Cooperation and conflict in antipredator signalling

Supervisor: Rebecca Kilner FRS

Co-Supervisor: Josh Arbon

Project Summary (MPhil): 

Many species have been shown to signal their vigilance to potential predators to help deter attack. Animals also gain anti-predator benefits by living in groups and taking advantage of the vigilance of the collective. There have been many studies on the dynamics of collective vigilance at the group level, but none of these have considered how signals of vigilance influence behaviour at the individual level. Should individuals increase their levels of vigilance to match those of their groupmates, especially since predators can single out non-vigilant animals for attack? Or should individuals relax their personal contributions if the rest of the group is vigilant, and effectively freeload on the efforts of their groupmates, especially if the collective effort is more important at repelling attack? 

Using pied wagtails and moorhens as local study systems, two species which have been shown to provide conspicuous vigilance signals, you will use a combination of observational and experimental approaches, including playback experiments and bio-robotic models, to answer key questions about how sociality impacts these signals. These questions include how individuals eavesdrop on the signals produced by others to gain information about risk, whether competitive or cooperative dynamics govern signalling when in groups, and whether the presence of others affects whether signals are honest or deceptive. Both proposed study species can be found both alone and in aggregations, presenting an opportunity to manipulate social and environmental factors independently of one another. You will have the ability to tailor the research to their specific interests, with the project operating at the interface of social, behavioural, and sensory ecology.

Type of Work:

You will have the opportunity to make observations and conduct experiments on wild birds, primarily in the local area, which could include playback experiments and bio-robotic model presentations whilst developing skills in experimental design. You will have the opportunity to learn cutting edge machine learning and visual modelling tools to analyse video data to help understand signals as perceived by both conspecifics and potential predators. These data will be analysed to generate inference about the social processes that influence signalling within animal groups.

Importance of the research concerned:

Whilst we know much about how vigilance operates in groups of animals, we know nothing about how the ability to signal vigilance influence social monitoring and affects how animals partition their foraging and vigilance within groups. This research will give fundamental insight into how sociality evolves in the face of predator pressures whilst answering important questions about collective behaviour and decision-making within animal groups.
 

References: 

Lima, S.L. and Zollner, P.A., 1996. Anti-predatory vigilance and the limits to collective detection: visual and spatial separation between foragers. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 38(5), pp.355-363. Randler, C., 2006. Is tail wagging in white wagtails, Motacilla alba, an honest signal of vigilance? Animal Behaviour, 71(5), pp.1089-1093. Randler, C., 2007. Observational and experimental evidence for the function of tail flicking in Eurasian Moorhen Gallinula chloropus. Ethology, 113(7), pp.629-639. Sirot, E. and Touzalin, F., 2009. Coordination and synchronization of vigilance in groups of prey: the role of collective detection and predators’ preference for stragglers. The American Naturalist, 173(1), pp.47-59.