Sound Ecology Lab @ WMU

Referential alarm calling: meaning and evolution of a complex cognitive phenotype

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Animals give alarm calls when they or their offspring are under threat. What do alarm calls mean to those who give them and those that hear them?

 

My MSc research investigated interactions between brown-headed cowbirds and a common host, the yellow warbler. Yellow warblers are unusual in how they respond to cowbirds - giving a unique alarm call (called a seet call) and performing a type of nest-protection behavior which limits the access of cowbirds to the nest - compared with their generalized response to predators and non-threatening birds around their nests. This specialized alarm call means that a cowbird was around the nest - just hearing the alarm call, and not necessarily seeing or interacting with the cowbird, should be enough to elicit the same response as the cowbird itself.

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We're following up on this research to more fully understand the evolution of meaning in alarm calls. Current projects include: 

• ​exploring whether detecting alarm calls alters future behavior

• comparing alarm calls and defensive responses to brood parasitism of species closely related to yellow warblers

• interspecific eavesdropping on alarm calls

• characterizing alarm call repertoires of red-winged blackbirds

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Selected publications​

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Feeney, W.E., J.A. Kennerley, D. Wheatcroft, W. Liang, N. Teunissen, S. L. Lawson, J.K. Enos, B. Zhou, C. Poje, N.M. Richardson, T.A. Ryan, Z.-L. Cowan, R.M. Brooker, J.B Lamb, M. Attwood, R. Gloag, V.D. Fiorini, S.A. Gill, A. Peters, M. Honza, C. Spottiswoode, M.E. Hauber, A. Manica, M.S. Webster, & D.E. Blasi. 2025. Learned use of an ancient sound-meaning association across hosts of avian brood parasites. Nature Ecology and Evolution 9: 2103–2115

 

Gill, S.A. & S.G. Sealy. 2004. Functional reference in an alarm signal given during nest defence: seet calls of yellow warblers denote brood-parasitic brown-headed cowbirds. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 56:71-80.

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​Lawson, S.L., J.K. Enos, Fernandez-Duque, F., M.P. Ward, S. Kleindorfer, S.A. Gill & M.E. Hauber. 2023. Absence of referential alarm calls in long-term allopatry from the referent: A case study with Galapagos yellow warblers. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 77:99. 

 

Lawson, S.L., J. Enos, N. Mendes, S. A. Gill, & M.E. Hauber. 2020. Heterospecific eavesdropping on an anti-parasitic referential alarm call. Communications Biology 3: 143.

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Lawson S.L., J.K. Enos, C.S. Wolf, K. Stenstrom, S.K. Winnicki, T.J. Benson, M.E. Hauber, M.E. Hauber & S.A. Gill. 2021. Referential alarm calling elicits future vigilance in the host of an avian brood parasite. Biology Letters, 17, 20210377  ​

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Lawson S.L., J.K. Enos, S.A. Gill & M.E. Hauber. 2021. Eavesdropping on referential Yellow Warbler alarm calls by Red-winged Blackbirds is mediated by brood parasitism risk. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2021.706170

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