Social Integration

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Social Integration

• Recognition
• Process
• Mechanisms
• Male-female integration
• Parent-offspring integration
• Group integration

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Meerkat
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Recognition Process

• Sender provides information
• Receiver perceives signal above background
• Receiver compares information in signal to a
  model of target stored in memory
• Receiver decides whether sender is target or not
• Receiver takes action in response to target
• Feed offspring or not
• Flee from predator or not

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Limits on repertoire size
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Recognition issues

• Difficulty of discrimination task depends on the
  number of classes that must be distinguished
• Number of classes depends on identification
  level, i.e. sex, species, group, or individual
• Recognition is never perfect
• Sender and receiver need not agree on amount of
  information to transfer

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Recognition mechanisms

• Spatial location
• e.g. treat offspring in nest as own
• Familiarity
• Individual level recognition requires learned
  familiarity and requires complex signature
  signals
• Phenotype matching
• Ability to assign stimuli to classes of
  relatedness relative to the receiver
• Referent can be a known relative or oneself
• Allele matching
• Requires hypervariable locus with olfactory signal

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Neighbor-stranger discrimination provides an
example of recognition by spatial location

• Neighbors song ignored when broadcast from
  proper territory
• Aggressive response when neighbors song
  broadcast from different territory
• Rule of thumb recognize neighbor when in own
  territory, treat all other songs as if from
  floaters

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Vocal signatures
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Kin recognition in salamanders
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Multiple Histocompatibility Complex

• MHC is involved in cell-cell recognition
• Many loci exhibit high levels of heterozygosity
  with many alleles
• Permits kin recognition in many vertebrates
• Human leukocyte antigen (HLA) on chr 6

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Mice and humans prefer alternate MHC
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Male-female integration

• Species recognition
• Can be hard-wired since only one signal variant
  needs to be recognized
• Chemoreceptor sensitivity in some male moths
• Color sensitive eyes of some fish and butterflies
• Frequency sensitivity of some frogs
• Parental care permits imprinting
• Coordination of reproduction
• Female reproduction often needs stimulation by a
  species-specific male signal and vice versa
• Provides opportunity for male exploitation

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Copulation synchronization
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Pairbond behaviors
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Triumph ceremony in Greylag geese
Males use ritualized display to chase
away competitors and then both sexes display
together
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Duets
Carolina wren
Found in Monogamous species In dense
vegetation Keeps pair together Minimizes extra
pair cops Advertises territory
Rufous and white wren
Buff-breasted wren
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Pheromone delivery in salamanders
Chin rubbing on female nares by male plethodon
Pheromone wafting by male newt
Chin rubbing on female back by male desmognathus
Forced copulation by male euproctis
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Parent-offspring recognition

• Parental investment includes time and energy
  devoted to offspring that increase offspring
  survival while decreasing parental survival
  and/or ability to reproduce
• Predict recognition accuracy should by high
• Can select for signal complexity or enhanced
  receiver discrimination or both

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Pup recognition in Mexican free-tailed bats
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Isolation call measurements
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Call complexity and colony size
Log colony size
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Isolation calls are heritable
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Parent-offspring conflict
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Group integration

• Social groups permit cooperation, but require
  mechanisms for recognition
• Group recognition
• Appeasement
• Coordination of group movements
• Worker organization in social insects

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Group recognition vocalizations

• Vervet monkeys
• Bottlenose dolphins
• Killer whales
• Parrots

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Groups have distinct calls
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Females learn to match calls
Group 1
Group 2
Before
5 months after move
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Appeasement signals
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Group cohesion calls
Squirrel monkey
Golden lion tamarin
Pinyon jay
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Coordination of group movement
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Bee dances signal hive choice
Swarming distance covaries with dialect
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Isoptera - all termites