soziale Kognition und Zusammenarbeit gesehen. Obwohl viele dieser Argumente auf empirischen Ergebnissen von non-humanen Primaten basieren, gibt es Hinweise auf ähnliche Aspekte bei Vögeln. Hier diskutieren wir einige dieser Belege, mit einem Schwerpunkt auf zwei Modellarten: Carolina chickadees, Poecile carolinensis (Paridae) und Trauerschnäpper, Ficedula hypoleuca. Bei Carolina chickadees rufen Veränderung in der Struktur des chick-a-dee Rufes Einflüsse auf das Verhalten der Empfänger hervor, in prosozialer und potenziell kooperativer Weise, z.B. bei der Reaktion gegenüber Prädatoren und im Kontext von Futtererkennung. Bei brütenden Trauerschnäppern waren diese viel weniger bereit und näherten sich nur auf größere Distanzen beim Mobbing von Prädatoren an, um Nachbarn zu helfen, wenn diese Nachbarn sie zuvor beim Mobbing nicht unterstützten. Mehr Forschung ist notwendig, um festzustellen, ob kommunikativen Komplexität an sich erst anspruchsvolle soziale Kognition ermöglicht, wie Versöhnung und Zusammenarbeit (und ob diese möglicherweise von reziprokem Altruismus stammen oder von weniger kognitiv anspruchsvollen Prozessen wie konspezifischen Nebenprodukt-Mutualismus).
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Acknowledgments
We thank the organizers of the IOC for accepting our proposal for a symposium on this topic, and are grateful to the presenters for their wonderful research presentations in the symposium. IK acknowledges the support of a Fulbright Research Award to work at the University of Tennessee during the writing of this manuscript. We thank David Book, Sheri Browning, Brittany Coppinger, Elizabeth Hobson, Amiyaal Ilany, Arik Kershenbaum, Steven Kyle, and two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. We thank Dr. Christoph Randler for the German translation of our abstract.
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Communicated by E. Matthysen.
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Freeberg, T.M., Krams, I. Does social complexity link vocal complexity and cooperation?. J Ornithol 156 (Suppl 1), 125–132 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-015-1233-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-015-1233-2