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A dead giveaway: foraging vultures and other avian scavengers respond to auditory cues

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dc.creator Jackson, Craig R.
dc.creator Maddox, Thomas
dc.creator Mbise, Franco P.
dc.creator Stokke, Bård G.
dc.creator Belant, Jerrold L.
dc.creator Bevanger, Kjetil
dc.creator Durant, Sarah M.
dc.creator Fyumagwa, Robert
dc.creator Ranke, Peter S.
dc.creator Røskaft, Eivin
dc.creator May, Roel
dc.creator Fossøy, Frode
dc.date 2021-05-27T12:11:33Z
dc.date 2021-05-27T12:11:33Z
dc.date 2020
dc.date.accessioned 2022-10-20T13:09:29Z
dc.date.available 2022-10-20T13:09:29Z
dc.identifier Jackson, C. R., Maddox, T., Mbise, F. P., Stokke, B. G., Belant, J. L., Bevanger, K., ... & Fossøy, F. (2020). A dead giveaway: foraging vultures and other avian scavengers respond to auditory cues. Ecology and evolution, 10(13), 6769-6774
dc.identifier URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ece3.6366
dc.identifier DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.6366
dc.identifier http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12661/3249
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12661/3249
dc.description Abstract. Full text article available at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ece3.6366
dc.description Carrion represents an unpredictable and widely distributed primary food source for vultures and other avian scavengers. Avian scavengers in African savanna ecosystems are reported to rely exclusively on visual stimuli to locate carcasses. However, carnivores’ predation of large mammalian herbivores and subsequent competition for access to the carcass can result in considerable noise, often audible over long distances and for prolonged periods. Vultures and other avian scavengers may therefore detect and respond to these auditory cues, as do the mammalian carnivores alongside which vultures have coevolved, but this has not been investigated to date. Working in the Serengeti ecosystem, Tanzania, we used diurnal auditory broadcasts to simulate predation and competitive carnivore feeding interactions. Based on the current understanding of avian scavenger ecology, we hypothesized that avian responses to call‐in stations would be evoked exclusively by visual, rather than auditory, cues. We therefore predicted that (a) the arrival of avian scavengers at call‐in stations should be preceded and facilitated by mammalian carnivores and that (b) the arrival of avian scavengers would be positively correlated with the number of mammalian scavengers present, which would increase detectability. We recorded 482 birds during 122 separate playback events. In 22% of these instances, avian scavengers arrived first, ruling out responses based exclusively on visual observations of mammalian carnivores, thereby contradicting our first prediction. Furthermore, the first avian arrivals at survey sessions were inversely related to the number of hyenas and jackals present, contradicting our second prediction. Since no bait or carcasses were used during the experiments, these responses are indicative of the birds’ ability to detect and respond to audio stimuli. Our findings challenge the current consensus of sensory perception and foraging in these species and provide evidence that avian scavengers have the ability to use sound to locate food resources.
dc.language en
dc.publisher John Wiley & Sons
dc.subject Scavengers
dc.subject Vultures
dc.subject Foraging vultures
dc.subject Avian scavengers
dc.subject Auditory cues
dc.subject Birds prey
dc.subject Carrion
dc.subject Optimal foraging
dc.subject Raptors
dc.subject Sensory cues
dc.title A dead giveaway: foraging vultures and other avian scavengers respond to auditory cues
dc.type Article


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