Begging coordination between siblings in Black-headed Gulls.
International audience Communication behaviours are now considered from a signallers-receivers network perspective. This concept seems well suited to the study of interactions between parents and offspring in birds, so far mainly treated as a dyadic signalling system involving the brood or a single...
| Published in: | Comptes Rendus Biologies |
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
| Other Authors: | , |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
HAL CCSD
2010
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hal.science/hal-01183326 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.crvi.2010.06.002 |
| Summary: | International audience Communication behaviours are now considered from a signallers-receivers network perspective. This concept seems well suited to the study of interactions between parents and offspring in birds, so far mainly treated as a dyadic signalling system involving the brood or a single chick as a signaller and the parent as a receiver. Family conflicts over resource allocation drive parent-offspring and sib-sib communication. In the Black-headed Gull Larus ridibundus, parents respond to the whole-brood begging intensity and siblings often synchronize their begging signalling thus limiting individual effort. By monitoring five nests of two-chick broods during the whole rearing period in the nest, we show how an intra-brood simultaneity of begging emerges from successive phases of solitary begging of junior and senior nestlings. Although this result remains preliminary due to the sample size, it underlines a dynamical aspect of chicks' behaviour. Because they always favour coordinated begging and because they elevate their response threshold across the rearing period, parents may play a major role in the plasticity of begging behaviour. |
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