Download Communication Network Species, Group and Individual Acoustic

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.