ArticleBiology letters2019
Evidence for individual discrimination and numerical assessment in collective antipredator behaviour in wild jackdaws (
Article in Biology letters, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 15 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- Categorical Representation of Numerosity in the Pigeon Entopallium: Coding Format and Temporal Dynamics.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Variability and individuality in the contact calls of jackdaws (Corvus monedula).Animal cognition · 2025Article
- Wild jackdaws recognise the contact calls of their mate.Animal cognition · 2025Article
- Group size affects spontaneous quantity discrimination performance in wild Western Australian magpies (Gymnorhina tibicen dorsalis).Animal cognition · 2025Article
- Turning the tables: a tiny bird uses alarm calls and mimicry to deceive its nest predator.Biology letters · 2025Article
- The relative contribution of acoustic signals versus movement cues in group coordination and collective decision-making.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Anthropogenic disturbance affects calling and collective behaviour in corvid roosts.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Directional speakers as a tool for animal vocal communication studies.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Social dynamics impact scolding behaviour in captive groups of common ravens (Corvus corax).Frontiers in zoology · 2022Article
- Wild cognition - linking form and function of cognitive abilities within a natural context.Current opinion in behavioral sciences · 2022Article
- Who is crying wolf? Seasonal effect on antipredator response to age-specific alarm calls in common ravens, Corvus corax.Learning & behavior · 2021Article
- Individual vocal recognition across taxa: a review of the literature and a look into the future.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Review
- Food Quantity Discrimination in Angelfish (Frontiers in behavioral neuroscience · 2020Article
- Evidence for individual discrimination and numerical assessment in collective antipredator behaviour in wild jackdaws (Biology letters · 2019Article
- Response to intruder number is related to spontaneous quantity discrimination performance in a wild bird.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Collective responses to threats occur throughout the animal kingdom but little is known about the cognitive processes underpinning them. Antipredator mobbing is one such response. Approaching a predator may be highly risky, but the individual risk declines and the likelihood of repelling the predator increases in larger mobbing groups. The ability to appraise the number of conspecifics involved in a mobbing event could therefore facilitate strategic decisions about whether to join. Mobs are commonly initiated by recruitment calls, which may provide valuable information to guide decision-making. We tested whether the number of wild jackdaws responding to recruitment calls was influenced by the number of callers. As predicted, playbacks simulating three or five callers tended to recruit more individuals than playbacks of one caller. Recruitment also substantially increased if recruits themselves produced calls. These results suggest that jackdaws use individual vocal discrimination to assess the number of conspecifics involved in initiating mobbing events, and use this information to guide their responses. Our results show support for the use of numerical assessment in antipredator mobbing responses and highlight the need for a greater understanding of the cognitive processes involved in collective behaviour.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.