Spottiswoode et al., 2016 (honeyguide-human mutualism)

Question 1

What species?

Answer 1

Greater honeyguide (birds)

Question 2

What do greater honeyguides do?

Answer 2

Lead human honey-hunters to wild bees’ nests, in a rare example of a mutualistic foraging partnership between humans and free-living wild animals

Question 3

Experiments showed that a specialised vocal sound produced by … honey-hunters elected elevated cooperative behaviour from honeyguides. The production of this sound increased the probability of being guided by a honeyguide from about … to … and the overall probability of thus finding a bees’ nest from … to …, as compared with other animal or human sounds of a similar ….

Answer 3

Mozambican, 33%, 66%, 17%, 54%, amplitude

Question 4

What’s in it for the birds?

Answer 4

They can eat the wax comb after the humans harvest the honey (resource partitioning), and the humans subdue the bees and open their nest using fire and tools

Question 5

This is a rare example of adaptive … and … communication between birds an humans.

Answer 5

interspecific, reciprocal

Question 6

Greater honeyguides seek human collaborators by producing a loud … call, distinct from their own territorial song.

Answer 6

chattering

Question 7

How do the birds gesture to humans where the nests are?

Answer 7

By flying from tree to tree in the direction of the bees’ nest until its human follower finds the nest

Question 8

… of guiding events led to successful discovery of bees’ nests by the human honey-hunters

Answer 8

~75%

and ~75% of bees’ nests found by humans involved the help of a honeyguide

Question 9

Yao honey-hunters seeking and following honeyguides produce a loud … followed by a …, as a specialised vocalisation only used to signal their presence to honeyguides.

Answer 9

trill, grunts

• this reliably signals to honeyguides that a human is seeking honey and has the tools, skills and time to do this, which many humans do not.

Question 10

What were the three types of sound played to the honeyguides in the experiment?

Answer 10

1. Control human (either Yao words for honeyguide/honey or the honey-hunters name)
2. Control animal sound: the excitement call of the ring-necked dove
3. The specialised “brrrr-hm” honey-hunter vocalisation used to attract honeyguides

all played out of speaker

Question 11

Honeyguides have never been confirmed to guide any species besides …

Answer 11

humans

Question 12

Transects accompanied by the honey-hunting call had a … probability of eliciting guiding by a honeyguide, significantly higher than the probability for transects accompanied by either control sound.

Answer 12

66.7

(25% human control, 33.3% dove control
+ probability of guiding did not significantly differ between the control treatments)

Question 13

Time relative to … or … explained 25% of the variance in probability of being led by a honeyguide

Answer 13

sunrise, sunset

Question 14

Honeyguides also tended to cease guiding behaviour more often when…

Answer 14

either of the control sounds was being produced (the sounds continued to be played after guiding began), resulting in no bees’ nests being found.

Question 15

Of the transects that were led by a honeyguide, significantly more (…) resulted in a bees’ nest being discovered when the specialised human vocalisation was being played than when either of the control sounds were being played

Answer 15

81.3%

Question 16

Production of the honey-hunting sound more than … the probability of finding a bees’ nest during a standardised …-minute search accompanied by an acoustic cue.

So the honey-hunting sound dramatically improves foraging success

Answer 16

tripled, 15

Question 17

Why may honeyguides respond more to humans producing the sound?

Answer 17

They recognise and prefer it (bc it is only used for this purpose so more likely to result in successful foraging than responding to other sounds? - honeyguides associate the sound with successful collaboration)

Question 18

Acoustic measures of amplitude…

Answer 18

explained no variance in guiding behaviour - so honeyguides do not respond more simply because they are more likely to hear it

Question 19

Behaviours where animals correctly attach meaning and respond to a human signal of recruitment toward cooperative foraging was a behaviour previously associated with only … animals specifically taught to cooperate, e.g. … and ….

Answer 19

domestic, dogs, falcons

example of wild animals exhibiting such cooperative behaviour with humans

• interactions with humans have probably evolved through natural selection rather than being taught

Question 20

The only current comparable relationship involves cooperation between … … and free-living ….

Answer 20

artisanal fishermen, dolphins

Question 21

Honeyguides are …-… and reared by insectivorous hosts, suggesting their propensity to locate bees nests and guide humans to them is likely to be … rather than ….

Answer 21

brood-parasitic, innate, learned

• thought local refinement must occur as brrr-hm call only used in specific area of Mozambique and other human calls are used for the same/similar purposes in other areas
• probably learned socially from conspecifics in the vicinity of bees’ nests, resulting in a local cultural tradition