Peter K. McGregor

Bio: Peter K. McGregor is an academic researcher from Cornwall College, Jamaica. The author has contributed to research in topics: Population & Uca tangeri. The author has an hindex of 46, co-authored 122 publications receiving 7153 citations. Previous affiliations of Peter K. McGregor include Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology & International Sleep Products Association.

Animal Communication Networks

Abstract: 1. Introduction Peter K. McGregor Part I. Behaviours Specific to Communication Networks: 2. Eavesdropping in communication networks Tom M. Peake 3. Public, private or anonymous? Facilitating and countering eavesdropping Torben Dabelsteen 4. Performing in front of an audience - signallers and the social environment Ricardo J. Matos and Ingo Schlupp 5. Fighting, mating and networking: pillars of poeciliid sociality Ryan L. Earley and Lee Alan Dugatkin 6. The occurrence and function of victory displays within communication networks John L. Bower Part II. The Effects of Particular Contexts: 7. Enlightened decisions: female assessment and communication networks Ken A. Otter and Laurene Ratcliffe 8. Predation and noise in communication networks of neotropical katydids Alexander Lang, Ingeborg Teppner, Manfred Hartbauer and Heiner Romer 9. Nestling begging as a communication network Andrew G. Horn and Marty Leonard 10. Redirection of aggression: multiparty signalling in a network? Anahita J. N. Kazem and Filippo Aureli 11. Scent marking and social communication Jane L. Hurst Part III. Communication Networks in Different Taxa: 12. Waving in a crowd: fiddler crabs signal in networks Denise S. Pope 13. Anuran choruses as communication networks T. Ulmar Grafe 14. Singing interactions in songbirds: implications for social relations and territorial settlement Marc Naguib 15. Dawn chorus as an interactive communication network John M. Burt and Sandra L. Vehrencamp 16. Eavesdropping and scent over-marking Robert E. Johnston 17. Vocal communication networks in large terrestrial mammals Karen E. McComb and David Reby 18. Underwater acoustic communication networks in marine mammals Vincent Janik 19. Looking for, looking at: social control, honest signals, and intimate experience in human evolution and history John Locke Part IV. Interfaces with Other Disciplines: 20. Perception and acoustic communication networks Ulrike Langemann and Georg M. Klump 21. Hormones, social context and animal communication Rui F. Oliveira 22. Cooperation in communication networks: indirect reciprocity in interactions between cleaner fish and client reef fish Reduoan Bshary and Arun D'Souza 23. Fish semiochemicals and the evolution of communication networks Brian D. Wisenden and Norman E Stacey 24. Cognitive aspects of networks and avian capacities Irene M. Pepperberg 25. Social complexity and the information acquired during eavesdropping by primates and other animals Dorothy Cheney and Robert M. Seyfarth 26. Communication networks in a virtual world Andrew M. R. Terry and Robert Lachlan.

Playback and Studies of Animal Communication

Abstract: Design of Playback Experiments P.K. McGregor, et al. Playback J.B. Falls. Integrating Playback C.K. Catchpole. What Studies on Learning Can Teach Us About Playback Design I.M. Pepperberg. Conducting Playback Experiments and Interpreting their Results H.C. Gerhardt. Quantifying Responses to Playback P.K. McGregor. Interactive Playback T. Dabelsteen. Playback as a Tool for Studying Contests Between Social Groups K. McComb. Song Overproduction, Song Matching, and Selective Attrition During Development D.A. Nelson. Male Quality and Playback in the Great Tit M.M. Lambrechts. Mechanisms and Function of Call-Timing in Male-Male Interactions in Frogs G.M. Klump, H.C. Gerhardt. Measuring Responses of Female Birds to Male Song W.A. Searcy. Field Experiments on the Perception of Song Types by Birds A.G. Horn. 2 additional articles. Index.

Know thine enemy: fighting fish gather information from observing conspecific interactions

Abstract: Many of the signals that animals use to communicate transmit relatively large distances and therefore encompass several potential signallers and receivers. This observation challenges the common characterization of animal communication systems as consisting of one signaller and one receiver. Furthermore, it suggests that the evolution of communication behaviour must be considered as occurring in the context of communication networks rather than dyads. Although considerations of selection pressures acting upon signallers in the context of communication networks have rarely been expressed in such terms, it has been noted that many signals exchanged during aggressive interactions will transmit far further than required for information transfer between the individuals directly involved, suggesting that these signals have been designed to be received by other, more distant, individuals. Here we consider the potential for receivers in communication networks to gather information, one aspect of which has been termed eavesdropping. We show that male Betta splendens monitor aggressive interactions between neighbouring conspecifics and use the information on relative fighting ability in subsequent aggressive interactions with the males they have observed.

Signalling in Territorial Systems: A Context for Individual Identification, Ranging and Eavesdropping

Abstract: Territorial systems are characterized by the relative longevity and stability of interactions between neighbouring individuals. Two abilities of signal receivers that can be seen as adaptations increasing the efficiency of territory defence will be discussed: identifying neighbouring individuals and ranging (i.e. determining the distance to) signallers. The costs involved in such discriminations will also be outlined. Although signalling has been traditionally considered as occurring between two individuals (signaller and receiver), long-range signals will be received by many individuals. In territorial systems a group of neighbours could be considered as a communication network: consisting as its simplest of a signaller and a number of receivers. The scope for low cost, low-risk information gathering in such networks by eavesdropping will be discussed with particular reference to territorial songbirds and electric fish.

Communication networks: social environments for receiving and signalling behaviour

Abstract: Communication and social behaviour are inextricably linked, with communication mediating important social behaviours such as resource defence and mate attraction. However, the social environment in which communication occurs is often ignored in discussions of communication behaviour. We argue that networks of several individuals are the common social environment for communication behaviour. The consequences for receivers and signallers of communicating in a network environment are the main subjects of this review. Eavesdropping is a receiving behaviour that is only possible in the environment of a network and therefore we concentrate on this behaviour. The main effect of communication networks on signallers is to create competition with other signallers for receiver attention. We discuss the consequences of such competition. To conclude, we explore the role of signals and signalling interactions as sources of information that animals exploit to direct their behaviour.

Public information: from nosy neighbors to cultural evolution.

Abstract: Psychologists, economists, and advertising moguls have long known that human decision-making is strongly influenced by the behavior of others A rapidly accumulating body of evidence suggests that the same is true in animals Individuals can use information arising from cues inadvertently produced by the behavior of other individuals with similar requirements Many of these cues provide public information about the quality of alternatives The use of public information is taxonomically widespread and can enhance fitness Public information can lead to cultural evolution, which we suggest may then affect biological evolution

Social learning strategies.

Abstract: In most studies of social learning in animals, no attempt has been made to examine the nature of the strategy adopted by animals when they copy others. Researchers have expended considerable effort in exploring the psychological processes that underlie social learning and amassed extensive data banks recording purported social learning in the field, but the contexts under which animals copy others remain unexplored. Yet, theoretical models used to investigate the adaptive advantages of social learning lead to the conclusion that social learning cannot be indiscriminate and that individuals should adopt strategies that dictate the circumstances under which they copy others and from whom they learn. In this article, I discuss a number of possible strategies that are predicted by theoretical analyses, including copy when uncertain, copy the majority, and copy if better, and consider the empirical evidence in support of each, drawing from both the animal and human social learning literature. Reliance on social learning strategies may be organized hierarchically, their being employed by animals when unlearned and asocially learned strategies prove ineffective but before animals take recourse in innovation.

The behavioural ecology of personality: consistent individual differences from an adaptive perspective

Abstract: Individual humans, and members of diverse other species, show consistent differences in aggressiveness, shyness, sociability and activity. Such intraspecific differences in behaviour have been widely assumed to be non-adaptive variation surrounding (possibly) adaptive population-average behaviour. Nevertheless, in keeping with recent calls to apply Darwinian reasoning to ever-finer scales of biological variation, we sketch the fundamentals of an adaptive theory of consistent individual differences in behaviour. Our thesis is based on the notion that such ‘personality differences’ can be selected for if fitness payoffs are dependent on both the frequencies with which competing strategies are played and an individual's behavioural history. To this end, we review existing models that illustrate this and propose a game theoretic approach to analyzing personality differences that is both dynamic and state-dependent. Our motivation is to provide insights into the evolution and maintenance of an apparently common animal trait: personality, which has far reaching ecological and evolutionary implications.