Abstract

Male cuckoos Cuculus canorus produce calls that differ in number of syllables depending on environmental conditions and presence of male and female conspecifics. Why different males produce so repeatable calls that vary greatly in duration among males remains an open question. We used playback of cuckoo calls with few or many syllables (hereafter short and long calls), and woodpigeon calls (a control that also produces few or many syllables), predicting that playback of longer cuckoo calls should attract more male cuckoos (if males with such calls are dominant and successfully out-compete other males due to intraspecific competition), and attract more hosts mobbing male cuckoos (cuckoos with such calls and their females attract more hosts because of an increased risk of parasitism). Because cuckoos differentially parasitize hosts away from human habitation, we also tested whether the number of syllables in cuckoo calls differed with distance from buildings. Playback showed significant effects of number of syllables in cuckoo calls, but not woodpigeon Columba palumbus calls, with an additional effect of distance from human habitation decreasing the response to playback. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that longer cuckoo calls, especially played back near human habitation, attract more conspecifics and hosts than shorter calls. To the best of knowledge this is the first study showing that cuckoo call response modified both other cuckoo individuals, as well as hosts response.

Highlights

  • A general feature of animal sexual communication is the exaggeration of signals with longer, larger or stronger signals being transmitted across longer distances and having stronger impact on receivers (Ryan & Keddy-Hector, 1992)

  • We experimentally tested by playback of modified cuckoo calls and calls emitted by a control species, the wood pigeon, the hypothesis that duration of the call is an important factor for understanding the reaction of conspecific and host species

  • Birds responded differently to playback of cuckoo and woodpigeon calls differing in the number of repeat syllables, with responses being strongest to cuckoo calls with more repeats

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Summary

Introduction

A general feature of animal sexual communication is the exaggeration of signals with longer, larger or stronger signals being transmitted across longer distances and having stronger impact on receivers (Ryan & Keddy-Hector, 1992). Signals with more repeats are generally more efficient and attractive than those with fewer repeats (Ryan & Keddy-Hector, 1992; Catchpole & Slater, 2008; Searcy & Nowicki, 2005). This applies to vocal, visual, chemical and other signals (Bradbury & Vehrencamp, 2011). Male common cuckoos Cuculus canorus produce calls that differ in the number of ‘cucoo’ syllables depending on quality of habitat and presence of male and female conspecifics (Møller, Liang & Díaz, 2016). Cuckoos flew away at much longer distances than hosts when approached by a human (Møller, Liang & Díaz, 2016)

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