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16 results for “conspecific attraction”
Supplementary material to "Habitat detection, habitat choice copying, or mating benefits: what drives conspecific attraction in a nomadic songbird?"
<p><strong>Abstract</strong></p> <ol> <li>Conspecific attraction during habitat selection is common among animals, but the ultimate (i.e., fitness-related) reasons for this behavior often remain enigmatic.</li> <li>We aimed to evaluate the following three hypotheses for conspecific attraction during the breeding season in male Wood Warblers (<em>Phylloscopus</em> <em>sibilatrix</em>): the habitat detection hypothesis, the habitat choice copying hypothesis, and the female preference hypothesis. These hypotheses make different predictions with respect to the relative importance of social and non-social information during habitat assessment, and whether benefits accrue as a consequence of aggregation.</li> <li>We tested the above hypotheses using a combination of a two-year playback experiment, spatial statistics and mate choice models.</li> <li>The habitat detection hypothesis was the most likely explanation for conspecific attraction and aggregation in male Wood Warblers, based on the following results: 1) males were attracted to conspecific song playbacks, but fine-scale habitat heterogeneity was the better predictor of spatial patterns in the density of settling males; 2) male pairing success did not increase, but instead slightly decreased, as connectivity with other males (i.e., the number and proximity of neighboring males) increased.</li> <li>Our study highlights how consideration of the process by which animals detect and assess habitat, together with the potential fitness consequences of resulting aggregations, are important for understanding conspecific attraction and spatially clustered distributions.</li> </ol>
Chemosensory behaviour of juvenile crown-of-thorns sea stars (Acanthaster sp.), attraction to algal and coral food, and avoidance of adult conspecifics
<p>Intraspecific and habitat-mediated responses to chemical cues play key roles in structuring populations of marine species. We investigated the behaviour of herbivorous-stage juvenile crown-of-thorns sea stars (COTS: <em>Acanthaster</em> sp.) in flow-through choice chambers to determine if chemical cues from their habitat influence movement and their transition to becoming coral predators. Juveniles at the diet transition stage were exposed to cues from their nursery habitat (coral rubble-crustose coralline algae -CCA), live coral, and adult COTS to determine if waterborne cues influence movement. In response to CCA and coral as sole cues juveniles moved toward the cue source and when these cues were presented in combination, they exhibited a preference for coral. Juveniles moved away from adult COTS cues. Exposure to food cues (coral, CCA) in the presence of adult cues resulted in variable responses. Our results suggest a feedback mechanism whereby juvenile behaviour is mediated by adult chemical cues. Cues from the adult population may deter juveniles from the switch to corallivory. As outbreaks wane, juveniles released from competition may serve as a proximate source of outbreaks, supporting the juveniles-in-waiting hypothesis. The accumulation of juveniles within the reef infrastructure is an underappreciated potential source of COTS outbreaks that devastate coral reefs.</p>
Wild zebra finches are attracted towards acoustic cues from conspecific social groups
<p class="Normal1">Social information gathered by observing others often supplements personal information collected from direct interactions with the physical environment during decision making. Social information use may be particularly beneficial in harsh environments or if resources are distributed patchily, ephemeral and unpredictable, and hence difficult to locate. We experimentally tested the use of acoustic cues in wild zebra finches (<em>Taeniopygia guttata</em>) as they flew around their arid habitat as a way of locating conspecifics on the ground, and potentially accessing useful social information. Joining a conspecific group may reduce the predation risk, and if they are foraging may also improve foraging efficiency, as the distribution of zebra finch food (grass seed) is scattered and unpredictable in their natural habitat, the Australian arid zone. We conducted playback experiments along vegetated creek lines radiating out from an artificial dam where all birds in the population were coming for drinking water. We broadcast recordings of vocalizations from foraging conspecific groups to birds using these creek lines to move to or from the water into the wider habitat. Zebra finches were more likely to land near the loudspeaker when conspecific vocalizations were broadcast compared to white noise. Birds flying low and close to the loudspeaker were most likely to land. Our results indicate that zebra finches use acoustic cues of conspecifics as a source of social information for grouping decisions. Use of such information may also enhance foraging efficiency in environments with unpredictable and scarce foraging locations, and reduce predation risk for calling and responding individuals.</p>
Chemosensory behaviour of juvenile crown-of-thorns sea stars (Acanthaster sp.), attraction to algal and coral food, and avoidance of adult conspecifics
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Wild zebra finches are attracted towards acoustic cues from conspecific social groups
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Data from: Mechanisms of aggregation in an ant-tended treehopper: attraction to mutualists is balanced by conspecific competition
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Data from: Spatial patterns of the frog Oophaga pumilio in a plantation system are consistent with conspecific attraction
The conspecific attraction hypothesis predicts that individuals are attracted to conspecifics because conspecifics may be cues to quality habitat and/or colonists may benefit from living in aggregations. Poison frogs (Dendrobatidae) are aposematic, territorial, and visually oriented – three characteristics which make dendrobatids an appropriate model to test for conspecific attraction. In this study, we tested this hypothesis using an extensive mark-recapture dataset of the strawberry poison frog (Oophaga pumilio) from La Selva Biological Station, Costa Rica. Data were collected from replicate populations in a relatively homogenous Theobroma cacao plantation, which provided a unique opportunity to test how conspecifics influence spatial ecology of migrants in a controlled habitat with homogeneous structure. We predicted that (1) individuals entering a population would aggregate with resident adults, (2) migrants would share sites with residents at greater frequency than expected by chance, and (3) migrant home-ranges would have shorter nearest-neighbor distances (NND) to residents than expected by chance. The results were consistent with these three predictions: relative to random simulations, we observed significant aggregation, home-range overlap, and NND distribution functions in four, five, and six, respectively, of the six migrant-resident groups analyzed. Conspecific attraction may benefit migrant O. pumilio by providing cues to suitable home sites and/or increasing potential for social interactions with conspecifics; if true, these benefits should outweigh the negative effects of other factors associated with aggregation. The observed aggregation between migrant and resident O. pumilio is consistent with conspecific attraction in dendrobatid frogs, and our study provides rare support from a field setting that conspecific attraction may be a relevant mechanism for models of anuran spatial ecology.
Data from: Space use and social association in a gregarious ungulate: testing the conspecific attraction and resource dispersion hypotheses
Animals use a variety of proximate cues to assess habitat quality when resources vary spatiotemporally. Two nonmutually exclusive strategies to assess habitat quality involve either direct assessment of landscape features or observation of social cues from conspecifics as a form of information transfer about forage resources. The conspecific attraction hypothesis proposes that individual space use is dependent on the distribution of conspecifics rather than the location of resource patches, whereas the resource dispersion hypothesis proposes that individual space use and social association are driven by the abundance and distribution of resources. We tested the conspecific attraction and the resource dispersion hypotheses as two nonmutually exclusive hypotheses explaining social association and of adult female caribou (Rangifer tarandus). We used location data from GPS collars to estimate interannual site fidelity and networks representing home range overlap and social associations among individual caribou. We found that home range overlap and social associations were correlated with resource distribution in summer and conspecific attraction in winter. In summer, when resources were distributed relatively homogeneously, interannual site fidelity was high and home range overlap and social associations were low. Conversely, in winter when resources were distributed relatively heterogeneously, interannual site fidelity was low and home range overlap and social associations were high. As access to resources changes across seasons, caribou appear to alter social behavior and space use. In summer, caribou may use cues associated with the distribution of forage, and in winter caribou may use cues from conspecifics to access forage. Our results have broad implications for our understanding of caribou socioecology, suggesting that caribou use season‐specific strategies to locate forage. Caribou populations continue to decline globally, and our finding that conspecific attraction is likely related to access to forage suggests that further fragmentation of caribou habitat could limit social association among caribou, particularly in winter when access to resources may be limited.
Conspecific attraction for conservation and management of terrestrial breeding birds: current knowledge and future research directions
<p>Conspecific presence can indicate the location or quality of resources, and animals settling near conspecifics often gain fitness benefits. This can result in adaptive conspecific attraction during breeding habitat selection as demonstrated in numerous terrestrial, territorial birds. There is growing interest in using simulated conspecific social cues (e.g., decoys, broadcasted vocalizations) to manage bird distributions, yet it remains unclear when this approach is likely to succeed. We reviewed published studies to evaluate whether the strength of conspecific attraction in terrestrial birds is mediated by characteristics of species (life history traits), simulated cues (e.g., timing and duration), sites (e.g., quality), and how conspecific attraction was measured. We identified 31 experiments that simulated social cues and compared conspecific settlement between treatment and control sites. We then used phylogenetically controlled meta-regression to assess impacts of 19 moderators on settlement. Nearly all species included in these experiments were migratory passerines, and social cues generally had a strong, positive influence on their settlement decisions, as the odds of site occupancy were 3.12× (95% CI = 0.81, 11.69) greater in treatment sites relative to control sites. Within this group, conspecific attraction was evolutionarily conserved with ≥ 25.5% (CI = 5.1%, 65.4%) of the variance in treatment effects explained by phylogenetic relatedness. However, we found no evidence that any covariates influenced the response to social cues, and we posit this stems from limited research specifically designed to identify the mechanisms mediating conspecific attraction. We therefore developed a research agenda that provides a framework for testing mechanistic hypotheses regarding how cue characteristics, species traits, and spatial contexts may mediate attraction to conspecifics. Evaluating these hypotheses will greatly advance the field by helping managers understand when, where, and why simulating social cues can be used to enhance populations of species that are of conservation concern.</p>
Conspecific attraction for conservation and management of terrestrial breeding birds: current knowledge and future research directions
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Data from: Spatial patterns of the frog Oophaga pumilio in a plantation system are consistent with conspecific attraction
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Data from: Root feeding larvae increase their performance by inducing leaf volatiles that attract aboveground conspecific adults
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Data from: Space use and social association in a gregarious ungulate: testing the conspecific attraction and resource dispersion hypotheses
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Data from: Frequency-dependent conspecific attraction to food patches
In many ecological situations, resources are difficult to find but become more apparent to nearby searchers after one of their numbers discovers and begins to exploit them. If the discoverer cannot monopolize the resources, then others may benefit from joining the discoverer and sharing their discovery. Existing theories for this type of conspecific attraction have often used very simple rules for how the decision to join a discovered resource patch should be influenced by the number of individuals already exploiting that patch. We use a mechanistic, spatially explicit model to demonstrate that individuals should not necessarily simply join patches more often as the number of individuals exploiting the patch increases, because those patches are likely to be exhausted soon or joining them will intensify future local competition. Furthermore, we show that this decision should be sensitive to the nature of the resource patches, with individuals being more responsive to discoveries in general and more tolerant of larger numbers of existing exploiters on a patch when patches are resource-rich and challenging to locate alone. As such, we argue that this greater focus on underlying joining mechanisms suggests that conspecific attraction is a more sophisticated and flexible tactic than currently appreciated.
Data from: Scent of death: evolution from sea to land of an extreme collective attraction to conspecific death
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Data from: Frequency-dependent conspecific attraction to food patches
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