<p>Animals often combine signals from different sensory modalities, yet field-based tests of multimodal signalling remain rare in small passerines, particularly shrikes. I examined pre-nuptial interactions of the Iberian Grey Shrike (<i>Lanius meridionalis</i>) in a Mediterranean agroecosystem to test whether specific flight behaviours are non-randomly associated with particular vocalisations. Over three pre-breeding seasons (winters 2012/13, 2015/16, and 2016/17), I conducted ten focal observation sessions (field visits) on winter territories, yielding 43 behavioural events. Each event was coded for flight type (demonstration, pursuit, courtship, inspection, or other flights) and for the presence or absence of five main call types defined from spectrograms. I summarised the relative frequencies of flights and calls and their co-occurrences, and then used simple binomial models to test a small set of a priori predictions about associations between flight type and key calls. Demonstration flights tended to co-occur with the territorial |ty.ty| call, whereas pursuit flights were more often silent, and other combinations were rare. A harsh, nasal ‘shack’ call was recorded in a small number of aggressive interactions but was too infrequent for separate statistical analysis. Only 15 of 43 behavioural events (34.9%) involved simultaneous flight and calling, so statistical power was low, confidence intervals were wide, and few effects approached conventional significance thresholds. These results provide preliminary, exploratory evidence that Iberian Grey Shrikes combine visual and acoustic components into a small number of context-dependent multimodal combinations during pre-nuptial interactions, and they identify priorities for future sampling and quantitative acoustic analyses in shrikes and other passerines inhabiting open agricultural landscapes.</p>

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Multi-modal displays during pre-nuptial interactions in the Iberian Grey Shrike (Lanius meridionalis): field observations

  • Frédéric Labouyrie

摘要

Animals often combine signals from different sensory modalities, yet field-based tests of multimodal signalling remain rare in small passerines, particularly shrikes. I examined pre-nuptial interactions of the Iberian Grey Shrike (Lanius meridionalis) in a Mediterranean agroecosystem to test whether specific flight behaviours are non-randomly associated with particular vocalisations. Over three pre-breeding seasons (winters 2012/13, 2015/16, and 2016/17), I conducted ten focal observation sessions (field visits) on winter territories, yielding 43 behavioural events. Each event was coded for flight type (demonstration, pursuit, courtship, inspection, or other flights) and for the presence or absence of five main call types defined from spectrograms. I summarised the relative frequencies of flights and calls and their co-occurrences, and then used simple binomial models to test a small set of a priori predictions about associations between flight type and key calls. Demonstration flights tended to co-occur with the territorial |ty.ty| call, whereas pursuit flights were more often silent, and other combinations were rare. A harsh, nasal ‘shack’ call was recorded in a small number of aggressive interactions but was too infrequent for separate statistical analysis. Only 15 of 43 behavioural events (34.9%) involved simultaneous flight and calling, so statistical power was low, confidence intervals were wide, and few effects approached conventional significance thresholds. These results provide preliminary, exploratory evidence that Iberian Grey Shrikes combine visual and acoustic components into a small number of context-dependent multimodal combinations during pre-nuptial interactions, and they identify priorities for future sampling and quantitative acoustic analyses in shrikes and other passerines inhabiting open agricultural landscapes.