Abstract
ABSTRACTThe structure of ecological communities is thought to be mainly driven by competition processes between species. One special case of resource shaping community dynamics is the acoustic space. However, the acoustic communities have been rarely described for tropical birds. Here, we aimed at estimating acoustic competition between the iconic speciesPharomachrus mocinnoand the other bird species occupying the same habitat. An acoustic survey was conducted in a cloud forest in Guatemala for 17 days in six simultaneous recording sites. All species occurring in the same frequency bandwidth were identified, and the acoustic overlapping betweenP. mocinnoand these species was estimated. Eighteen species were identified as acoustic competitors. Ecological traits and phylogenetic distance were defined for all species. The rate of acoustic competition betweenP. mocinnoand other species was related to different ecological traits and competition for resources. The acoustic overlap was high with species competing for similar food resources and phylogenetically close species and low with predator species and phylogenetically distant species. These unique observations provide new behavioural and ecological information that might be useful for the knowledge of this species and the cloud forest.
Highlights
Competition is considered as one of the main drivers of ecological communities leading to niche differentiation (Adler, Harpole, Mutshinda, O’Hara, & Woiwod 2009; HilleRisLambers, Levine, & Mayfield 2012; Morin 2011)
This non-oscine bird produces four types of sounds associated with the following behaviours: territory defence, courtship, alarm and contact between individuals (Bolaños-Sittler, Sueur, Fuchs & Aubin 2019), with median frequencies between 950 and 1550 Hz (Bolaños-Sittler 2019). These sounds can be produced at the same time as those of other local species so that P. mocinno belongs to a specific acoustic community where signals have the potential to overlap between them, in particular for the species occupying the same frequency band
An analysis of the bird acoustic community vocalizing within the bandwidth of P. mocinno vocalizations was conducted in a cloud forest in Guatemala
Summary
Competition is considered as one of the main drivers of ecological communities leading to niche differentiation (Adler, Harpole, Mutshinda, O’Hara, & Woiwod 2009; HilleRisLambers, Levine, & Mayfield 2012; Morin 2011). Pharomachrus mocinno belongs to a bird assemblage cohabitating with species potentially sharing the same ecological resources and predators (Santana & Milligan 1984) This non-oscine bird produces four types of sounds associated with the following behaviours: territory defence, courtship, alarm and contact between individuals (supplementary Figure 1) (Bolaños-Sittler, Sueur, Fuchs & Aubin 2019), with median frequencies between 950 and 1550 Hz (Bolaños-Sittler 2019). These sounds can be produced at the same time as those of other local species so that P. mocinno belongs to a specific acoustic community where signals have the potential to overlap between them, in particular for the species occupying the same frequency band
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