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Surface texture and priming play important roles in predator recognition by the red-backed shrike in field experiments

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Abstract

We compared the responses of the nesting red-backed shrikes (Lanius collurio) to three dummies of a common nest predator, the Eurasian jay (Garrulus glandarius), each made from a different material (stuffed, plush, and silicone). The shrikes performed defensive behaviour including attacks on all three dummies. Nevertheless, the number of attacks significantly decreased from the stuffed dummy through the plush dummy and finally to the silicone dummy. Our results show that wild birds use not only colours but also other surface features as important cues for recognition and categorization of other bird species. Moreover, the silicone dummy was attacked only when presented after the stuffed or plush dummy. Thus, we concluded that the shrikes recognized the jay only the stuffed (with feathered surface) and plush (with hairy surface) dummies during the first encounter. Recognition of the silicon dummy (with glossy surface) was facilitated by previous encounters with the more accurate model. This process resembles the effect of perceptual priming, which is widely described in the literature on humans.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (IAA601410803), the Czech Science Foundation (206/08/H044), and the Grant Agency of the University of South Bohemia (04-142/2010/P and 144/2010/100) for their financial support. We also thank the Hradiště Military Regional Office for allowing us to conduct experiments within their training area. Special thanks also to Martin Strnad for help in the field, Petr Kos and Corey Stringer from North Carolina, USA, for a linguistic revision of the manuscript, and to Simona Poláková for consultations.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.

Ethical standard

All experiments were conducted in accordance with the valid laws and regulations of the Czech Republic and in compliance with the Ethic Committee of the Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia. Behavioural experiments on the wild birds were enabled by the certificate no. 13842/2011-30 offered by the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic and licence for experimenting with birds (Czech animal welfare commission, licence no. ČZU 486/01).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, České Budějovice, Czech Republic

    Michal Němec, Michaela Syrová, Lenka Dokoupilová, Petr Veselý, Petr Šmilauer & Roman Fuchs

  2. Ethology Department, Institute of Animal Science, Prague, Czech Republic

    Michaela Syrová

  3. Faculty of Sciences, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic

    Eva Landová & Silvie Lišková

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  1. Michal Němec
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  2. Michaela Syrová
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Correspondence to Michaela Syrová.

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Němec, M., Syrová, M., Dokoupilová, L. et al. Surface texture and priming play important roles in predator recognition by the red-backed shrike in field experiments. Anim Cogn 18, 259–268 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10071-014-0796-2

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