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Communication Network Species, Group and Individual Acoustic Signatures Vocal signals are involved in many social interactions and can encode several types of information such as species identity, group label, gender, social status and individual identity. Such information is essential for reproduction success and survival, but also to organize social links. We investigate the coding-decoding processes of this information. Coding of information is studied by performing exhaustive acoustic analyses, but the most interesting part is to decrypt which particular acoustic parameters (FM, AM, frequency values…) are used by animals for these different types of recognition. To decode these “species”, “group” or “individual” vocal signatures, we synthesized calls in which one given parameter has been modified, and we “ask” animals with playback experiments if they still recognize the modified calls as coming from its own species or its own group or from its mate or young. Studied models: amphibians, crocodilians, penguins, pinnipeds, seabirds, songbirds. Social Structures and Individual Recognition We investigate how communication strategies involved with social structures and breeding ecology. Among species phylogenically related, they can show different social structures, from solitary to highly colonial species, inducing different constraints interfering with their communication system. By studying different species among birds and mammals, we are willing to demonstrate that communication systems are mainly linked to ecological than genetic traits. Studied models: penguins, pinnipeds, seabirds. Social Context and Acoustic Communication Social context is known to influence animal behaviour and communication processes thus depend on the presence of a particular audience. Any communication occurs within a network as in most cases an emitted signal will be received by several receivers, some of them eavesdropping information. Thus, interactions between individuals –e.g., between mates or between parents and young- are at the origin of complex communication networks (in birds for instance,chicks can be in competition for parental care) and can strongly depend on the social context (e.g., an individual alone versus a social group). In these conditions, the behaviour of the emitter and of the receiver may be influenced by the structure of the surrounding network. To investigate the interactions between social context the cognitive and neuro-ethological communication processes, we focus on the strategies used by parents and young in birds (models : black-headed gull Larus ridibundus, zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata) and during communication between mates and competitors in cichlid fishes.