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Beyond the information centre hypothesis: Communal roosting for information on food, predators, travel companions and mates?
- Source :
- Oikos, 119(2), 277-285. Wiley
- Publication Year :
- 2010
-
Abstract
- Communal roosting - the grouping of more than two individuals resting together - is common among animals, notably birds. The main functions of this complicated social behaviour are thought to be reduced costs of predation and thermoregulation, and increased foraging efficiency. One specific hypothesis is the information centre hypothesis (ICH) which states that roosts act as information centres where individuals actively advertise and share foraging information such as the location of patchily distributed foods. Empirical studies in corvids have demonstrated bebaviours consistent with the predictions of the ICH, but some of the assumptions in its original formulation have made its wide acceptance problematic. Here we propose to generalise the ICH in two ways: (1) dropping the assumption that information transfer must be active, and (2) adding the possibilities of information exchange of), for example, predation risk, travel companions and potential mates. A Conceptual model, inspired by shorebirds arriving at roosts after foraging on cryptic prey, is proposed to illustrate how testable predictions can be generated. The conceptual model illustrates how roost arrival timing may convey inadvertent information on intake rate, prey density, forager state (i.e. digestive processing capacity) and food quality. Such information could be used by naive or unsuccessful foragers to select with whom to leave the roost at the subsequent foraging opportunity and thus increase foraging success. We Suggest that inadvertent information transfer, rather than active information exchange, predominates in communal roosts.
- Subjects :
- Communal roosting
PUBLIC INFORMATION
BLACK VULTURES
Information transfer
ANNUAL CYCLE
Ecology
media_common.quotation_subject
Foraging
Social behaviour
Biology
RED KNOTS
CHOICE
CONSPECIFIC REPRODUCTIVE SUCCESS
Predation
KNOTS CALIDRIS-CANUTUS
GREAT REED WARBLER
Empirical research
COST-BENEFIT-ANALYSIS
BREEDING HABITAT SELECTION
Conceptual model
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Information exchange
media_common
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 00301299
- Volume :
- 119
- Issue :
- 2
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Oikos
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....3d6e5c15a020f4fa3332aedf70a3f652