Abstract Many species of birds produce distinct calls when mobbing predators. These calls often recruit nearby conspecifics and heterospecifics to help drive the predators away. In some species, such as members of the family Paridae, mobbing calls are composed of multiple elements that seem to follow a characteristic order. Previous work in parids demonstrated that note ordering influences both the responses of conspecifics and some other co-occurring Paridae species. Cross-species sensitivity to note ordering could result from individuals’ learning to associate individual heterospecific calls with threats or, rather, because the typical note orderings are shared across species. Here, we test these hypotheses by assessing the responses of European great tits ( Parus major ) to the naturally and artificially ordered calls of black-capped chickadees ( Poecile atricapillus ), a North American species. In response to the naturally ordered mobbing calls of chickadees, we found that great tits exhibit vigilance and rapidly approach the sound source, behaviors that were indistinguishable to those expressed in response to conspecific calls. If learned associations are necessary for sensitivity to note ordering, then a key prediction is that great tit responses to naturally ordered and artificially reversed chickadee calls should be similar (and weak). In contrast to this prediction, we found that great tits were less vigilant, but approach the sound source in response to artificially reversed chickadee calls. These findings suggest that perception of note ordering patterns is conserved. However, they are also in agreement with a “perception bias” hypothesis: that the first notes of the call mask the notes that follow them, preventing the receiver from perceiving the second part of the call. Although we provide evidence against perception bias, further research is needed to convincingly disentangle these two hypotheses. Significance statement How do animals decode other species’ vocal sequences? Great tit responses to chickadee sequences depend on the ordering of their notes. Great tits and chickadees never encounter one another in the wild, but their alarm call sequences have similar note orderings. Using a series of playback experiments, we demonstrate that great tits respond strongest to chickadee calls whose order matches their own. Thus, response to unfamiliar calls does not depend on learning, but, rather, shared call ordering across species.

中文翻译：

---

对陌生物种的叫声的巨大反应表明对叫声排序的保守看法

摘要 许多鸟类在围攻捕食者时会发出不同的叫声。这些呼叫通常会招募附近的同种动物和异种动物来帮助驱赶捕食者。在某些物种中，例如 Paridae 家族的成员，围攻呼叫由多个元素组成，这些元素似乎遵循特定的顺序。先前在 parids 中的工作表明，音符排序会影响同种和其他一些共同出现的 Paridae 物种的反应。对音符排序的跨物种敏感性可能源于个体学习将个体异种特异性调用与威胁联系起来，或者更确切地说，因为典型的音符排序是跨物种共享的。这里，我们通过评估欧洲大山雀（Parus major）对北美物种黑顶山雀（Poecile atricapillus）自然和人工有序的叫声的反应来检验这些假设。为了响应山雀自然有序的围攻呼叫，我们发现大山雀表现出警惕并迅速接近声源，这些行为与响应同种呼叫的行为无法区分。如果学习关联对于音符排序的敏感性是必要的，那么一个关键的预测是，对自然排序和人为逆转的山雀叫声的大山雀反应应该是相似的（而且很弱）。与这一预测相反，我们发现大山雀不太警惕，而是接近声源以响应人为逆转的山雀叫声。这些发现表明对音符排序模式的感知是保守的。然而，他们也同意“感知偏差”假设：通话的第一个音符掩盖了它们后面的音符，阻止接收者感知通话的第二部分。尽管我们提供了反对感知偏见的证据，但还需要进一步的研究来令人信服地解开这两个假设。意义陈述 动物如何解码其他物种的声音序列？山雀对山雀序列的巨大反应取决于它们音符的顺序。大山雀和山雀在野外从未相遇，但它们的警报序列具有相似的音符顺序。使用一系列回放实验，我们证明了大山雀对山雀叫声的反应最强烈，而山雀叫声的顺序与它们自己的顺序相匹配。因此，