Dr Andy Radford - Cooperation and conflict in social birds

Groups of cooperative breeders are hotbeds of cooperation and conflict. In the first half of this talk, I will describe fieldwork on a habituated population of pied babblers examining how sentinels and foragers utilise vocalisations to optimise their behaviour. I will show how (a) foragers use the calls of sentinels to detect their presence and height, as well as the current level of risk, and thus maximise their foraging success; and (b) sentinels use the calls of foragers to minimise the cost of a cooperative act. In the second half of the talk, I will describe work on a wild population of green woodhoopoes that investigates the lasting impacts of between-group conflict on within-group behaviour. I will demonstrate how interactions with rival groups influence post-conflict affiliation between group members, resource use and consensus decision-making.