Animal communication
Context & specificity of alarm calls
Social behaviour & cooperation
Evolution of cooperative breeding
Selective drivers of behavioural traits
Project overview
Alarm calls have become a major interest in the study of communication complexity in animals and the evolution of language. To investigate the function and specificity of alarm calls, we explore the context of calls in Eurasian magpies. Eurasian magpie breeders are year-round territorial and live in stable neighbourhoods. Their offspring leave the territory a few weeks after fledging to join flocks of non-breeders until they obtain a breeding position usually not before 2 years of age. Magpies are common in the Netherlands and breed all over Wageningen and the surrounding towns and fields. They may fall prey to raptors such as sparrowhawks and terrestrial predators such as foxes and cats, and are reported to mob these intensely especially when their offspring is around. They at least partially seem to use the same calls to defend their territory against conspecific intruders. We conduct a variety of experiments to explore context-specificity of, graded variation in and responses to calls in magpies.
If you are currently a student, and are interested in doing your thesis within this research line, feel free to contact me or check out the thesis opportunities here.
