When an alien sings at a rival´s post: a passerine excited by conspecific stimulus may show aggressive behaviour towards heterospecific individuals

Title:

When an alien sings at a rival´s post: a passerine excited by conspecific stimulus may show aggressive behaviour towards heterospecific individuals

Creator:

Petrusková, Tereza, Petrusek, Adam, Pavel, Václav, and Fuchs, Roman

Identifier:

https://cdk.lib.cas.cz/client/handle/uuid:3d5831d9-300f-e4bd-2e65-fb75277c0d3e
uuid:3d5831d9-300f-e4bd-2e65-fb75277c0d3e

Subject:

meadow pipit, Anthus pratensis, interspecific territoriality, playback experiments, and misdirected aggressiveness

Type:

article and TEXT

Description:

We tested the hypothesis that males of meadow pipits (Anthus pratensis) respond differentially to simulated territorial intrusions (song playback + bird model) by conspecific, related (tree pipit, Anthus trivialis), and unrelated individuals (willow warbler, Phylloscopus trochilus), and evaluated the effect of playback order. All tested males responded aggressively to the conspecific playback; reactions to heterospecific stimuli occurred only after previous excitation by the conspecific song and dummy, and were usually weaker. Apparently, although males were able to discriminate between playbacks, excitation by intrusion of a conspecific rival elicited an aggressive reaction to otherwise neutral stimuli. Reactions to heterospecific playbacks closely following the conspecific one did not differ significantly between congeneric and unrelated species. The response to a subsequent heterospecific stimulus, however, was taxon-dependent: congeneric species elicited a significantly stronger reaction than an unrelated one. We presume that this was due to the morphological similarity between pipits, and that the more intensive reaction could have been caused by stronger visual stimulus from the respective model. We discuss the potential benefits as well as limitations of using models (dummies) in playback experiments, and suggest that overexcitation by previous stimuli should be considered during experimental setup and data analysis in studies focusing both on interspecific aggressiveness and on neighbour-stranger interactions.

Language:

English

Rights:

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Source:

Folia zoologica | 2008 Volume:57 | Number:3

Harvested from:

CDK

Metadata only:

false