special reading - communication - 2 - reciprocal signalling in honeyguide - human- mutualism Flashcards
what is the question?
do honeyguides in turn exploit specialised signals directed at them by humans
background info
- African honeyguide birds lead human hunters to bee colonies, and the humans, leave enough mess for the birds to feast on
- rare example of communication between humans and a wild animal
- mozambiquen honey hunters use a special call too request help from the birds - suggests the birds are able to attach the specific meaning to a humans call
what are the methods/general info?
- First established whether information provided by honeyguides was accurate, trailed guiding events. 75.3% of guiding events led to the successful discovery by humans of at least one bees nest.
- next investigated whether the signals used by humans provided reliable information to honeyguides. Interviewed 20 Yao honey-hunters all of whom reported that they used a specific call for honey hunting purposes and nothing else.
- examined whether honeyguides associated this vocal signal with a higher chance of a payoff from cooperation. If so , then honeyguides should be more likely to initiate collaboration with humans producing this honey-hunting sound rather then other sounds.
Methods (2)
Carried out 72, 15-min experimental transects simulating honey-hunting forays , in which an investigator and two local honey hunters walked while playing one of three acoustic cues every 7s.
1) a control human sound (a Yao word or phrase)
2) A control animal sound
3) The specialised “brrr-hm” honey hunting sound
response of honey hunters was measured.
Results
- guided by a honeyguide on 30 of 72 transects
- Transects accompanied by the honey-hunting call had a 66.7% probability of eliciting guiding from a honeyguide, which was significantly greater then that for transects accompanied by the other two sounds.
- Overall honey-hunting sound resulted in a 52.4% chance of finding bees nest
- production of honey hunting sound more then tripled chance of finding bees nest
Meaning of results
-Results show that honeyguides correctly attach meaning and subsequently respond to human signal of recruitment (behaviour previously only associated with domestic animals)