special reading - communication - 2 - reciprocal signalling in honeyguide - human- mutualism

Question 1

what is the question?

Answer 1

do honeyguides in turn exploit specialised signals directed at them by humans

Question 2

background info

Answer 2

• African honeyguide birds lead human hunters to bee colonies, and the humans, leave enough mess for the birds to feast on
• rare example of communication between humans and a wild animal
• mozambiquen honey hunters use a special call too request help from the birds - suggests the birds are able to attach the specific meaning to a humans call

Question 3

what are the methods/general info?

Answer 3

• First established whether information provided by honeyguides was accurate, trailed guiding events. 75.3% of guiding events led to the successful discovery by humans of at least one bees nest.
• next investigated whether the signals used by humans provided reliable information to honeyguides. Interviewed 20 Yao honey-hunters all of whom reported that they used a specific call for honey hunting purposes and nothing else.
• examined whether honeyguides associated this vocal signal with a higher chance of a payoff from cooperation. If so , then honeyguides should be more likely to initiate collaboration with humans producing this honey-hunting sound rather then other sounds.

Question 4

Methods (2)

Answer 4

Carried out 72, 15-min experimental transects simulating honey-hunting forays , in which an investigator and two local honey hunters walked while playing one of three acoustic cues every 7s.

1) a control human sound (a Yao word or phrase)
2) A control animal sound
3) The specialised “brrr-hm” honey hunting sound

response of honey hunters was measured.

Question 5

Results

Answer 5

• guided by a honeyguide on 30 of 72 transects
• Transects accompanied by the honey-hunting call had a 66.7% probability of eliciting guiding from a honeyguide, which was significantly greater then that for transects accompanied by the other two sounds.
• Overall honey-hunting sound resulted in a 52.4% chance of finding bees nest
• production of honey hunting sound more then tripled chance of finding bees nest

Question 6

Meaning of results

Answer 6

-Results show that honeyguides correctly attach meaning and subsequently respond to human signal of recruitment (behaviour previously only associated with domestic animals)