White-Crowned Sparrow respond to the alarm calls of local species but do not discriminate among them

Abstract

Eavesdropping is recognizing and gleaning information from a communication intended for someone else. Eavesdropping on alarm calls can benefit eavesdroppers by decreasing the time they spend allocated to vigilance, giving them more time for other behaviors such as foraging. Although there have been many studies done on eavesdropping on heterospecifics among birds, there have been few studies on migratory birds and their ability to learn heterospecifics alarm calls of local species in their breeding ranges. We conducted a playback on white-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys oriantha) using alarm calls from Lincoln’s sparrows (Melospiza lincolnii), yellow-bellied marmots (Marmota flaviventris), gray jays (Catharus minimus), American robins (Turdus migratorius), and white-crowned sparrows to try and understand if they listened to these acoustically variant alarm calls and gained any different information from each of them. We found that while sparrows responded to all playbacks, they did not discriminate amongst treatments. Thus, sparrows obtain general information about threats in their territories but do not respond in ways consistent with the alarm calls providing differential information about these threats. We speculate that fledglings probably learn the alarm calls of local species before migration, and remember them when they return to breed themselves. KEY WORDS: Alarm call, heterospecifics eavesdropping, mountain White-crowned sparrow, migration 1

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