Meeting Abstract

P2.4  Tuesday, Jan. 5  Evidence for widespread predator-elicited vocalizations in the Fairy-wrens: the Type II call in Malurus lamberti BRANDLEY, N. C.*; SPENDEL, K.; GREIG, E. I.; Duke University; University of Chicago ncb9@duke.edu

Predator-elicited vocalizations have typically been viewed as alarms to conspecifics or deterrents to predators however recent work has suggested that they may also function as sexual displays to conspecifics. It is believed that calling after a predator’s vocalization adds additional danger to the call, which increases the caller’s attractiveness to females. Within the Fairy-wrens, two different species (the Superb, M. cyaneus, and the Splendid , M. splendens) are known to give songs in response to the vocalization of a predatory bird (referred to as the ‘Type II song’). Recent work in M. splendens has shown that these songs serve little alarm function and most likely function as sexual displays. Here we demonstrate the Type II song in a third species of Fairy-wren, the Variegated Fairy-wren (M. lamberti). We conducted a series of ten playbacks from each of five avian species (three predators and two non-predators) to M. lamberti in the Brookfield Conservation Park, South Australia. Only the predatory Grey Butcherbird (Cracticus torquatus) elicited a Type II response, which occurred in 70% of their playbacks (n=10, two tailed Fisher’s Exact test: p=0.003) . This represents the third case of a song-like vocalization induced by predators in the genus Malurus, and is the first example in the Variegated Fairy-wren’s ‘Chestnut-shouldered’ clade. Although the function of the Variegated Fairy-wren’s Type II song was not examined, its similarities in structure and usage to the Splendid Fairy-wren’s Type II song suggest further widespread predator-elicited sexual display vocalizations in the genus Malurus than previously believed.