Evidence for individual discrimination and numerical assessment in collective antipredator behaviour in wild jackdaws (Corvus monedula)

Coomes, Jenny R.; McIvor, Guillam E.; Thornton, Alex

Evidence for individual discrimination and numerical assessment in collective antipredator behaviour in wild jackdaws (Corvus monedula)

dc.contributor.author	Coomes, Jenny R.
dc.contributor.author	McIvor, Guillam E.
dc.contributor.author	Thornton, Alex
dc.contributor.funder	Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council	en
dc.contributor.funder	Human Frontier Science Program	en
dc.contributor.funder	University of Exeter	en
dc.date.accessioned	2019-10-23T04:45:32Z
dc.date.available	2019-10-23T04:45:32Z
dc.date.issued	2019-10-02
dc.description.abstract	Collective responses to threats occur throughout the animal kingdom but little is known about the cognitive processes underpinning them. Antipredator mobbing is one such response. Approaching a predator may be highly risky, but the individual risk declines and the likelihood of repelling the predator increases in larger mobbing groups. The ability to appraise the number of conspecifics involved in a mobbing event could therefore facilitate strategic decisions about whether to join. Mobs are commonly initiated by recruitment calls, which may provide valuable information to guide decision-making. We tested whether the number of wild jackdaws responding to recruitment calls was influenced by the number of callers. As predicted, playbacks simulating three or five callers tended to recruit more individuals than playbacks of one caller. Recruitment also substantially increased if recruits themselves produced calls. These results suggest that jackdaws use individual vocal discrimination to assess the number of conspecifics involved in initiating mobbing events, and use this information to guide their responses. Our results show support for the use of numerical assessment in antipredator mobbing responses and highlight the need for a greater understanding of the cognitive processes involved in collective behaviour.	en
dc.description.sponsorship	Human Frontier Science Program (Grant RG0049/2017)	en
dc.description.status	Peer reviewed	en
dc.description.version	Published Version	en
dc.format.mimetype	application/pdf	en
dc.identifier.articleid	20190380	en
dc.identifier.citation	Coomes, J. R., McIvor, G. E. and Thornton, A. (2019) 'Evidence for individual discrimination and numerical assessment in collective antipredator behaviour in wild jackdaws (Corvus monedula)', Biology Letters, 15(10), 20190380. (6pp.) DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2019.0380	en
dc.identifier.doi	10.1098/rsbl.2019.0380	en
dc.identifier.eissn	1744-957X
dc.identifier.endpage	6	en
dc.identifier.issn	1744-9561
dc.identifier.issued	10	en
dc.identifier.journaltitle	Biology Letters	en
dc.identifier.startpage	1	en
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/10468/8834
dc.identifier.volume	15	en
dc.language.iso	en	en
dc.publisher	Royal Society	en
dc.relation.project	info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/RCUK/BBSRC/BB/H021817/2/GB/The evolution of corvid intelligence: development mechanisms and function of cognitive abilities in wild jackdaws/	en
dc.relation.uri	https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsbl.2019.0380#d3e1074
dc.rights	© 2019 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.	en
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/	en
dc.subject	Corvus monedula	en
dc.subject	Antipredator	en
dc.subject	Numerical assessment	en
dc.subject	Individual discrimination	en
dc.subject	Collective behaviour	en
dc.title	Evidence for individual discrimination and numerical assessment in collective antipredator behaviour in wild jackdaws (Corvus monedula)	en
dc.type	Article (peer-reviewed)	en