Abstract：
In the early morning, large groups of up to hundreds or even thousands of roosting birds, sometimes comprising the entire roost population, often take off together in sudden mass departures. These departures commonly occur in low-light conditions and structurally complex habitats where access to visual cues is likely to be restricted. Roosting birds are often highly vocal, leading us to hypothesise that vocalisations, which can propagate over large distances, could provide a means of enabling individuals to agree on when to depart - that is to establish a consensus1 - and thus coordinate the timing of mass movements. Investigations of the role of acoustic signals in coordinating collective decisions have been limited to honeybees2 and relatively small vertebrate groups (<50 individuals)3-5 and have rarely included experimental validation2,3. Here, by combining field recordings with a large-scale experimental manipulation, we show that jackdaws (Corvus monedula) use vocalisations to coordinate mass departures from winter roosts. This provides empirical evidence for vocally-mediated consensus decision-making in large vertebrate groups.
摘要：
清晨,成百上千甚至成千上万的栖息鸟，有时包括整个栖息地人口，经常在突然大规模离开时一起起飞。这些偏离通常发生在弱光条件和结构复杂的栖息地，在这些栖息地中，视觉线索的获取可能受到限制。栖鸟通常声音很高，导致我们假设发声，可以远距离传播，可以提供一种手段，使个人能够就何时出发达成共识-即建立共识1-从而协调群众运动的时机。对声信号在协调集体决策中的作用的研究仅限于蜜蜂2和相对较小的脊椎动物群体（<50个个体）3-5，很少包括实验验证2,3。这里,通过将现场记录与大规模实验操作相结合，我们表明，寒流（Corvusmonedula）使用发声来协调冬季栖息地的质量偏离。这为大型脊椎动物群体中口头介导的共识决策提供了经验证据。
