Dear colleagues,

remember that Biology Thursday seminar continues today in zoom (link below) at 12:15!

Dr. Luigi Baciadonna (CNRS - University Paul Sabatier - Toulouse III) on
“Multi-sensory individual recognition in African penguin”

The ability to uniquely identify individuals is considered a crucial step for the evolution of sociality and it forms the basis of many complex behaviours, such as understanding dominance, allocating adequate parental care, and territory defence. Individual recognition has been found in several animal species. The sensory signals used for this purpose vary widely and include visual, olfactory/chemical, and auditory stimuli. In the first part of the talk, I will present the complex vocal repertoire of the African penguin and how the application of the source-filter model of phonation has made it possible to decode identity cues encoded in the contact calls and ecstatic display calls of this species. Furthermore, I will discuss the evidence for the biological relevance of some vocal cues encoded in the calls of conspecifics, using experimental paradigms from comparative psychology and playback techniques. Although a long tradition of research on penguins has highlighted the importance and efficiency of acoustic communication in extreme environmental conditions and for sociality, there is convincing evidence that other sensory modalities may be equally efficient to identify others. The African penguin, and in general the penguins of the Spheniscus genus, have a phenotypic peculiarity. Approximately 3-5 months after hatching, a pattern of black dots appears on the ventral part of the plumage which remains stable throughout their life despite seasonal moulds. Throughout a battery of tests, we have demonstrated the ability of this species to discriminate their partners based on visual cues alone and preliminary evidence suggests the role of the dot pattern in individual recognition. Finally, I will present experimental evidence to support the ability to mentally represent familiar individuals. Through the expectation violation paradigm, I demonstrated how penguins are faster in observing an unexpected event in which the visual information (viewing a familiar member of the colony disappearing behind a barrier) did not correspond to correct acoustic information (vocalization of a different individual from the one seen leaving). The observed pattern of responses supports the idea that penguins have a rather complex and flexible ability to reliably identify others in their colony. Furthermore, these results challenge the idea that penguins exclusively use acoustic information to identify each other and that the only visual information they rely on is the spatial location of their nest. African penguins are classified as endangered by the IUCN. Understanding their cognitive abilities, so far almost completely unknown, appears particularly useful for raising awareness about their conservation status in the general population.

You can check out Luigi’s work at:
https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?hl=en&user=4MkDvrcAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate

See you soon online,

Heikki

Topic: Biology Thursday seminar

Time: This is a recurring meeting Meet anytime

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