Individuality of contact calls in the Greater Flamingo Phoenicopterus ruber and the problem of background noise in a colony

• Published in: Ibis
• Main Author: MATHEVON, NICOLAS
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 1997
• Subjects: Aptenodytes forsteri
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1474-919x.1997.tb04667.x; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1474-919X.1997.tb04667.x; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1474-919X.1997.tb04667.x

Acoustic communication has great importance in social relationships and especially in individual recognition in the Greater Flamingo Phoenicopterus ruber. However, it is constrained by the noisy environment of the colony. I performed an analysis of both the temporal and frequency patterns of contact calls and showed that the use of both is essential for discrimination between individuals. I made a search for the acoustic parameters which are used by the flamingos. It appears that the call duration, the slow amplitude modulation, the spectrum bandwidth and the repartition of energy among harmonics exhibit individuality. Recognition between the birds must be based on a multiparametric analysis, taking into account both spectral and temporal features of the calls. Indeed, no single parameter was sufficient to discriminate between individual birds used in my research. In the noisy environment of the colony, the transmission of individuality in a message is improved by this multiparametric coding, which can be considered as an adaptation to these extreme acoustic conditions. Moreover, the study revealed numerous acoustic convergences with another colonial bird species, the Emperor Penguin Aptenodytes forsteri , and both species seemed to use the same method to encode individuality in their vocalizations.