SR14:Spottiswoode 2016- honeyguide human mutualism Flashcards
what does the mutualism involve?
greater honeyguide birds lead human honey hunters to wild bees nests
what is it an example of?
mutualistic foraging partnership
what does the specialised vocal sound made by the Mozambican honey hunters elicit?
cooperative behaviour from honeyguides
what did the sound increase the probability of being guided by a honeyguide from and to?
33% to 66%
what did the sound increase the probability of finding a bees nest from and to?
17% to 54%
who by and when was the behaviour first noticed?
1588
joao dos santos
after the men harvest the nests what do the honeyguides benefit from?
eating the beeswax combs
as honeyguides approach people what do they do?
give a loud chattering call that is different from their territorial song and fly from tree to tree until the human follows
what was tracked in the experiment?
trailed the honey hunters and tracked movements using GPS
what % of guiding events led to successful discovery by humans of at least one bees nest
75.3%
what % of the nests belonged to the honeybee?
94.6%
what did the birds initial flight direction accurately signal?
ultimate location of bees nest
what % of bees nests founded by humans involved the help of honeyguides?
74.5%
as a special case what do Yao honey hunters do to announce their presence?
produce a loud trill followed by grunt brr hm which is a specific sound learned through generations
what was done to see if honeyguides associated vocal signal with higher payoff? and what was found?
- played 1 of 3 sounds in transects
- control human. control animal, specialised brr hm
- 30/72 transects were guided by honeyguides
if the honey hunting call brr hm was used then what % probability was there for eliciting guide from the honeyguide?
66.7%
when the control sounds were produced what would the honeyguides do?
stop guiding behaviour
what were the % of bees nests found for each:
a) honey hunting specialised sound
b) human control
c) animal control
a) 81%
b) 67%
c) 50%
what did using the honey hunting sound do to the chance of finding a bees nest?
more than tripled it
what has the interaction likely evolved by?
NS
what does the study show that a wild animal is capable of doing?
attaching meaning and responding to a human signal of recruitment for cooperative foraging
learning may occur socially from other birds near bees nests, what does this result in?
a tradition in the honeyguides that reflects customs of the human honey hunters
what is the specific brr hmm signal confined to?
a specific geographical area
