Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Yorzinski, Jessica L.
• Troscianko, Jolyon
• Briolat, Emmanuelle
• Schapiro, Steven J.
• Whitham, Will

Titel

A songbird can detect the eyes of conspecifics under daylight and artificial nighttime lighting

Ist Teil von

• Environmental pollution (1987), 2022-11, Vol.313, p.120000-120000, Article 120000

Ort / Verlag

Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2022

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Alma/SFX Local Collection

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Eyes convey important information about the external and internal worlds of animals. Individuals can follow the gaze of others to learn about the location of salient objects as well as assess eye qualities to evaluate the health, age or other internal states of conspecifics. Because of the increasing prevalence of artificial lighting at night (ALAN), urbanized individuals can potentially garner information from conspecific eyes under both daylight and ALAN. We tested this possibility using a visual modeling approach in which we estimated the maximum distance at which individuals could detect conspecific eyes under daylight and high levels of ALAN. We also estimated the minimum light level at which individuals could detect conspecific eyes. Great-tailed grackles (Quiscalus mexicanus) were used as our study species because they are highly social and are unusual among birds in that they regularly gather at nocturnal roosts in areas with high levels of ALAN. This visual modelling approach revealed that grackles can detect conspecific eyes under both daylight and ALAN, regardless of iris coloration. The grackles could detect conspecific eyes at farther distances in daylight compared to ALAN. Our results highlight the potential importance of lighting conditions in shaping social interactions. [Display omitted] •Many animals use information from conspecific eyes for visual communication.•Visual models estimated eye detectability under artificial light at night (ALAN).•A songbird can detect conspecific eyes under high and low levels of ALAN.•They can detect conspecific eyes at farther distances under daylight.