Vultures acquire information on carcass location from scavenging eagles

Author:

Kane Adam12ORCID,Jackson Andrew L.12ORCID,Ogada Darcy L.34,Monadjem Ara5,McNally Luke67ORCID

Affiliation:

1. Department of Zoology, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Republic of Ireland

2. Centre for Biodiversity Research, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin 2, Republic of Ireland

3. The Peregrine Fund, 5668 West Flying Hawk Lane, Boise, ID 83709, USA

4. National Museums of Kenya, Ornithology Section, PO Box 40658, Nairobi 00100, Kenya

5. All Out Africa Research Unit, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Swaziland, Private Bag 4, Kwaluseni, Swaziland

6. Centre for Immunity, Infection and Evolution, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK

7. Institute of Evolutionary Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3JT, UK

Abstract

Vultures are recognized as the scroungers of the natural world, owing to their ecological role as obligate scavengers. While it is well known that vultures use intraspecific social information as they forage, the possibility of inter-guild social information transfer and the resulting multi-species social dilemmas has not been explored. Here, we use data on arrival times at carcasses to show that such social information transfer occurs, with raptors acting as producers of information and vultures acting as scroungers of information. We develop a game-theoretic model to show that competitive asymmetry, whereby vultures dominate raptors at carcasses, predicts this evolutionary outcome. We support this theoretical prediction using empirical data from competitive interactions at carcasses. Finally, we use an individual-based model to show that these producer–scrounger dynamics lead to vultures being vulnerable to declines in raptor populations. Our results show that social information transfer can lead to important non-trophic interactions among species and highlight important potential links among social evolution, community ecology and conservation biology. With vulture populations suffering global declines, our study underscores the importance of ecosystem-based management for these endangered keystone species.

Publisher

The Royal Society

Subject

General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Environmental Science,General Immunology and Microbiology,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine

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