Abstract
In birds, aggressive behavior can be elicited in the field with a simulated territory intrusion (STI). Here, we compared four different STI methods in nuthatches in the non-breeding season: playback only, playback combined with an inactive wooden model mounted on a robot device, playback and an active model mounted on a robot device, and playback with the robot device only. In the control treatment, birds were not exposed to STI. Experiments were carried out in 12 territories. Behavioral observations included latency to approach, latency to start calling, time spent in the same tree, number of flyovers, minimum distance, number of individuals, number of flights into the tree, and number of calls. There was no significant influence of stimulus presentation. Nuthatches responded equally to all four experimental manipulations, but order of presentation had a strong influence.
Highlights
Territorial defense is beneficial in species that defend resources, such as food or nesting places
Aggressive behavior can be elicited in the field with a simulated territory intrusion (STI), which consists of placing a decoy or a model along with a conspecific song playback inside a territory [3]
STIs have been applied in many studies and have been used, for example, to assess song type matching, showing that individuals responded to a playback of a specific song with matching when the song variation was in the repertoire of the territory defender [4,5]
Summary
Territorial defense (aggression) is beneficial in species that defend resources, such as food or nesting places. By focusing on playback only, responses of focal birds may be different (or less realistic) because individuals may approach the playback source but by not seeing the intruder, behavior may change. There may be environmental differences, as, e.g., open habitat dwelling species might be more likely to detect an intruder visually compared to dense forest-dwellers This makes the interpretation of experimental approaches more complex because it is difficult to tease apart which factor is more effective for a specific response, the decoy, or the playback. Another general problem of models is that they do not move [13]. We wanted to evaluate the responses towards a robotic model in comparison with playbacks and the combination of playbacks and a motionless decoy
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