Dissertation Research: Social dynamics in a territorial animal communication network

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The costs and benefits of cooperation is a central issue in biology, psychology, anthropology and economics. A central issue is the question of whom to trust; that is, whom individuals should cooperate with so that they do not get exploited. In recent years, evidence has accumulated that animals may choose trustworthy individuals on the basis of information acquired not just through direct interactions but through eavesdropping on that individual interacting with other individuals. The current project proposes a detailed experimental analysis of the social dynamics of interactions among territorial male song sparrows, a North American songbird. The males of this species, as in many other territorial species, show mutual cooperation in the form of reduced aggression towards their neighbors along their established boundaries, a phenomenon known as the Dear Enemy Effect. In the present project, playback experiments with radio-tagged birds will simulate a neighbor intruding on another's territory. The prediction is that male song sparrows will use complex information from the interactions of their neighbors to base their decisions as to which neighbors are trustworthy and which are not. In particular, the project asks whether song sparrows are able to make fine-scale distinctions between their neighbors based on their interactions with other neighbors, such as whether they can discriminate between justified and unjustified acts of aggression towards a neighbor. The results are expected to provide the most detailed experimental analysis of a territorial communication network in nature to date and thus inform theories of cooperation that try to explain cooperative acts in animals including our own species. The project will involve undergraduate and high school students, as well as educational activities for the general public.