60. Voting guineafowl, and why robins speak robin and not thrush
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CORDIScovery podcast- Episode #60 - Voting guineafowl, and why robins speak robin and not thrush
This is an AI transcription.
00:00:15:15 - 00:00:34:03
Abigail Acton
Hello and welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery with me, Abigail Acton. Are there as many swifts darting over your head as there have been in past summers? What about the swallows, are they coming back to the old buildings around you and are you tripping over sparrows on the pavements? Still being woken up by the dawn chorus – or is it quieter than it was a few years back?
00:00:34:06 - 00:00:58:22
Abigail Acton
We aren’t making it easy for them, with our drive for agricultural intensification, poor forestry practices, pollution and urbanisation. Meanwhile climate change is impacting the distribution of species. But the EU is supporting the innovative research that is improving our understanding of birds, their needs and how best to meet them, and today’s guests are contributing to the ongoing work to try and make the future more secure for them.
00:00:58:24 - 00:01:12:01
Abigail Acton
David Wheatcroft is a behavioural ecologist and an associate professor at Stockholm University’s Department of Zoology. David is keen to establish how vocal learning in birds leads to song differences across populations and species. Hello, David.
00:01:12:02 - 00:01:13:07
David Wheatcroft
Hi. Hello, Abigail.
00:01:13:10 - 00:01:27:06
Abigail Acton
Hi. Damien Farine is associate professor at the Australian National University, and an affiliated scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. He is intrigued by the interplay between collective behaviour and the environment. Hello, Damien.
00:01:27:07 - 00:01:28:19
Damien Farine
Hi, Abigail.
00:01:28:21 - 00:01:51:08
Abigail Acton
Nastasja Scholz is a geophysicist and senior scientist at LUP GmbH, an SME which specialises in landscape planning, nature conservation and environmental remote sensing. Nastasja is particularly interested in collaborating with dedicated people from various disciplines to explore ways to improve protection and restoration measures benefiting birds. Hi, Nastasja.
00:01:51:09 - 00:01:52:19
Nastasja Scholz
Hi. Good to talk to you.
00:01:52:19 - 00:02:12:01
Abigail Acton
And you as well. David, I'm going to turn to you first. Songbirds can recognise their own species' songs from a very young age, an ability that influences what songs they're likely to learn and prefer as adults. The SongNeuroGen project set out to determine why and how this ability has evolved. So why did you feel this area of research was worth exploring,
00:02:12:01 - 00:02:14:08
David Wheatcroft
she risks not finding a mate.
00:02:14:10 - 00:02:35:17
David Wheatcroft
But from the perspective of a juvenile bird, unlike humans learning language, they don't get taught and corrected by their parents. Instead, they're exposed to a wide variety of sounds that they could hear in the forest, for example. So the long term idea for how they do this is that young songbirds are either hatched with or very early in life, develop an idea or a template for what an appropriate song should sound like.
00:02:35:17 - 00:02:41:10
David Wheatcroft
But how these templates work and how they evolve has been a really long term challenge to study.
00:02:41:11 - 00:02:44:11
Abigail Acton
Right. So what did the project do to answer that question?
00:02:44:12 - 00:02:50:14
David Wheatcroft
As I said, this has been sort of a long term interest of researchers over
the decades.
00:02:50:16 - 00:02:51:16
Abigail Acton
It's a logical question, isn't it.
00:02:51:20 - 00:02:52:09
David Wheatcroft
Yeah, absolutely.
00:02:52:11 - 00:02:55:14
Abigail Acton
It does beg the question how and why. Yeah. Well not the why but the how.
00:02:55:15 - 00:03:20:05
David Wheatcroft
Exactly. And so this has been a long term question, but mostly studied in species that are easy to keep in captivity. So lab species. And that's because a lot of researchers studying these questions have been, you know, let's say neuroscientists or comparatives psychologists. That said, the approach I wanted to use was to integrate fieldwork together with these lab based approaches and kind of bring these questions, sort of an ecological context.
00:03:20:07 - 00:03:46:02
David Wheatcroft
So I chose to do this on a very common but unfortunately declining species, the European pied flycatcher. And they breed all across Europe and Asia from Spain to Siberia. And the idea was to integrate fieldwork where we could look at how these song templates vary across the species range, try to uncover the ecological conditions or contexts that lead to their evolution.
00:03:46:04 - 00:04:03:19
David Wheatcroft
And so the first study that we did, I leveraged something kind of a little bit special about the pied flycatcher, which is that nestlings, so birds still in the nest, beg in response to songs. So when they hear songs they make begging calls in reply. And they vary in how many begging calls they produce in response to different song types.
00:04:03:20 - 00:04:13:12
David Wheatcroft
So the idea was that we wanted to use these nestling responses to get a picture of very, very early in life what kinds of songs it signals to these juvenile birds like and respond to. Yeah.
00:04:13:13 - 00:04:18:13
Abigail Acton
And was that the reason you chose this species? Was there another reason why you chose the species or further reasons?
00:04:18:15 - 00:04:35:08
David Wheatcroft
Yeah, that was one of the reasons we chose this species, because we can get basically the challenge with flycatchers is that they are migratory and so they fly to Africa over winter. They disappear. We can't really track them. We have no clue for about what they experience on the on this long journey. And many of them don't return.
00:04:35:09 - 00:04:54:16
David Wheatcroft
So we wanted to gain a picture of kind of at the earliest life stage we could. What kind of songs do they respond to? The second step in this process was that of course we want to.. the idea was we hopefully could connect what happens with a nestling likes to what they sing and ultimately prefer as adults. But as I said, we had this huge missing portion of their life that we can account for.
00:04:54:16 - 00:05:15:09
David Wheatcroft
So we developed a couple of experimental approaches to hopefully get a handle on this to account for this. So one of them was to actually rear birds in captivity to manipulate the sounds they're exposed to over the year and then assess what they ultimately learned. Another approach was to translocate birds as embryos, as eggs, from the Netherlands to Sweden.
00:05:15:11 - 00:05:23:03
David Wheatcroft
And the idea then is we can disentangle then the sort of genetic and influence of experience on the songs that they ultimately produce.
00:05:23:05 - 00:05:26:11
Abigail Acton
That's absolutely fascinating. And how did it go? What did you find?
00:05:26:12 - 00:05:54:24
David Wheatcroft
Yeah, so luckily we found - so this was actually not known before we started this project - but we found that the song of pied flycatchers varies tremendously across their range, which is of course very useful. The song didn't vary across populations. These translocations in playback experiments wouldn't work very well. So that was the first thing we showed. And overall, we found pretty consistently that pied flycatchers are pretty adept at both recognising and imitating the songs that are typical of their kind of source population.
00:05:55:01 - 00:06:07:18
David Wheatcroft
So both the lab rearing and the translocation experiments kind of show the same thing, that they have this selective ability to produce songs typical of their population, even when they haven't been exposed to them previously.
00:06:07:18 - 00:06:13:05
Abigail Acton
So to clarify, you were saying that the eggs that, for example, you got from another part of Europe, did you say where did the eggs come from?
00:06:13:05 - 00:06:14:23
David Wheatcroft
So the eggs came from the Netherlands.
00:06:14:24 - 00:06:23:14
Abigail Acton
Right. So the exit came from the Netherlands. Went over to you in Sweden. That's where you're based, I believe. Yeah, right. And when those chicks hatched from the eggs from the Netherlands, what did you observe?
00:06:23:15 - 00:06:54:23
David Wheatcroft
We observed - so that this was done together with collaborators - and they were reared and raised by local Swedish birds, meaning that the entirety of their experience with songs was with Swedish birds. Some of those eggs that hatched survived, and they migrated to Africa and then ultimately, remarkably, made it back to breed again as adults in Sweden, we recorded their songs that they produced, and then we compared their songs with those from local Swedish birds and those from their source population in the Netherlands.
00:06:54:24 - 00:06:56:04
Abigail Acton
And what did you find?
00:06:56:05 - 00:07:08:22
David Wheatcroft
And so what we found was that they produce, unsurprisingly, since they're only exposed to Swedish songs, we found that they produce perfectly good Swedish songs. However, they selectively imitate those Swedish songs that sound the most Dutch like.
00:07:08:23 - 00:07:09:17
Abigail Acton
Oh.
00:07:09:19 - 00:07:16:12
David Wheatcroft
So they're shifted towards the sort of Dutch like songs from this sort of Swedish experience that they're exposed to.
00:07:16:13 - 00:07:27:12
Abigail Acton
Okay, so there were multiple songs that they could sort of identify with and select and actually use themselves. And they went towards the ones that sounded most similar to the Dutchman's.
00:07:27:13 - 00:07:27:23
David Wheatcroft
Exactly.
00:07:28:01 - 00:07:31:08
Abigail Acton
Even though they'd never been exposed to the Dutch sounds at all, because they'd been in the egg.
00:07:31:10 - 00:07:48:22
David Wheatcroft
Exactly. And we found something very similar when we completely removed this sort of, you know, took the took these birds out of the wild and reared them in captivity. We found exactly the same thing. So if they're exposed to songs from their own population and those from other populations, they most accurately imitate the songs from their own population.
00:07:48:23 - 00:07:52:24
Abigail Acton
So they'll favor the songs that are from their own geographic region, even if they've never been exposed to them.
00:07:53:01 - 00:08:09:14
David Wheatcroft
Exactly. So it suggests that there's a sort of genetic differences across birds from these different populations that somehow bias them to selectively learn songs from their source population. This would be a bit like humans or different countries being predisposed to learn their country's language.
00:08:09:15 - 00:08:19:00
Abigail Acton
Yeah. Kind of phonemes that are actually from their natural language are absolutely fascinating. Thank you. That was beautifully explained. Thanks so much. Does anyone have any questions for David? Yeah. Nastasja.
00:08:19:01 - 00:08:55:04
Nastasja Scholz
Yeah, I was wondering because acoustic monitoring is, for example, a data source for species distribution studies. And so I was wondering if the acoustic recordings and models that are based on this are also capturing these, let's say nation effects that these languages or if this could introduce some kind of effect into what is being derived from those models if they don't take care of the location, let's say the country in this case of the bird, is there an effect?
00:08:55:08 - 00:09:29:11
David Wheatcroft
Yeah. So I guess my understanding is a lot of those sort of this acoustic monitoring there, those are trained on public repositories of songs. For example, we found that those kind of public repositories, those models are not very good at picking up song from very different populations of pied flycatchers, which is the species of study. So I think there's a kind of missing probably there's a lot of failure to detect these differences because they're trained on things that are not actually found where the recorders are let's say.
00:09:29:15 - 00:09:31:15
Nastasja Scholz
That's an important point. Yes. Thank you.
00:09:31:17 - 00:09:52:13
Abigail Acton
Yeah. That's great. That's a very insightful thank you. Damien, I'm going to turn to you. The ability of individuals to jointly make a decision is known as collective decision making rather obviously. But how to individuals influence group decisions. So the ECOLBEH Project delved into this intriguing question. So David looked at communication between the birds. And you did too, but you were coming at this from a slightly different angle.
00:09:52:14 - 00:09:57:02
Abigail Acton
Can you tell us more about what you were setting out to do, please?
00:09:57:04 - 00:10:18:13
Damien Farine
Yeah, so I'm quite interested in how groups make decisions. And if you think, like a lot of people study social evolution, and those people ask questions about why do animals form groups in the first place? What I'm particularly interested in is once they do come in a group, how do they solve all those new challenges that they face? And one of the biggest challenge is how to make a decision as a group.
00:10:18:13 - 00:10:43:02
Damien Farine
If they can't make a decision effectively, then actually the group can't really survive. And the whole point of coming together sort of breaks down. So the problem with group decision making, really the problem that animals face is that all the individuals within the group have quite different preferences among the individuals. For example, they might need something different, some might want to eat, while others might want to go and drink.
00:10:43:03 - 00:11:03:17
Damien Farine
Others might want to rest. They also have different experience, so some might have more knowledge about the environment, some might have less. And really again, the point is, if those if the group members can't reconcile these differences in preferences among them, then those groups will end up splitting and the whole sort of society breaks down.
00:11:03:21 - 00:11:09:19
Abigail Acton
Okay. Fascinating. And what animals were you looking at, particularly in this piece of research for this project?
00:11:09:24 - 00:11:23:22
Damien Farine
Yeah. So I chose my study species as the vulturine guineafowl. And this might seem like a bit of an oddball choice. Believe it or not, the collective name or the name for a group of guineafowl is a confusion of guineafowl.
00:11:23:24 - 00:11:26:16
Abigail Acton
So it would be counterintuitive with the subject that you're looking at. Yeah.
00:11:26:17 - 00:11:45:11
Nastasja Scholz
Well, exactly. And a lot of people who had been to Africa will have seen the helmeted guineafowl, and they all kind of told me you're crazy to be working on these birds. They're just complete idiots. And but, you know, whereas other people, you know, saw chaos in these birds I actually ended up discovering quite a highly organized society.
00:11:45:15 - 00:11:58:13
Abigail Acton
Well, of course, by definition, otherwise they wouldn't be a group. So there must be something going on underneath what seems to be a chaotic. Okay, so what did you do to try and get a better understanding of these behaviors? What were you looking for and how did you go about trying to establish if it was happening?
00:11:58:14 - 00:12:24:18
Damien Farine
Yeah. So the first thing we had to sort of establish how to go about studying these birds, which in itself wasn't easy. So, you know, David talked about the pied flycatchers, which are pretty well established study system that people have worked on, like great tits in the UK, for example, and other places in Europe. But no one had ever really studied guineafowl before, and no one had ever studied this particular species of guineafowl, so I did not even know how to catch them.
00:12:24:20 - 00:12:51:08
Damien Farine
And in my very first trip I went out to Kenya. I gave myself ten days and we spent literally ten days trying to catch birds. And every evening we'd get back to dinner and everyone would be like, have you had any luck today yet? And we know it was all getting a bit boring to say the same thing. We were close, but then the last day we actually called two, and that gave me enough confidence to first go ahead with the project, but then also it gave us a hint about how to go about catching them.
00:12:51:08 - 00:12:59:22
Damien Farine
And we ended up resolving this pretty well. We ended up being able now we can catch entire groups. We've caught over 100 birds in the trap on one single day.
00:13:00:00 - 00:13:05:24
Abigail Acton
And what do you do once you've got them? I mean, obviously no birds are harmed in this experiment. What do you do with them when you've got them?
00:13:06:04 - 00:13:27:22
Damien Farine
No, exactly. I mean, the whole point is for them to be able to continue doing their natural behaviors. So one of the reasons I selected these birds is because, well, firstly, I thought that they're very social. I had previously come to the question of decision making about working a bit on baboons. And baboons are really challenging because you have to learn to identify each individual, and you can only ever really study one group at a time, and so on.
00:13:27:22 - 00:13:47:00
Damien Farine
And my previous work experience had been on birds, and the advantage of birds is that we can fit little color bands on their legs, and from those color bands, we can identify who each individual is because each individual has a unique combination of those colors. And so we've been able to mark over a thousand birds. And so we can study this population and really track over a thousand birds.
00:13:47:01 - 00:14:12:04
Damien Farine
And the other really big advantage of the guineafowl is that they're quite large. And so they can carry GPS tags, solid GPS tags, and they are very terrestrial. They almost never fly and they only fly, really, they're being chased by a predator. And so we could fit these GPS tags to these individuals, and they give us really fine scale, moment by moment information about exactly where each bird is going and how it's moving and so on.
00:14:12:04 - 00:14:34:10
Damien Farine
And in a group context, we're able to fit these tags to multiple or all of the individuals in the same group. And this gave us information about not only how each individual is moving, but importantly, how the individuals were moving relative to one another. Because if you really want to study how a group makes a decision, then you need to be able to study how they're all behaving at the same time.
00:14:34:14 - 00:14:39:08
Abigail Acton
Wonderful. So this is quite a comprehensive way of looking at what they're doing. So what did they show you?
00:14:39:09 - 00:15:02:14
Damien Farine
Yeah. So the first exciting I guess result is that we found that actually they don't follow a leader. So in collective decision making, or if you ask people in the general public who do you think leads in a group, almost everybody will say it's the dominant male. But this idea is somehow like ingrained in us. And we can go back after to through the reasoning behind that.
00:15:02:14 - 00:15:28:24
Damien Farine
But reality is quite different because from evolutionary theory, it doesn't actually make sense that everyone would always follow the same individual, because that individual does what it wants, and everyone else may not get what they need. And this is exactly what we found in the Guinea farm, is that actually they don't follow one individual. There is a dominant, there is an alpha male, but that alpha male has no more sway over the group decision than any other individual.
00:15:28:24 - 00:15:40:02
Damien Farine
In fact, when the group has a conflict or when there's differences and opinion or in preferences about where to go, the way that this is resolved is through voting.
00:15:40:03 - 00:15:43:07
Abigail Acton
Oh voting. Fascinating. Tell us what you mean by that.
00:15:43:11 - 00:16:05:17
Damien Farine
So exactly. So each individual sort of expresses its preferences of which direction to go by walking off in the direction that it wants to the group to travel. And the rest of the group then actually chooses the direction in which there's a majority of these individuals. So if there's four individuals who want to go in direction A and three want to go in direction B, then the group will take a direction A almost all of the time.
00:16:05:17 - 00:16:16:09
Abigail Acton
So they'll divide up, they'll follow the path that they want to and then they'll wait. Yeah. And then when it's clear which is the biggest group, the smaller group will then shuffle over and join the bigger group.
00:16:16:10 - 00:16:25:20
Damien Farine
Yeah. Well, not every individual is necessarily involved in every decision. So it might be a group of 30 or 40 birds, but five go in one direction and four going the other direction.
00:16:25:21 - 00:16:28:18
Abigail Acton
Oh and then the rest, the ones on the fence will follow the five exactly.
00:16:28:18 - 00:16:32:14
Damien Farine
The ones on the fence will follow the five, and then the four. Then just have to scuttle along.
00:16:32:16 - 00:16:38:20
Abigail Acton
And yeah, may do with it. Okay. That's fascinating. Absolutely interesting. What else did you find?
00:16:38:21 - 00:17:09:22
Damien Farine
So one, as I said before, not every individual has to contribute to decisions. And this you know, we found this in just about every system that we've looked at. So previously I'd worked on baboons and actually turns out that baboons make decisions in exactly the same way as the guineafowl do, which is an interesting finding in and of itself, but in both baboons and in guineafowl, and then other systems in other species where people have also looked at these sorts of questions, we found that not every individual always contributes to decisions, and some individuals do it a lot, and some individuals don't do it so much.
00:17:09:22 - 00:17:28:22
Damien Farine
And we can't really explain why that is. And so one of the things I thought about this is that, like every behavior that is expressed is kind of the outcome of a trade off. If you do choice A, then you get less of B, and if you do chores B, you get less of A. And in decision making, we typically think that being a leader is beneficial, right?
00:17:29:00 - 00:17:50:23
Damien Farine
But actually it is very likely that there are also costs involved. And so one of the things that one of the main aims of my project was actually to get out there and try and understand what are the costs involved in being a leader or in being involved in collective decision making. So what we did is we fit little like mini Fitbits to each of the guineafowl in the group, and from this we could record the heart rate of the birds.
00:17:51:00 - 00:17:51:16
Abigail Acton
Oh, interesting.
00:17:51:17 - 00:18:08:16
Damien Farine
And we did this together with the GPS, and we could see how they were all moving relative to one another. And whenever there were these conflicts, when some individuals wanted to go in one direction, one and others wanted to go in a different direction, we could look at what was happening to the heart rate of the birds. And the heart rate was sort of an expression of this sort of physiological state.
00:18:08:17 - 00:18:09:06
Abigail Acton
Anxiety.
00:18:09:07 - 00:18:09:16
Damien Farine
Exactly.
00:18:09:16 - 00:18:11:15
Abigail Acton
Like it kind of stress. Yeah. Cortisol.
00:18:11:16 - 00:18:28:02
Damien Farine
Yeah, exactly. So if it goes up, then it suggests that the bird is a bit more stimulated or a bit more stressed. And what we found is that in fact, individuals do have an elevated heart rate when they try to lead. But what was super interesting is that this was really dependent on the amount of conflict in the group.
00:18:28:02 - 00:18:49:19
Damien Farine
So the more that different individuals wanted to go in different directions, the higher the sort of heart rate and then individuals that were going against the majority. So those that were in the minority expressed the highest. And if they lost the decision, then they expressed the highest heart rate. And these are quite large elevations in heart rates equivalent to like the birds sprinting at full speed.
00:18:49:20 - 00:18:50:10
Abigail Acton
Gosh.
00:18:50:11 - 00:18:54:01
Damien Farine
So it's quite a stressful process for them to be involved with.
00:18:54:03 - 00:19:01:22
Abigail Acton
And with the alpha males or the individuals that you would characterize as being more dominant, were they more stressed when they had to make a decision?
00:19:01:23 - 00:19:04:14
Damien Farine
And unfortunately, that's not actually something we looked at. We didn't have to be.
00:19:04:14 - 00:19:07:10
Abigail Acton
Because it would be interesting to see if there was stress relating to power. You know.
00:19:07:11 - 00:19:25:10
Damien Farine
Yeah, that's definitely one of the big questions that we still have outstanding here is, you know, and again, to come back to my original point, which is that not every individual participates all of the time, then it suggests that maybe some individuals are maybe a bit more immune to that, that stress. And I think, you know, it's the same in in people.
00:19:25:12 - 00:19:32:18
Damien Farine
Some in it seem to let that stress wash off their back. And where there's others lose a lot of sleep over the most tiny little conflicts.
00:19:32:19 - 00:19:34:06
Abigail Acton
Sweat the small stuff.
00:19:34:08 - 00:19:34:15
Damien Farine
Yeah.
00:19:34:17 - 00:19:49:02
Abigail Acton
That's it. Yeah. Maybe some are also just more apathetic than others. I mean, I don't know why we always think that animals are so different from us. I mean, you know, it's all we're all animals. Super. You've explained that really well, thank you so very much. Does anyone have any observations or questions for Damien? Yes. David, please.
00:19:49:03 - 00:20:13:10
David Wheatcroft
Yeah. Thanks. Damien. I was just wondering about you mentioned the sort of majority rules when it comes to the sort of group decision making. Then you also said that the motivation status condition can vary obviously across all these individuals. Do you see situations when a small group doesn't go with the majority? Depending on the I don't know what they hungry or they're predators. Is there some reason why, when this sort of rule fails, are there some situations when this rule fails, let's say.
00:20:13:11 - 00:20:34:20
Damien Farine
No, actually we haven't found a case where the rule fails, but we've actually found some really good reasons why the rule is very adaptive. So it's really beneficial. So one example is for example, when the group of guineafowl encounter, say, a big pile of elephant dung, they kind of like hanging around with elephants have been and elephant dung is, you know, ends up being containing tons of big, juicy grubs.
00:20:34:20 - 00:20:55:05
Damien Farine
And what happens is that the dominant male basically chases everyone else off and tries to stop others from feeding on this feast of, of insects. So rather than hanging around and waiting, those other individuals then regroup, and then they just start moving and they move in the direction towards where they can find more beneficial food sources for them.
00:20:55:05 - 00:21:01:22
Damien Farine
And that leaves actually the dominant with no choice but to follow, because if he doesn't follow, he ends up missing album being part of the group.
00:21:01:23 - 00:21:03:04
Abigail Acton
Isolated and vulnerable?
00:21:03:05 - 00:21:19:09
Damien Farine
Exactly. And to answer one little extra bit of your question, it doesn't require to be a majority of the group in total. So, for example, studied this with groups of like 60 birds. And what we found is they seem to have what's called a quorum threshold. It's a threshold like a minimum number of individuals that are required to go.
00:21:19:09 - 00:21:28:08
Damien Farine
And it seems to be around 13 individuals. So as long as you get like a 13 individuals, I was just saying, we're out of here, we're going. Then the rest of the group seems to follow suit.
00:21:28:09 - 00:21:30:05
Abigail Acton
That's great. Is it always the same? 13?
00:21:30:06 - 00:21:33:02
Damien Farine
No, that's the point. It's different birds every time. Yeah.
00:21:33:03 - 00:21:56:02
Abigail Acton
Endlessly. Fascinating. Thank you so much. Nastasja I'm going to turn to you now. So we're talking about how birds, you know, interrelate and communicate and indicate preferences. But for that we need the birds. And your work is about helping us ensure that species continue to thrive. So natural habitats are under pressure as we struggle to ensure food security and other priorities.
00:21:56:03 - 00:22:10:22
Abigail Acton
Farmland biodiversity in particular, is pivotal to a healthy ecosystem and it depends on habitat suitability for different species, including farmland birds. So that's where BirdWatch project steps in. Why did this area of research call to you, Nastasja?
00:22:11:01 - 00:22:41:04
Nastasja Scholz
So I have to say that when I started with BirdWatch and with working this topic, I was completely new to the topic, basically. I studied geophysics with a background in earthquake source seismology. I had done satellite remote sensing for the past previous five years, so I was completely new to the topic. But my colleagues had already worked with this with the idea of BirdWatch and had introduced me to into it.
00:22:41:04 - 00:23:16:00
Nastasja Scholz
And then when I took it up, a whole new world opened up. I basically had to study what factors are there in the choice of a specific bird to choose a habitat. What is the factors that basically influence their distribution. Where do they occur? What is it, what stops them from occurring somewhere? And how do you basically summarize this and see the conflicts of species preferences and how to reflect this in, for example, a project like Birdwatch?
00:23:16:01 - 00:23:22:21
Abigail Acton
Okay. Super. So we're thinking for example, what type of food they need, what type of environment they need to nest in. Is that right?
00:23:22:22 - 00:23:32:11
Nastasja Scholz
Exactly. So, are they ground nesting? Do they go somewhere else in the higher up where, for example, farmers don't even reach them? Just as an example. Yes.
00:23:32:11 - 00:23:49:07
Abigail Acton
Right. Okay. Super. So you mentioned a sort of technological background with earth monitoring and so on beforehand. Can you tell us now how the advances in technology are really giving projects like yours a boost? So what sort of tools did you use again, as simply as possible, because I have no background in this at all. So explain to me.
00:23:49:09 - 00:24:17:20
Nastasja Scholz
Yes, actually we are using quite a mathematical approach. So let's say not so individualized. We cannot go as much into deep detail as the previous speakers. So what we do is we collect or we use species specific occurrence data and then establish statistic links to the environment where they occur or don't occur. So for example, what land use is there around those occurrence points?
00:24:17:22 - 00:24:42:02
Nastasja Scholz
How intense is the farming? What is the topology? What is the general climate? And these factors we are looking at and we use specific data sources to basically map those environmental descriptors. Let's call it like this. So and a lot of this comes from satellite data because satellite data is becoming more and more available.
00:24:42:02 - 00:25:03:20
Nastasja Scholz
And what is attractive about them is that you can cover quite a large area with this. So for example, a whole country can be mapped, but also they have a certain recurrence rate. So you can establish a monitoring. So you can derive the environmental descriptors repeatedly every few days every few weeks. And then can see if something changes.
00:25:03:20 - 00:25:33:03
Nastasja Scholz
And if you can basically link changes in the habitat descriptors and see if the things change with time. And so basically these models, which are called species distribution models, they help us to establish a link between the presence or absence of a specific bird and the locations on the ground. And we can then basically map the derived habitat suitability across space and time.
00:25:33:04 - 00:25:53:10
Abigail Acton
Okay. That's fascinating. You can see how things transition and transform. And I suppose when you farmland opens up or where farmland is reclaimed and goes back to being rewild it. I can see how you're seeing what the terrain looks like. And obviously in more detail than that, the types of plants that are growing. I know the satellite imagery can be very, very detailed and give you a lot of information.
00:25:53:11 - 00:25:57:10
Abigail Acton
How are you actually tracking the populations of the birds within those environments?
00:25:57:12 - 00:26:29:15
Nastasja Scholz
So we use usually monitoring data from established monitoring programs. So we don't do that ourselves. It's very important that the data comes from very well educated, in this topic, very educated people. So ecologists and ornithologists who have an educated knowledge on what data is, let's say, useful and which could be just a random recording. So we need to have a pretty good quality dataset to establish those links.
00:26:29:15 - 00:26:36:18
Nastasja Scholz
Otherwise we will get spurious models. So yes, the monitoring needs to be done by experts. Yes.
00:26:36:19 - 00:26:58:03
Abigail Acton
Right. Super. Okay. So you get a clear idea of the population that's present. You know what that population needs to thrive. And then you can check and see how land use is impacting on those characteristics that the population needs in order to thrive. Excellent. And so you're getting a picture. Can you tell us any findings, any results that you have that are of interest?
00:26:58:06 - 00:27:27:13
Nastasja Scholz
So I find it very interesting in a sense how species specific these distributions are. So for BirdWatch we chose ten different bird species to also reflect the differences of their needs in our models. And so based on the species you get a strong difference in the suitability of an area. If it's a grassland bird, if it's a bird that likes trees, if it's a bird that likes wetland, you get a quite a different result.
00:27:27:14 - 00:27:41:02
Nastasja Scholz
Of course, it's kind of a logic, but it's also interesting that you can image it with models and then also, let's say map it and make it visual for people as a, for example, as a decision-making tool.
00:27:41:03 - 00:27:49:24
Abigail Acton
Yeah. I mean, that notion of visualization is a really important one, because I guess you're also going to be trying to share this data with decision makers, maybe farmers. What do you actually do with the data?
00:27:50:00 - 00:28:27:24
Nastasja Scholz
So we are mostly targeting more and more policymakers, because they are the ones who decide on what kind of protection measures are funded and where they are funded. And so basically, the whole complexity of choosing a certain measure that should improve farmland, it needs to be aligned with the local ecology. And if that is not the case, then you basically fund something that has little or even negative impact or even funds conflicting measures for two types of birds that don't coexist or things like this. So we try to get rid of those conflicts as well.
00:28:28:05 - 00:28:45:11
Abigail Acton
So basically you're hoping to provide the data that helps them decisions to be more effective. So I suppose if we make it like a concrete example for the listeners, correct me if I'm wrong, but are you saying, for example, you'd look at a certain species, species X, let's call it, you'd see that it likes dry ground on which to nest.
00:28:45:11 - 00:29:04:12
Abigail Acton
And in fact, that's where the insect populations are best for it etcetera. You see, for example, that farmers are coming in and actually using that land more and more and more for agriculture. And then you'd be able to see the impact on population numbers. And that would give you an informed decision to try and get policymakers to make some changes or adapt the situation.
00:29:04:12 - 00:29:06:02
Abigail Acton
Is that the sort of thing you're doing?
00:29:06:03 - 00:29:43:08
Damien Farine
This is the idea. I think the monitoring effect will be important then, because then you can have this before and after effect. In BirdWatch we only had derived the habitats for one year, but the idea of BirdWatch is to repeatedly do those measurements. And so if there's a change in land use on the ground, we want to get this visualized in our models and our output so that we can say, okay, now it's worse, it's better, and we can say, could say, okay, there is a farmer now and uses this land which previously was better for bird X, and now not so good for bird X.
00:29:43:10 - 00:29:51:18
Abigail Acton
A bit more detrimental. Excellent. Thank you. Very well explained and very important work. Thank you very much. Does anyone have any observations to make or questions please? Yes. Damien.
00:29:51:20 - 00:30:23:04
Damien Farine
That's super interesting. I was wondering, I guess you have now quite high resolution temporal resolution of the satellite data, and you mentioned that you only actually get the presence and absence data once per year. I was wondering if you have any areas where you might do more intensive observations in time so that you can basically create like or use kind of natural experiments where the farmers are changing their behaviors asynchronously with each other. And you can try and see how that's affecting the birds in different areas at different times?
00:30:23:04 - 00:30:44:00
Nastasja Scholz
So this would be a very interesting study. So basically it would all start with if we have this data the observations from the birds. So the bird data is the most important part of the whole thing. So even if we have more satellite data, if we don't have enough bird data or bird data only from once a year, the models will not reflect this.
00:30:44:01 - 00:31:08:04
Nastasja Scholz
So basically we would have to align the monitoring of the birds or the data collection on the birds with the frequency with which we want to also evaluate the satellite data. But then this would be an interesting study do if we have both satellite data or let's say environmental descriptors and the observation of the birds throughout the year, that would be an interesting study.
00:31:08:05 - 00:31:31:13
Abigail Acton
It must be very difficult indeed, actually, to get accurate figures for populations of birds, especially in I mean, presumably it's harder than ever if it's overgrown areas and lots of trees. And I mean, I guess that must make things harder to do. How do we actually get an accurate image, a picture rather of bird populations and the change of bird populations over time, other than just having keen enthusiasts or ornithologists just going out and counting?
00:31:31:14 - 00:31:34:22
Abigail Acton
What do we do guys? How is that done? Any ideas?
00:31:34:23 - 00:31:51:24
Damien Farine
Experience I guess yeah. I mean, birdwatchers, you know, we rely on more than just being able to look at a bird, identify it like see its features and look in a guide. Right. Experienced birdwatchers can pick up birds based on their calls so they can just identify, you know, if they're just calling, they can see, say it's this species versus that species.
00:31:51:24 - 00:31:54:03
Abigail Acton
Especially if the call is accurate. Thanks to your work, David.
00:31:54:08 - 00:32:05:07
Damien Farine
And then also, I mean, when you watch birds every day, you can sort of pick up very tiny cues, right? You can just see a few tail feathers and pretty much know what species it is, just based on color and shape and how they move.
00:32:05:08 - 00:32:13:06
Abigail Acton
But it's still pretty much being done manually, as it were, rather than sort of the satellite observations of terrain and characteristics. Yeah.
00:32:13:08 - 00:32:35:11
Damien Farine
Well, more and more actually, we're starting to track birds. So it's fitting, like what we do with the guineafowl, with the GPS trackers, but actually fitting this on a much bigger scale. So for example, some of our new projects, now we're tracking hundreds of birds at a time. And, you know, as they distribute themselves over the landscape, you can see day by day or hour by hour how they're choosing the different parts of the habitat.
00:32:35:14 - 00:32:39:00
Abigail Acton
Share that information with Nastasjia. David, what did you want to say?
00:32:39:06 - 00:32:55:10
David Wheatcroft
Yeah, sorry. I was going to say Nastasja mentioned to you, but there's this passive acoustic monitoring to people. Have these certain groups I've set up these, you know, huge arrays of microphones on migration routes and in certain areas to be able to monitor essentially automatically what species are present.
00:32:55:12 - 00:33:00:12
Abigail Acton
And then does the AI come in and interpret what, what's being heard, or is that still done by people listening?
00:33:00:13 - 00:33:04:04
David Wheatcroft
I guess AI trained by humans. Yeah,
00:33:04:06 - 00:33:04:24
Abigail Acton
Yeah, yeah.
00:33:05:00 - 00:33:06:23
David Wheatcroft
With human input, let's say.
00:33:07:00 - 00:33:22:01
Abigail Acton
Yeah. This has been absolutely fascinating. I've really, really enjoyed this one. Thank you so much for your very important work. Birds are a barometer to the environmental health. So you know we're all noticing the fallen numbers. So thank you very much for the vital work that you guys are doing. Much appreciated. Thanks for joining me today.
00:33:22:03 - 00:33:22:24
Damien Farine
Thanks, Abigail.
00:33:23:00 - 00:33:25:22
Nastasja Scholz
Thank you, thank you. Great to talk to you. Yeah.
00:33:25:23 - 00:33:26:16
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Cool.
00:33:26:18 - 00:33:28:02
David Wheatcroft
Thanks very much for giving us the chance.
00:33:28:03 - 00:33:29:03
Nastasja Scholz
Yes, exactly.
00:33:29:08 - 00:33:31:06
Abigail Acton
Good to share ideas. Bye. Bye, guys.
00:33:31:07 - 00:33:32:01
David Wheatcroft
Bye bye.
00:33:32:03 - 00:33:32:09
Damien Farine
Bye.
00:33:32:13 - 00:33:35:05
Nastasja Scholz
Bye bye.
00:33:35:07 - 00:33:59:20
Abigail Acton
If you've enjoyed this podcast, follow us on Spotify or Apple or wherever you get your podcasts, and check out the podcast homepage on the CORDIS website. Subscribe to make sure the hottest research and EU funded science isn't passing you by. And if you're enjoying listening, why not spread the word? We've talked about the animals that can live in volcanoes, what AI can do to protect bee colonies, and how smart textiles can help with independent living.
00:33:59:24 - 00:34:18:04
Abigail Acton
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This is an AI transcription.
00:00:15:15 - 00:00:34:03
Abigail Acton
Hello and welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery with me, Abigail Acton. Are there as many swifts darting over your head as there have been in past summers? What about the swallows, are they coming back to the old buildings around you and are you tripping over sparrows on the pavements? Still being woken up by the dawn chorus – or is it quieter than it was a few years back?
00:00:34:06 - 00:00:58:22
Abigail Acton
We aren’t making it easy for them, with our drive for agricultural intensification, poor forestry practices, pollution and urbanisation. Meanwhile climate change is impacting the distribution of species. But the EU is supporting the innovative research that is improving our understanding of birds, their needs and how best to meet them, and today’s guests are contributing to the ongoing work to try and make the future more secure for them.
00:00:58:24 - 00:01:12:01
Abigail Acton
David Wheatcroft is a behavioural ecologist and an associate professor at Stockholm University’s Department of Zoology. David is keen to establish how vocal learning in birds leads to song differences across populations and species. Hello, David.
00:01:12:02 - 00:01:13:07
David Wheatcroft
Hi. Hello, Abigail.
00:01:13:10 - 00:01:27:06
Abigail Acton
Hi. Damien Farine is associate professor at the Australian National University, and an affiliated scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior. He is intrigued by the interplay between collective behaviour and the environment. Hello, Damien.
00:01:27:07 - 00:01:28:19
Damien Farine
Hi, Abigail.
00:01:28:21 - 00:01:51:08
Abigail Acton
Nastasja Scholz is a geophysicist and senior scientist at LUP GmbH, an SME which specialises in landscape planning, nature conservation and environmental remote sensing. Nastasja is particularly interested in collaborating with dedicated people from various disciplines to explore ways to improve protection and restoration measures benefiting birds. Hi, Nastasja.
00:01:51:09 - 00:01:52:19
Nastasja Scholz
Hi. Good to talk to you.
00:01:52:19 - 00:02:12:01
Abigail Acton
And you as well. David, I'm going to turn to you first. Songbirds can recognise their own species' songs from a very young age, an ability that influences what songs they're likely to learn and prefer as adults. The SongNeuroGen project set out to determine why and how this ability has evolved. So why did you feel this area of research was worth exploring,
00:02:12:01 - 00:02:14:08
David Wheatcroft
she risks not finding a mate.
00:02:14:10 - 00:02:35:17
David Wheatcroft
But from the perspective of a juvenile bird, unlike humans learning language, they don't get taught and corrected by their parents. Instead, they're exposed to a wide variety of sounds that they could hear in the forest, for example. So the long term idea for how they do this is that young songbirds are either hatched with or very early in life, develop an idea or a template for what an appropriate song should sound like.
00:02:35:17 - 00:02:41:10
David Wheatcroft
But how these templates work and how they evolve has been a really long term challenge to study.
00:02:41:11 - 00:02:44:11
Abigail Acton
Right. So what did the project do to answer that question?
00:02:44:12 - 00:02:50:14
David Wheatcroft
As I said, this has been sort of a long term interest of researchers over
the decades.
00:02:50:16 - 00:02:51:16
Abigail Acton
It's a logical question, isn't it.
00:02:51:20 - 00:02:52:09
David Wheatcroft
Yeah, absolutely.
00:02:52:11 - 00:02:55:14
Abigail Acton
It does beg the question how and why. Yeah. Well not the why but the how.
00:02:55:15 - 00:03:20:05
David Wheatcroft
Exactly. And so this has been a long term question, but mostly studied in species that are easy to keep in captivity. So lab species. And that's because a lot of researchers studying these questions have been, you know, let's say neuroscientists or comparatives psychologists. That said, the approach I wanted to use was to integrate fieldwork together with these lab based approaches and kind of bring these questions, sort of an ecological context.
00:03:20:07 - 00:03:46:02
David Wheatcroft
So I chose to do this on a very common but unfortunately declining species, the European pied flycatcher. And they breed all across Europe and Asia from Spain to Siberia. And the idea was to integrate fieldwork where we could look at how these song templates vary across the species range, try to uncover the ecological conditions or contexts that lead to their evolution.
00:03:46:04 - 00:04:03:19
David Wheatcroft
And so the first study that we did, I leveraged something kind of a little bit special about the pied flycatcher, which is that nestlings, so birds still in the nest, beg in response to songs. So when they hear songs they make begging calls in reply. And they vary in how many begging calls they produce in response to different song types.
00:04:03:20 - 00:04:13:12
David Wheatcroft
So the idea was that we wanted to use these nestling responses to get a picture of very, very early in life what kinds of songs it signals to these juvenile birds like and respond to. Yeah.
00:04:13:13 - 00:04:18:13
Abigail Acton
And was that the reason you chose this species? Was there another reason why you chose the species or further reasons?
00:04:18:15 - 00:04:35:08
David Wheatcroft
Yeah, that was one of the reasons we chose this species, because we can get basically the challenge with flycatchers is that they are migratory and so they fly to Africa over winter. They disappear. We can't really track them. We have no clue for about what they experience on the on this long journey. And many of them don't return.
00:04:35:09 - 00:04:54:16
David Wheatcroft
So we wanted to gain a picture of kind of at the earliest life stage we could. What kind of songs do they respond to? The second step in this process was that of course we want to.. the idea was we hopefully could connect what happens with a nestling likes to what they sing and ultimately prefer as adults. But as I said, we had this huge missing portion of their life that we can account for.
00:04:54:16 - 00:05:15:09
David Wheatcroft
So we developed a couple of experimental approaches to hopefully get a handle on this to account for this. So one of them was to actually rear birds in captivity to manipulate the sounds they're exposed to over the year and then assess what they ultimately learned. Another approach was to translocate birds as embryos, as eggs, from the Netherlands to Sweden.
00:05:15:11 - 00:05:23:03
David Wheatcroft
And the idea then is we can disentangle then the sort of genetic and influence of experience on the songs that they ultimately produce.
00:05:23:05 - 00:05:26:11
Abigail Acton
That's absolutely fascinating. And how did it go? What did you find?
00:05:26:12 - 00:05:54:24
David Wheatcroft
Yeah, so luckily we found - so this was actually not known before we started this project - but we found that the song of pied flycatchers varies tremendously across their range, which is of course very useful. The song didn't vary across populations. These translocations in playback experiments wouldn't work very well. So that was the first thing we showed. And overall, we found pretty consistently that pied flycatchers are pretty adept at both recognising and imitating the songs that are typical of their kind of source population.
00:05:55:01 - 00:06:07:18
David Wheatcroft
So both the lab rearing and the translocation experiments kind of show the same thing, that they have this selective ability to produce songs typical of their population, even when they haven't been exposed to them previously.
00:06:07:18 - 00:06:13:05
Abigail Acton
So to clarify, you were saying that the eggs that, for example, you got from another part of Europe, did you say where did the eggs come from?
00:06:13:05 - 00:06:14:23
David Wheatcroft
So the eggs came from the Netherlands.
00:06:14:24 - 00:06:23:14
Abigail Acton
Right. So the exit came from the Netherlands. Went over to you in Sweden. That's where you're based, I believe. Yeah, right. And when those chicks hatched from the eggs from the Netherlands, what did you observe?
00:06:23:15 - 00:06:54:23
David Wheatcroft
We observed - so that this was done together with collaborators - and they were reared and raised by local Swedish birds, meaning that the entirety of their experience with songs was with Swedish birds. Some of those eggs that hatched survived, and they migrated to Africa and then ultimately, remarkably, made it back to breed again as adults in Sweden, we recorded their songs that they produced, and then we compared their songs with those from local Swedish birds and those from their source population in the Netherlands.
00:06:54:24 - 00:06:56:04
Abigail Acton
And what did you find?
00:06:56:05 - 00:07:08:22
David Wheatcroft
And so what we found was that they produce, unsurprisingly, since they're only exposed to Swedish songs, we found that they produce perfectly good Swedish songs. However, they selectively imitate those Swedish songs that sound the most Dutch like.
00:07:08:23 - 00:07:09:17
Abigail Acton
Oh.
00:07:09:19 - 00:07:16:12
David Wheatcroft
So they're shifted towards the sort of Dutch like songs from this sort of Swedish experience that they're exposed to.
00:07:16:13 - 00:07:27:12
Abigail Acton
Okay, so there were multiple songs that they could sort of identify with and select and actually use themselves. And they went towards the ones that sounded most similar to the Dutchman's.
00:07:27:13 - 00:07:27:23
David Wheatcroft
Exactly.
00:07:28:01 - 00:07:31:08
Abigail Acton
Even though they'd never been exposed to the Dutch sounds at all, because they'd been in the egg.
00:07:31:10 - 00:07:48:22
David Wheatcroft
Exactly. And we found something very similar when we completely removed this sort of, you know, took the took these birds out of the wild and reared them in captivity. We found exactly the same thing. So if they're exposed to songs from their own population and those from other populations, they most accurately imitate the songs from their own population.
00:07:48:23 - 00:07:52:24
Abigail Acton
So they'll favor the songs that are from their own geographic region, even if they've never been exposed to them.
00:07:53:01 - 00:08:09:14
David Wheatcroft
Exactly. So it suggests that there's a sort of genetic differences across birds from these different populations that somehow bias them to selectively learn songs from their source population. This would be a bit like humans or different countries being predisposed to learn their country's language.
00:08:09:15 - 00:08:19:00
Abigail Acton
Yeah. Kind of phonemes that are actually from their natural language are absolutely fascinating. Thank you. That was beautifully explained. Thanks so much. Does anyone have any questions for David? Yeah. Nastasja.
00:08:19:01 - 00:08:55:04
Nastasja Scholz
Yeah, I was wondering because acoustic monitoring is, for example, a data source for species distribution studies. And so I was wondering if the acoustic recordings and models that are based on this are also capturing these, let's say nation effects that these languages or if this could introduce some kind of effect into what is being derived from those models if they don't take care of the location, let's say the country in this case of the bird, is there an effect?
00:08:55:08 - 00:09:29:11
David Wheatcroft
Yeah. So I guess my understanding is a lot of those sort of this acoustic monitoring there, those are trained on public repositories of songs. For example, we found that those kind of public repositories, those models are not very good at picking up song from very different populations of pied flycatchers, which is the species of study. So I think there's a kind of missing probably there's a lot of failure to detect these differences because they're trained on things that are not actually found where the recorders are let's say.
00:09:29:15 - 00:09:31:15
Nastasja Scholz
That's an important point. Yes. Thank you.
00:09:31:17 - 00:09:52:13
Abigail Acton
Yeah. That's great. That's a very insightful thank you. Damien, I'm going to turn to you. The ability of individuals to jointly make a decision is known as collective decision making rather obviously. But how to individuals influence group decisions. So the ECOLBEH Project delved into this intriguing question. So David looked at communication between the birds. And you did too, but you were coming at this from a slightly different angle.
00:09:52:14 - 00:09:57:02
Abigail Acton
Can you tell us more about what you were setting out to do, please?
00:09:57:04 - 00:10:18:13
Damien Farine
Yeah, so I'm quite interested in how groups make decisions. And if you think, like a lot of people study social evolution, and those people ask questions about why do animals form groups in the first place? What I'm particularly interested in is once they do come in a group, how do they solve all those new challenges that they face? And one of the biggest challenge is how to make a decision as a group.
00:10:18:13 - 00:10:43:02
Damien Farine
If they can't make a decision effectively, then actually the group can't really survive. And the whole point of coming together sort of breaks down. So the problem with group decision making, really the problem that animals face is that all the individuals within the group have quite different preferences among the individuals. For example, they might need something different, some might want to eat, while others might want to go and drink.
00:10:43:03 - 00:11:03:17
Damien Farine
Others might want to rest. They also have different experience, so some might have more knowledge about the environment, some might have less. And really again, the point is, if those if the group members can't reconcile these differences in preferences among them, then those groups will end up splitting and the whole sort of society breaks down.
00:11:03:21 - 00:11:09:19
Abigail Acton
Okay. Fascinating. And what animals were you looking at, particularly in this piece of research for this project?
00:11:09:24 - 00:11:23:22
Damien Farine
Yeah. So I chose my study species as the vulturine guineafowl. And this might seem like a bit of an oddball choice. Believe it or not, the collective name or the name for a group of guineafowl is a confusion of guineafowl.
00:11:23:24 - 00:11:26:16
Abigail Acton
So it would be counterintuitive with the subject that you're looking at. Yeah.
00:11:26:17 - 00:11:45:11
Nastasja Scholz
Well, exactly. And a lot of people who had been to Africa will have seen the helmeted guineafowl, and they all kind of told me you're crazy to be working on these birds. They're just complete idiots. And but, you know, whereas other people, you know, saw chaos in these birds I actually ended up discovering quite a highly organized society.
00:11:45:15 - 00:11:58:13
Abigail Acton
Well, of course, by definition, otherwise they wouldn't be a group. So there must be something going on underneath what seems to be a chaotic. Okay, so what did you do to try and get a better understanding of these behaviors? What were you looking for and how did you go about trying to establish if it was happening?
00:11:58:14 - 00:12:24:18
Damien Farine
Yeah. So the first thing we had to sort of establish how to go about studying these birds, which in itself wasn't easy. So, you know, David talked about the pied flycatchers, which are pretty well established study system that people have worked on, like great tits in the UK, for example, and other places in Europe. But no one had ever really studied guineafowl before, and no one had ever studied this particular species of guineafowl, so I did not even know how to catch them.
00:12:24:20 - 00:12:51:08
Damien Farine
And in my very first trip I went out to Kenya. I gave myself ten days and we spent literally ten days trying to catch birds. And every evening we'd get back to dinner and everyone would be like, have you had any luck today yet? And we know it was all getting a bit boring to say the same thing. We were close, but then the last day we actually called two, and that gave me enough confidence to first go ahead with the project, but then also it gave us a hint about how to go about catching them.
00:12:51:08 - 00:12:59:22
Damien Farine
And we ended up resolving this pretty well. We ended up being able now we can catch entire groups. We've caught over 100 birds in the trap on one single day.
00:13:00:00 - 00:13:05:24
Abigail Acton
And what do you do once you've got them? I mean, obviously no birds are harmed in this experiment. What do you do with them when you've got them?
00:13:06:04 - 00:13:27:22
Damien Farine
No, exactly. I mean, the whole point is for them to be able to continue doing their natural behaviors. So one of the reasons I selected these birds is because, well, firstly, I thought that they're very social. I had previously come to the question of decision making about working a bit on baboons. And baboons are really challenging because you have to learn to identify each individual, and you can only ever really study one group at a time, and so on.
00:13:27:22 - 00:13:47:00
Damien Farine
And my previous work experience had been on birds, and the advantage of birds is that we can fit little color bands on their legs, and from those color bands, we can identify who each individual is because each individual has a unique combination of those colors. And so we've been able to mark over a thousand birds. And so we can study this population and really track over a thousand birds.
00:13:47:01 - 00:14:12:04
Damien Farine
And the other really big advantage of the guineafowl is that they're quite large. And so they can carry GPS tags, solid GPS tags, and they are very terrestrial. They almost never fly and they only fly, really, they're being chased by a predator. And so we could fit these GPS tags to these individuals, and they give us really fine scale, moment by moment information about exactly where each bird is going and how it's moving and so on.
00:14:12:04 - 00:14:34:10
Damien Farine
And in a group context, we're able to fit these tags to multiple or all of the individuals in the same group. And this gave us information about not only how each individual is moving, but importantly, how the individuals were moving relative to one another. Because if you really want to study how a group makes a decision, then you need to be able to study how they're all behaving at the same time.
00:14:34:14 - 00:14:39:08
Abigail Acton
Wonderful. So this is quite a comprehensive way of looking at what they're doing. So what did they show you?
00:14:39:09 - 00:15:02:14
Damien Farine
Yeah. So the first exciting I guess result is that we found that actually they don't follow a leader. So in collective decision making, or if you ask people in the general public who do you think leads in a group, almost everybody will say it's the dominant male. But this idea is somehow like ingrained in us. And we can go back after to through the reasoning behind that.
00:15:02:14 - 00:15:28:24
Damien Farine
But reality is quite different because from evolutionary theory, it doesn't actually make sense that everyone would always follow the same individual, because that individual does what it wants, and everyone else may not get what they need. And this is exactly what we found in the Guinea farm, is that actually they don't follow one individual. There is a dominant, there is an alpha male, but that alpha male has no more sway over the group decision than any other individual.
00:15:28:24 - 00:15:40:02
Damien Farine
In fact, when the group has a conflict or when there's differences and opinion or in preferences about where to go, the way that this is resolved is through voting.
00:15:40:03 - 00:15:43:07
Abigail Acton
Oh voting. Fascinating. Tell us what you mean by that.
00:15:43:11 - 00:16:05:17
Damien Farine
So exactly. So each individual sort of expresses its preferences of which direction to go by walking off in the direction that it wants to the group to travel. And the rest of the group then actually chooses the direction in which there's a majority of these individuals. So if there's four individuals who want to go in direction A and three want to go in direction B, then the group will take a direction A almost all of the time.
00:16:05:17 - 00:16:16:09
Abigail Acton
So they'll divide up, they'll follow the path that they want to and then they'll wait. Yeah. And then when it's clear which is the biggest group, the smaller group will then shuffle over and join the bigger group.
00:16:16:10 - 00:16:25:20
Damien Farine
Yeah. Well, not every individual is necessarily involved in every decision. So it might be a group of 30 or 40 birds, but five go in one direction and four going the other direction.
00:16:25:21 - 00:16:28:18
Abigail Acton
Oh and then the rest, the ones on the fence will follow the five exactly.
00:16:28:18 - 00:16:32:14
Damien Farine
The ones on the fence will follow the five, and then the four. Then just have to scuttle along.
00:16:32:16 - 00:16:38:20
Abigail Acton
And yeah, may do with it. Okay. That's fascinating. Absolutely interesting. What else did you find?
00:16:38:21 - 00:17:09:22
Damien Farine
So one, as I said before, not every individual has to contribute to decisions. And this you know, we found this in just about every system that we've looked at. So previously I'd worked on baboons and actually turns out that baboons make decisions in exactly the same way as the guineafowl do, which is an interesting finding in and of itself, but in both baboons and in guineafowl, and then other systems in other species where people have also looked at these sorts of questions, we found that not every individual always contributes to decisions, and some individuals do it a lot, and some individuals don't do it so much.
00:17:09:22 - 00:17:28:22
Damien Farine
And we can't really explain why that is. And so one of the things I thought about this is that, like every behavior that is expressed is kind of the outcome of a trade off. If you do choice A, then you get less of B, and if you do chores B, you get less of A. And in decision making, we typically think that being a leader is beneficial, right?
00:17:29:00 - 00:17:50:23
Damien Farine
But actually it is very likely that there are also costs involved. And so one of the things that one of the main aims of my project was actually to get out there and try and understand what are the costs involved in being a leader or in being involved in collective decision making. So what we did is we fit little like mini Fitbits to each of the guineafowl in the group, and from this we could record the heart rate of the birds.
00:17:51:00 - 00:17:51:16
Abigail Acton
Oh, interesting.
00:17:51:17 - 00:18:08:16
Damien Farine
And we did this together with the GPS, and we could see how they were all moving relative to one another. And whenever there were these conflicts, when some individuals wanted to go in one direction, one and others wanted to go in a different direction, we could look at what was happening to the heart rate of the birds. And the heart rate was sort of an expression of this sort of physiological state.
00:18:08:17 - 00:18:09:06
Abigail Acton
Anxiety.
00:18:09:07 - 00:18:09:16
Damien Farine
Exactly.
00:18:09:16 - 00:18:11:15
Abigail Acton
Like it kind of stress. Yeah. Cortisol.
00:18:11:16 - 00:18:28:02
Damien Farine
Yeah, exactly. So if it goes up, then it suggests that the bird is a bit more stimulated or a bit more stressed. And what we found is that in fact, individuals do have an elevated heart rate when they try to lead. But what was super interesting is that this was really dependent on the amount of conflict in the group.
00:18:28:02 - 00:18:49:19
Damien Farine
So the more that different individuals wanted to go in different directions, the higher the sort of heart rate and then individuals that were going against the majority. So those that were in the minority expressed the highest. And if they lost the decision, then they expressed the highest heart rate. And these are quite large elevations in heart rates equivalent to like the birds sprinting at full speed.
00:18:49:20 - 00:18:50:10
Abigail Acton
Gosh.
00:18:50:11 - 00:18:54:01
Damien Farine
So it's quite a stressful process for them to be involved with.
00:18:54:03 - 00:19:01:22
Abigail Acton
And with the alpha males or the individuals that you would characterize as being more dominant, were they more stressed when they had to make a decision?
00:19:01:23 - 00:19:04:14
Damien Farine
And unfortunately, that's not actually something we looked at. We didn't have to be.
00:19:04:14 - 00:19:07:10
Abigail Acton
Because it would be interesting to see if there was stress relating to power. You know.
00:19:07:11 - 00:19:25:10
Damien Farine
Yeah, that's definitely one of the big questions that we still have outstanding here is, you know, and again, to come back to my original point, which is that not every individual participates all of the time, then it suggests that maybe some individuals are maybe a bit more immune to that, that stress. And I think, you know, it's the same in in people.
00:19:25:12 - 00:19:32:18
Damien Farine
Some in it seem to let that stress wash off their back. And where there's others lose a lot of sleep over the most tiny little conflicts.
00:19:32:19 - 00:19:34:06
Abigail Acton
Sweat the small stuff.
00:19:34:08 - 00:19:34:15
Damien Farine
Yeah.
00:19:34:17 - 00:19:49:02
Abigail Acton
That's it. Yeah. Maybe some are also just more apathetic than others. I mean, I don't know why we always think that animals are so different from us. I mean, you know, it's all we're all animals. Super. You've explained that really well, thank you so very much. Does anyone have any observations or questions for Damien? Yes. David, please.
00:19:49:03 - 00:20:13:10
David Wheatcroft
Yeah. Thanks. Damien. I was just wondering about you mentioned the sort of majority rules when it comes to the sort of group decision making. Then you also said that the motivation status condition can vary obviously across all these individuals. Do you see situations when a small group doesn't go with the majority? Depending on the I don't know what they hungry or they're predators. Is there some reason why, when this sort of rule fails, are there some situations when this rule fails, let's say.
00:20:13:11 - 00:20:34:20
Damien Farine
No, actually we haven't found a case where the rule fails, but we've actually found some really good reasons why the rule is very adaptive. So it's really beneficial. So one example is for example, when the group of guineafowl encounter, say, a big pile of elephant dung, they kind of like hanging around with elephants have been and elephant dung is, you know, ends up being containing tons of big, juicy grubs.
00:20:34:20 - 00:20:55:05
Damien Farine
And what happens is that the dominant male basically chases everyone else off and tries to stop others from feeding on this feast of, of insects. So rather than hanging around and waiting, those other individuals then regroup, and then they just start moving and they move in the direction towards where they can find more beneficial food sources for them.
00:20:55:05 - 00:21:01:22
Damien Farine
And that leaves actually the dominant with no choice but to follow, because if he doesn't follow, he ends up missing album being part of the group.
00:21:01:23 - 00:21:03:04
Abigail Acton
Isolated and vulnerable?
00:21:03:05 - 00:21:19:09
Damien Farine
Exactly. And to answer one little extra bit of your question, it doesn't require to be a majority of the group in total. So, for example, studied this with groups of like 60 birds. And what we found is they seem to have what's called a quorum threshold. It's a threshold like a minimum number of individuals that are required to go.
00:21:19:09 - 00:21:28:08
Damien Farine
And it seems to be around 13 individuals. So as long as you get like a 13 individuals, I was just saying, we're out of here, we're going. Then the rest of the group seems to follow suit.
00:21:28:09 - 00:21:30:05
Abigail Acton
That's great. Is it always the same? 13?
00:21:30:06 - 00:21:33:02
Damien Farine
No, that's the point. It's different birds every time. Yeah.
00:21:33:03 - 00:21:56:02
Abigail Acton
Endlessly. Fascinating. Thank you so much. Nastasja I'm going to turn to you now. So we're talking about how birds, you know, interrelate and communicate and indicate preferences. But for that we need the birds. And your work is about helping us ensure that species continue to thrive. So natural habitats are under pressure as we struggle to ensure food security and other priorities.
00:21:56:03 - 00:22:10:22
Abigail Acton
Farmland biodiversity in particular, is pivotal to a healthy ecosystem and it depends on habitat suitability for different species, including farmland birds. So that's where BirdWatch project steps in. Why did this area of research call to you, Nastasja?
00:22:11:01 - 00:22:41:04
Nastasja Scholz
So I have to say that when I started with BirdWatch and with working this topic, I was completely new to the topic, basically. I studied geophysics with a background in earthquake source seismology. I had done satellite remote sensing for the past previous five years, so I was completely new to the topic. But my colleagues had already worked with this with the idea of BirdWatch and had introduced me to into it.
00:22:41:04 - 00:23:16:00
Nastasja Scholz
And then when I took it up, a whole new world opened up. I basically had to study what factors are there in the choice of a specific bird to choose a habitat. What is the factors that basically influence their distribution. Where do they occur? What is it, what stops them from occurring somewhere? And how do you basically summarize this and see the conflicts of species preferences and how to reflect this in, for example, a project like Birdwatch?
00:23:16:01 - 00:23:22:21
Abigail Acton
Okay. Super. So we're thinking for example, what type of food they need, what type of environment they need to nest in. Is that right?
00:23:22:22 - 00:23:32:11
Nastasja Scholz
Exactly. So, are they ground nesting? Do they go somewhere else in the higher up where, for example, farmers don't even reach them? Just as an example. Yes.
00:23:32:11 - 00:23:49:07
Abigail Acton
Right. Okay. Super. So you mentioned a sort of technological background with earth monitoring and so on beforehand. Can you tell us now how the advances in technology are really giving projects like yours a boost? So what sort of tools did you use again, as simply as possible, because I have no background in this at all. So explain to me.
00:23:49:09 - 00:24:17:20
Nastasja Scholz
Yes, actually we are using quite a mathematical approach. So let's say not so individualized. We cannot go as much into deep detail as the previous speakers. So what we do is we collect or we use species specific occurrence data and then establish statistic links to the environment where they occur or don't occur. So for example, what land use is there around those occurrence points?
00:24:17:22 - 00:24:42:02
Nastasja Scholz
How intense is the farming? What is the topology? What is the general climate? And these factors we are looking at and we use specific data sources to basically map those environmental descriptors. Let's call it like this. So and a lot of this comes from satellite data because satellite data is becoming more and more available.
00:24:42:02 - 00:25:03:20
Nastasja Scholz
And what is attractive about them is that you can cover quite a large area with this. So for example, a whole country can be mapped, but also they have a certain recurrence rate. So you can establish a monitoring. So you can derive the environmental descriptors repeatedly every few days every few weeks. And then can see if something changes.
00:25:03:20 - 00:25:33:03
Nastasja Scholz
And if you can basically link changes in the habitat descriptors and see if the things change with time. And so basically these models, which are called species distribution models, they help us to establish a link between the presence or absence of a specific bird and the locations on the ground. And we can then basically map the derived habitat suitability across space and time.
00:25:33:04 - 00:25:53:10
Abigail Acton
Okay. That's fascinating. You can see how things transition and transform. And I suppose when you farmland opens up or where farmland is reclaimed and goes back to being rewild it. I can see how you're seeing what the terrain looks like. And obviously in more detail than that, the types of plants that are growing. I know the satellite imagery can be very, very detailed and give you a lot of information.
00:25:53:11 - 00:25:57:10
Abigail Acton
How are you actually tracking the populations of the birds within those environments?
00:25:57:12 - 00:26:29:15
Nastasja Scholz
So we use usually monitoring data from established monitoring programs. So we don't do that ourselves. It's very important that the data comes from very well educated, in this topic, very educated people. So ecologists and ornithologists who have an educated knowledge on what data is, let's say, useful and which could be just a random recording. So we need to have a pretty good quality dataset to establish those links.
00:26:29:15 - 00:26:36:18
Nastasja Scholz
Otherwise we will get spurious models. So yes, the monitoring needs to be done by experts. Yes.
00:26:36:19 - 00:26:58:03
Abigail Acton
Right. Super. Okay. So you get a clear idea of the population that's present. You know what that population needs to thrive. And then you can check and see how land use is impacting on those characteristics that the population needs in order to thrive. Excellent. And so you're getting a picture. Can you tell us any findings, any results that you have that are of interest?
00:26:58:06 - 00:27:27:13
Nastasja Scholz
So I find it very interesting in a sense how species specific these distributions are. So for BirdWatch we chose ten different bird species to also reflect the differences of their needs in our models. And so based on the species you get a strong difference in the suitability of an area. If it's a grassland bird, if it's a bird that likes trees, if it's a bird that likes wetland, you get a quite a different result.
00:27:27:14 - 00:27:41:02
Nastasja Scholz
Of course, it's kind of a logic, but it's also interesting that you can image it with models and then also, let's say map it and make it visual for people as a, for example, as a decision-making tool.
00:27:41:03 - 00:27:49:24
Abigail Acton
Yeah. I mean, that notion of visualization is a really important one, because I guess you're also going to be trying to share this data with decision makers, maybe farmers. What do you actually do with the data?
00:27:50:00 - 00:28:27:24
Nastasja Scholz
So we are mostly targeting more and more policymakers, because they are the ones who decide on what kind of protection measures are funded and where they are funded. And so basically, the whole complexity of choosing a certain measure that should improve farmland, it needs to be aligned with the local ecology. And if that is not the case, then you basically fund something that has little or even negative impact or even funds conflicting measures for two types of birds that don't coexist or things like this. So we try to get rid of those conflicts as well.
00:28:28:05 - 00:28:45:11
Abigail Acton
So basically you're hoping to provide the data that helps them decisions to be more effective. So I suppose if we make it like a concrete example for the listeners, correct me if I'm wrong, but are you saying, for example, you'd look at a certain species, species X, let's call it, you'd see that it likes dry ground on which to nest.
00:28:45:11 - 00:29:04:12
Abigail Acton
And in fact, that's where the insect populations are best for it etcetera. You see, for example, that farmers are coming in and actually using that land more and more and more for agriculture. And then you'd be able to see the impact on population numbers. And that would give you an informed decision to try and get policymakers to make some changes or adapt the situation.
00:29:04:12 - 00:29:06:02
Abigail Acton
Is that the sort of thing you're doing?
00:29:06:03 - 00:29:43:08
Damien Farine
This is the idea. I think the monitoring effect will be important then, because then you can have this before and after effect. In BirdWatch we only had derived the habitats for one year, but the idea of BirdWatch is to repeatedly do those measurements. And so if there's a change in land use on the ground, we want to get this visualized in our models and our output so that we can say, okay, now it's worse, it's better, and we can say, could say, okay, there is a farmer now and uses this land which previously was better for bird X, and now not so good for bird X.
00:29:43:10 - 00:29:51:18
Abigail Acton
A bit more detrimental. Excellent. Thank you. Very well explained and very important work. Thank you very much. Does anyone have any observations to make or questions please? Yes. Damien.
00:29:51:20 - 00:30:23:04
Damien Farine
That's super interesting. I was wondering, I guess you have now quite high resolution temporal resolution of the satellite data, and you mentioned that you only actually get the presence and absence data once per year. I was wondering if you have any areas where you might do more intensive observations in time so that you can basically create like or use kind of natural experiments where the farmers are changing their behaviors asynchronously with each other. And you can try and see how that's affecting the birds in different areas at different times?
00:30:23:04 - 00:30:44:00
Nastasja Scholz
So this would be a very interesting study. So basically it would all start with if we have this data the observations from the birds. So the bird data is the most important part of the whole thing. So even if we have more satellite data, if we don't have enough bird data or bird data only from once a year, the models will not reflect this.
00:30:44:01 - 00:31:08:04
Nastasja Scholz
So basically we would have to align the monitoring of the birds or the data collection on the birds with the frequency with which we want to also evaluate the satellite data. But then this would be an interesting study do if we have both satellite data or let's say environmental descriptors and the observation of the birds throughout the year, that would be an interesting study.
00:31:08:05 - 00:31:31:13
Abigail Acton
It must be very difficult indeed, actually, to get accurate figures for populations of birds, especially in I mean, presumably it's harder than ever if it's overgrown areas and lots of trees. And I mean, I guess that must make things harder to do. How do we actually get an accurate image, a picture rather of bird populations and the change of bird populations over time, other than just having keen enthusiasts or ornithologists just going out and counting?
00:31:31:14 - 00:31:34:22
Abigail Acton
What do we do guys? How is that done? Any ideas?
00:31:34:23 - 00:31:51:24
Damien Farine
Experience I guess yeah. I mean, birdwatchers, you know, we rely on more than just being able to look at a bird, identify it like see its features and look in a guide. Right. Experienced birdwatchers can pick up birds based on their calls so they can just identify, you know, if they're just calling, they can see, say it's this species versus that species.
00:31:51:24 - 00:31:54:03
Abigail Acton
Especially if the call is accurate. Thanks to your work, David.
00:31:54:08 - 00:32:05:07
Damien Farine
And then also, I mean, when you watch birds every day, you can sort of pick up very tiny cues, right? You can just see a few tail feathers and pretty much know what species it is, just based on color and shape and how they move.
00:32:05:08 - 00:32:13:06
Abigail Acton
But it's still pretty much being done manually, as it were, rather than sort of the satellite observations of terrain and characteristics. Yeah.
00:32:13:08 - 00:32:35:11
Damien Farine
Well, more and more actually, we're starting to track birds. So it's fitting, like what we do with the guineafowl, with the GPS trackers, but actually fitting this on a much bigger scale. So for example, some of our new projects, now we're tracking hundreds of birds at a time. And, you know, as they distribute themselves over the landscape, you can see day by day or hour by hour how they're choosing the different parts of the habitat.
00:32:35:14 - 00:32:39:00
Abigail Acton
Share that information with Nastasjia. David, what did you want to say?
00:32:39:06 - 00:32:55:10
David Wheatcroft
Yeah, sorry. I was going to say Nastasja mentioned to you, but there's this passive acoustic monitoring to people. Have these certain groups I've set up these, you know, huge arrays of microphones on migration routes and in certain areas to be able to monitor essentially automatically what species are present.
00:32:55:12 - 00:33:00:12
Abigail Acton
And then does the AI come in and interpret what, what's being heard, or is that still done by people listening?
00:33:00:13 - 00:33:04:04
David Wheatcroft
I guess AI trained by humans. Yeah,
00:33:04:06 - 00:33:04:24
Abigail Acton
Yeah, yeah.
00:33:05:00 - 00:33:06:23
David Wheatcroft
With human input, let's say.
00:33:07:00 - 00:33:22:01
Abigail Acton
Yeah. This has been absolutely fascinating. I've really, really enjoyed this one. Thank you so much for your very important work. Birds are a barometer to the environmental health. So you know we're all noticing the fallen numbers. So thank you very much for the vital work that you guys are doing. Much appreciated. Thanks for joining me today.
00:33:22:03 - 00:33:22:24
Damien Farine
Thanks, Abigail.
00:33:23:00 - 00:33:25:22
Nastasja Scholz
Thank you, thank you. Great to talk to you. Yeah.
00:33:25:23 - 00:33:26:16
Abigail Acton
Excellent. Cool.
00:33:26:18 - 00:33:28:02
David Wheatcroft
Thanks very much for giving us the chance.
00:33:28:03 - 00:33:29:03
Nastasja Scholz
Yes, exactly.
00:33:29:08 - 00:33:31:06
Abigail Acton
Good to share ideas. Bye. Bye, guys.
00:33:31:07 - 00:33:32:01
David Wheatcroft
Bye bye.
00:33:32:03 - 00:33:32:09
Damien Farine
Bye.
00:33:32:13 - 00:33:35:05
Nastasja Scholz
Bye bye.
00:33:35:07 - 00:33:59:20
Abigail Acton
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Understanding and conservation go hand in hand – actions to help birds thrive
Are there as many swifts darting over your head as there have been in past summers? What about the swallows, are they coming back to the old buildings around you and are you tripping over sparrows on the pavements? Still being woken up by the dawn chorus – or is it quieter(opens in new window) than it was a few years back? We aren’t making it easy for them, with our drive for agricultural intensification, poor forestry practices, pollution and urbanisation. Meanwhile climate change is impacting the distribution of species. But the EU is supporting the innovative research that is improving our understanding of birds, their needs and how best to meet them, and today’s guests are contributing to the ongoing work to try and make the future more secure for them. David Wheatcroft(opens in new window) is a behavioural ecologist and an associate professor at Stockholm University’s Department of Zoology(opens in new window). David is keen to establish how vocal learning in birds leads to song differences across populations and species, a subject he explored in the SongNeuroGen project. Damien Farine(opens in new window) is associate professor at the Australian National University(opens in new window), and an affiliated scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior(opens in new window). He is intrigued by the interplay between collective behaviour and the environment, focusing on how guineafowl interact during the ECOLBEH project. Nastasja Scholz(opens in new window) is a geophysicist and senior scientist at LUP(opens in new window), an SME which specialises in landscape planning, nature conservation and environmental remote sensing. The company hosted the BirdWatch project. Nastasja is particularly interested in collaborating with dedicated people from various disciplines to explore ways to improve protection and restoration measures benefiting birds.
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