PhD Opportunity, fully funded by the BBSRC
South West Biosciences Doctoral Training Partnership
Corvids calling: understanding the origins of complex communication
Supervisors:
Alex Thornton,
Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Penryn Campus,
Andrew
King, Biosciences, Swansea
Ines
Fuertbauer, Biosciences, Swansea
Neeltje
Boogert, CEC, University of Exeter
We are looking for a highly motivated, talented student with broad
interests in animal behaviour, cognition and communication. The project
will be based at the University of Exeter’s Penryn Campus in beautiful
Cornwall with additional work in Swansea.
Full details of how to apply are here:
If you have any questions about the project, please write to
alex.thornton@exeter.ac.uk
Project Summary (see attached pdf for details)
Animals have diverse acoustic communication systems, from the chirping
of crickets to the almost infinite complexity of human language, and
these systems play a vital role in enabling cooperation and structuring
societies. Most attempts to understand the causes
of this variation use between-species comparisons. These have examined,
for instance, whether social or ecological variables predict
characteristics of communication systems, such as whether vocalisations
are individually distinctive, or the number of different
vocalisations used. However, these comparative, correlational
approaches tell us little about the benefits individuals derive from
communication and ignore the possibility that benefits vary across
different contexts.
An alternative, more powerful approach is to harness within-species
variation to understand how and why individuals use different signals to
solve diverse challenges. Jackdaws, birds of the large-brained corvid
family, provide an ideal system as they live in
highly variable social environments, some of their calls are known to
be individually distinctive, and they use vocalisations to solve diverse
problems. Jackdaw societies centre around long-term, monogamous
pair-bonds, but pairs are embedded in dynamic social
networks within breeding colonies and members of different colonies
forage together and form vast winter flocks numbering thousands of
individuals. Our established study sites contain thousands of
individually recognisable, PIT-tagged jackdaws, providing unique
opportunities to understand the development and function of vocal
communication across these diverse contexts.