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The sentinel behaviour of Arabian babbler floaters

The sentinel behaviour of 38 Arabian babbler adult floaters, who lived alone within a territory belonging to a foreign group, was studied and compared with their own sentinel behaviour in the past, when they were group members. All floaters acted as sentinels and uttered ‘alarm calls’. This suggests...

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Autores principales: Ostreiher, Roni, Heifetz, Aviad
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society Publishing 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5367298/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28386429
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160738
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author Ostreiher, Roni
Heifetz, Aviad
author_facet Ostreiher, Roni
Heifetz, Aviad
author_sort Ostreiher, Roni
collection PubMed
description The sentinel behaviour of 38 Arabian babbler adult floaters, who lived alone within a territory belonging to a foreign group, was studied and compared with their own sentinel behaviour in the past, when they were group members. All floaters acted as sentinels and uttered ‘alarm calls’. This suggests that sentinel activity is due at least, in part, to selfish motives. Floaters sentinelled less than they did as group members, with the decrease in sentinel activity sharper for ex-dominants than for ex-subordinates. One possible explanation for these differences is that sentinel activity is aimed not only at detecting predators, but also at detecting foreign conspecifics. Within a group, the latter incentive is stronger for breeding dominants than for subordinates, whereas all floaters alike may be trying to detect the owners of the territory in which they were roaming but also to avoid being detected by them. Other possible explanations are that floaters have less time and energy for sentinel activity because they are weaker or because foraging is more difficult in a foreign territory. This may be especially so for dominants who used to enjoy privileged access to food in their group. No significant difference was found in the rate of sentinels' ‘alarm calls’ between floaters and group members, suggesting that their main purpose is predator–prey communication, of which warning groupmates may be a side benefit.
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spelling pubmed-53672982017-04-06 The sentinel behaviour of Arabian babbler floaters Ostreiher, Roni Heifetz, Aviad R Soc Open Sci Biology (Whole Organism) The sentinel behaviour of 38 Arabian babbler adult floaters, who lived alone within a territory belonging to a foreign group, was studied and compared with their own sentinel behaviour in the past, when they were group members. All floaters acted as sentinels and uttered ‘alarm calls’. This suggests that sentinel activity is due at least, in part, to selfish motives. Floaters sentinelled less than they did as group members, with the decrease in sentinel activity sharper for ex-dominants than for ex-subordinates. One possible explanation for these differences is that sentinel activity is aimed not only at detecting predators, but also at detecting foreign conspecifics. Within a group, the latter incentive is stronger for breeding dominants than for subordinates, whereas all floaters alike may be trying to detect the owners of the territory in which they were roaming but also to avoid being detected by them. Other possible explanations are that floaters have less time and energy for sentinel activity because they are weaker or because foraging is more difficult in a foreign territory. This may be especially so for dominants who used to enjoy privileged access to food in their group. No significant difference was found in the rate of sentinels' ‘alarm calls’ between floaters and group members, suggesting that their main purpose is predator–prey communication, of which warning groupmates may be a side benefit. The Royal Society Publishing 2017-02-08 /pmc/articles/PMC5367298/ /pubmed/28386429 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160738 Text en © 2017 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Biology (Whole Organism)
Ostreiher, Roni
Heifetz, Aviad
The sentinel behaviour of Arabian babbler floaters
title The sentinel behaviour of Arabian babbler floaters
title_full The sentinel behaviour of Arabian babbler floaters
title_fullStr The sentinel behaviour of Arabian babbler floaters
title_full_unstemmed The sentinel behaviour of Arabian babbler floaters
title_short The sentinel behaviour of Arabian babbler floaters
title_sort sentinel behaviour of arabian babbler floaters
topic Biology (Whole Organism)
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5367298/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28386429
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160738
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