The power of sound: unravelling how acoustic communication shapes group dynamics.

Acoustic signalling is a key mode of communication owing to its instantaneousness and rapid turnover, its saliency and flexibility and its ability to function strategically in both short- and long-range contexts. Acoustic communication is closely intertwined with both collective behaviour and social network structure, as it can facilitate the coordination of collective decisions and behaviour, and play an important role in establishing, maintaining and modifying social relationships. These research topics have each been studied separately and represent three well-established research areas.

Mixed-species flock sizes and compositions influence flock members' success in three field experiments with novel feeders.

Mixed-species groups and aggregations are quite common and may provide substantial fitness-related benefits to group members. Individuals may benefit from the overall size of the mixed-species group or from the diversity of species present, or both. Here we exposed mixed-species flocks of songbirds (Carolina chickadees, Poecile carolinensis, tufted titmice, Baeolophus bicolor, and the satellite species attracted to these two species) to three different novel feeder experiments to assess the influence of mixed-species flock size and composition on ability to solve the feeder tasks.

Conspecific and heterospecific cueing in shelter choices of cockroaches.

Background: Like many cockroaches, Argentinian wood roaches, , prefer darker shelters over lighter shelters. In three experiments, we asked whether chemical cues from other roaches might influence shelter choice, a process known as conspecific or heterospecific cueing, depending on whether the cues come from an individual of the same or a different species, respectively.

Methods: Each experiment involved trials with focal cockroaches in testing arenas containing plastic shelters of varying levels of darkness, with filter paper under each shelter acting as a carrier for chemical cues.

Influence of social and physical environmental variation on antipredator behavior in mixed-species parid flocks.

Carolina chickadees (Poecile carolinensis) and tufted titmice (Baeolophus bicolor) regularly form flocks with multiple species through the winter months, including white-breasted nuthatches (Sitta carolinensis). Earlier studies found that behavior of both chickadees and titmice was sensitive to mixed-species flock composition. Little is known about the influence of background noise level and vegetation density on the antipredator behaviors of individuals within these flocks, however.

Influence of group size on shelter choice in Blaptica dubia cockroaches.

Individuals in social groups can gain benefits from being in those groups, including an increased ability to find food and avoid predators. We tested for potential group benefits in shelter choice in the Argentinian wood roach, Blaptica dubia. Roaches were tested in arenas with two shelters available in which one shelter was significantly darker than the other.

Mixed-species groups and aggregations: shaping ecological and behavioural patterns and processes.

Mixed-species groups of birds, fishes and mammals have traditionally been described in taxa-specific journals. However, mixed-species systems are actually more widely found when one includes aggregative (non-moving) systems, such as those common in amphibians and invertebrates. The objective of this special issue is to dispel the idea that mixed-species phenomena are a 'niche topic' to ecology and instead explore how taking a mixed-species perspective can change our conception of important ecological patterns and processes.

Mixed-species flock composition matters: interspecific influences on finding novel food in North American parids.

Individuals of a wide range of species are sensitive to the presence of other species, and can often benefit from associations with other species in mixed-species groups (MSGs) through food-finding or avoiding predation. In an earlier field study, we found that both Carolina chickadees, and tufted titmice, , were better able to solve a novel feeder task when their MSGs were more diverse in terms of species composition. Like most studies of MSGs, however, that earlier study did not experimentally manipulate MSG size and composition.

Simplicity and complexity in human and nonhuman communication.

Comments on an article by Limor Raviv et al. (see record 2023-07345-001). Raviv et al.

Testing the role of macaque social tolerance in ability to follow human eye gaze.

Comments on an article by R. Bettle and A. G.

Social dynamics of core members in mixed-species bird flocks change across a gradient of foraging habitat quality.

Social associations within mixed-species bird flocks can promote information flow about food availability and provide predator avoidance benefits. The relationship between flocking propensity, foraging habitat quality, and interspecific competition can be altered by human-induced habitat degradation. Here we take a close look at sociality within two ecologically important flock-leader (core) species, the Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) and tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor), to better understand how degradation of foraging habitat quality affects mixed-species flocking dynamics.

Factors in forgetting in spider monkeys, Ateles geoffroyi.

This essay discusses current problems and factors with memory testing in spider monkeys. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana) modify caching behavior when observed.

The featured article of this issue focused on a species with relatively simple sociality-Clark's nutcrackers (Nucifraga columbiana; Tornick & Gibson, 2021; Figure 1), a species that regularly (and readily in experimental conditions) caches food items. The question at hand was whether individual nutcrackers cached food items-and then later retrieved them-differently depending upon whether they were being observed by a conspecific or not at the time of caching. Tornick and Gibson (2021) found that individual nutcrackers were highly sensitive to whether they were being observed by a conspecific.

Zing-Yang Kuo and "Giving up instincts in psychology", 100 years later.

A hundred years ago, the Journal of Comparative Psychology began being published and currently stands as the longest-running science journal devoted to the study of animal behavior. In that same year, 1921, a paper was published in the Journal of Philosophy that was foundational to our field of study-"Giving up Instincts in Psychology" by Zing-Yang Kuo. This brief essay discusses some of the main arguments of Kuo's article and how they have extended into today's thinking and empirical work on behavioral development.

A community context for aggression? Multi-species audience effects on territorial aggression in two species of Paridae.

Territorial aggression in birds is widely observed and is commonly linked to sex, age, body size, physiology, seasonal cues, food resource, urbanization, and a variety of social contexts including conspecific audience effects. However, little is known about the heterospecific audience effects on territorial aggression.Here, we address an emerging idea that heterospecific audience effects may be pervasive influences in the social lives of free-living birds.

Familiarity-The bridge from social interactions to relationships?

One approach that is starting to reveal interesting variation in social interactions assesses how familiarity of individuals affects their behavior toward one another. This was studied by Prior, Smith, Dooling, and Ball (2020) with a model songbird species, zebra finches (). This work is important in that it reveals how fundamental simple familiarity-repeated social experience with another individual-is to communication and interaction in social species.

How comparatively widespread are visual illusions?

Researchers and artists have long been interested in visual illusions because they illustrate the interesting, complicated, and constrained ways in which we perceive the world. Although we may not be familiar with the names of the many different visual illusions that exist (e.g.

From simple rules of individual proximity, complex and coordinated collective movement.

In this brief article, the author notes that the empirical study of coordinated collective motion (CCM) has often been built upon the theoretical foundation of mathematical models and computer simulation of behavior. One key assumption of CCM models is that individuals' movement behavior is influenced by rules of proximity-a balance of attraction and repulsion tendencies depending on how close an immediate neighbor is. When individuals are moving in groups, these rules therefore have a bearing on the alignment of individuals in space and time, and so also on the orientation and speed of movement of individuals.

Flocking propensity by satellites, but not core members of mixed-species flocks, increases when individuals experience energetic deficits in a poor-quality foraging habitat.

Mixed-species bird flocks are complex social systems comprising core and satellite members. Flocking species are sensitive to habitat disturbance, but we are only beginning to understand how species-specific responses to habitat disturbance affect interspecific associations in these flocks. Here we demonstrate the effects of human-induced habitat disturbance on flocking species' behavior, demography, and individual condition within a remnant network of temperate deciduous forest patches in Indiana, USA.

Communication as a fundamental part of machiavellian intelligence.

The Machiavellian intelligence hypothesis proposes that individuals in complex social groups require sophisticated social cognition. This hypothesis has advanced our understanding of the complex social lives of animals and how individuals interact with others in their groups. Machiavellian intelligence is the capacity of an individual to alter the behavior of others around it to the individual's own advantage.

Populations and personalities.

The question of personality in nonhuman animals has loomed large in the study of animal behavior. This issue's featured article assessed the possibility that different environments generate different patterns of personality. Roy and Bhat (2018) studied common measures of personality in two populations of wild zebrafish, .

On need, communication, and cooperation in rats (Rattus norvegicus).

This article introduces the second issue of Volume 132 of the which continues the Featured Article Essays that began in the last issue. The article chosen for this issue is an article by Schweinfurth and Taborsky (2018) on how food-based need affects the communicative and cooperative behavior of Norway rats, . (PsycINFO Database Record

Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) calling behavior in response to threats and in flight: Flockmate familiarity matters.

Signalers can vary their vocal behavior, depending on the presence or absence of conspecific group members, and on the composition of the group. Here we asked whether Carolina chickadee () signalers varied their vocal behavior, depending on whether they were in the presence of familiar or unfamiliar flockmates. We sorted 32 Carolina chickadees into 4 groups with 4 familiar birds each and 4 groups with 4 unfamiliar birds each and recorded their behavior in seminatural aviary settings.

Diversity in mixed species groups improves success in a novel feeder test in a wild songbird community.

Mixed-species groups are common and are thought to provide benefits to group members via enhanced food finding and antipredator abilities. These benefits could accrue due to larger group sizes in general but also to the diverse species composition in the groups. We tested these possibilities using a novel feeder test in a wild songbird community containing three species that varied in their dominant-subordinate status and in their nuclear-satellite roles: Carolina chickadees (Poecile carolinensis), tufted titmice (Baeolophus bicolor), and white-breasted nuthatches (Sitta carolinensis).