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Avian Affairs · Luke's English Podcast

0:07
Speaker 1: Welcome to this episode of Science of the Times. I'm
0:09
Speaker 1: Simon Khalid.
0:10
Speaker 2: And I'm Tim Coulson. Good to see you again Simon
0:14
Speaker 2: and today are you a bird watcher?
0:17
Speaker 1: Actually I am, I am.
0:19
Speaker 2: Do you have a life list?
0:22
Speaker 1: No I think I should, I don't particularly. So before
0:25
Speaker 1: moving to Oxford when I was living in Winchester I
0:28
Speaker 1: was more sort of doing it quite a lot more
0:29
Speaker 1: and really got into it during Covid actually.
0:32
Speaker 2: No, well, today we're going to talk to Jane Strassman, who,
0:36
Speaker 2: you know, I've known for her work on social evolution
0:38
Speaker 2: and particularly wasps, although she'll tell us she works also
0:41
Speaker 2: on other systems. And she's just written a really interesting
0:46
Speaker 2: book about the social life of birds. We're going to
0:48
Speaker 2: talk to her about that. And it's actually out today. So,
0:53
Speaker 2: you know, I recommend our readers buy it. But she's
0:55
Speaker 2: really kind of dived in. to um uh explore all
1:00
Speaker 2: the different ways that birds are social and i mean
1:03
Speaker 2: you know it's true sometimes when you're wandering around you'll
1:05
Speaker 2: see some species of birds are kind of fighting with
1:07
Speaker 2: one another others just kind of sit around on.
1:09
Speaker 1: Their own you know we've got a little i guess
1:13
Speaker 1: it's difficult to know from from sort of as an
1:15
Speaker 1: amateur just sort of observing like you said if you're
1:17
Speaker 1: having a coffee in a you know in a cafe
1:19
Speaker 1: and you see birds around to sort of know is
1:21
Speaker 1: this a species-wide behaviour that we're seeing? Or is it
1:25
Speaker 1: just these particular three that hate each other?
1:29
Speaker 2: No, well, I mean, you know, they really are diverse, these,
1:33
Speaker 2: you know, the behaviours that birds show really is quite remarkable. Well, anyway,
1:38
Speaker 2: let's get Joan on and we'll let her talk about
1:41
Speaker 2: her book, which is The Social Life of Birds. And
1:44
Speaker 2: it's Professor Joan Strassman. So let's get her on. Well,
1:48
Speaker 2: Professor Joan Strassman, thank you very much for coming and
1:50
Speaker 2: joining us on another Science of the Times podcast. Perhaps
1:54
Speaker 2: you could introduce us and tell us a little bit
1:56
Speaker 2: about what you do, and then we'll dive into your
1:58
Speaker 2: excellent new book, which we'll put details on below. But
2:06
Speaker 2: it's The Social Life of Birds, and it's actually published
2:11
Speaker 2: the day this podcast was comes out. And it's well
2:16
Speaker 2: worth a read. It's fantastic. And it comes out as
2:20
Speaker 2: an imprint in Penguin Random House, I believe. So, Joan,
2:26
Speaker 2: perhaps introduce yourself and say a little bit about what
2:28
Speaker 2: you do.
2:30
Speaker 3: So I'm Joan Strassman, and I just love social behavior
2:35
Speaker 3: of all kinds. My own research has mostly been on
2:40
Speaker 3: social wasps and then social microbes. But you might guess
2:45
Speaker 3: that those just don't grab the standard student as much
2:50
Speaker 3: as some other organisms. So for many, many years, my
2:55
Speaker 3: teaching has actually been on birds. And so this book
3:01
Speaker 3: really comes not out of my research, but out of
3:05
Speaker 3: my love of teaching. And so that's a bit different
3:09
Speaker 3: from most people, but it worked for me.
3:13
Speaker 2: And a microbe's really social. I kind of What do
3:18
Speaker 2: you mean by sociality with the microbes before we get
3:21
Speaker 2: onto the birds? I mean, they're not going down the
3:22
Speaker 2: pub party or anything like that. I mean, they're just
3:24
Speaker 2: hanging out together, growing together.
3:29
Speaker 3: One might say that there's nothing more social than a microbe.
3:33
Speaker 3: Microbes don't do anything by themselves. They're constantly talking to
3:38
Speaker 3: each other. They're releasing compounds. They know how many others
3:44
Speaker 3: of their same kind are in the area. They know
3:48
Speaker 3: whether there's enough of them to kill enemies or whether
3:52
Speaker 3: they better just scooch away. So actually, microbes are the best.
3:58
Speaker 3: The thing is, it's all chemical communication and genetic communication.
4:07
Speaker 3: So it's not something we can watch. But what's super
4:10
Speaker 3: exciting to me is the theories that we've learned from
4:15
Speaker 3: watching animals like birds really apply to micros and gave
4:22
Speaker 3: us insights to micros that we never would have had
4:26
Speaker 3: had we not studied birds.
4:29
Speaker 2: Sorry, McGowan, you better ask a microbe and chemical question
4:32
Speaker 2: given your biochemistry works of the.
4:35
Speaker 1: Well, I guess it's not really a question, but yeah,
4:37
Speaker 1: I mean, as you said, microbes don't do anything alone. And,
4:41
Speaker 1: but for example, bacteria, we know are the most, probably
4:44
Speaker 1: the most aggressive organisms known. Right. And so the corollary
4:48
Speaker 1: of that then of course, is that they're also, they have,
4:51
Speaker 1: they have to compete, but also cooperate. And so you
4:55
Speaker 1: get these ideas of sort of communities and social behaviors.
4:59
Speaker 1: And I think, yeah, you're right. I mean, I fully
5:01
Speaker 1: agree with you. Microbes are the best. What I didn't
5:05
Speaker 1: know is how much we know about them from learning from,
5:08
Speaker 1: you know, watching birds. That's completely new to me. Is
5:12
Speaker 1: there something specific that you can point to, sort of
5:15
Speaker 1: one example?
5:17
Speaker 3: I would say all of the theories of social evolution,
5:20
Speaker 3: you know, from Bill Hamilton's landmark kin selection work on down,
5:27
Speaker 3: have come from watching birds and mammals, to be fair.
5:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
5:33
Speaker 3: And of course, insects. So just one small example, we
5:37
Speaker 3: think of social insects who have sterile casts, workers that
5:43
Speaker 3: give their entire lives for the colony. Well, there are
5:47
Speaker 3: microbes who will explode themselves and die and kill others
5:53
Speaker 3: to benefit their own genotype in the area. And And
5:57
Speaker 3: understanding that completely comes from our understanding of Hamilton's kin
6:03
Speaker 3: selection theory.
6:04
Speaker 2: No, fantastic. And let's talk about your book. And we'll
6:09
Speaker 2: talk a little bit more about what kin selection is.
6:11
Speaker 2: So it really is a fantastic book. I mean, you've
6:16
Speaker 2: kind of hit that sweet spot of making it captivating.
6:18
Speaker 2: There's some, you know, the bits that made me chuckle,
6:22
Speaker 2: you know, but it's also incredibly scholarly. And you're exploring
6:25
Speaker 2: the social life of birds, you know, from all aspects
6:29
Speaker 2: of it, right, from, you know, flocking together, roosting together,
6:32
Speaker 2: breeding together, raising chicks together. You take examples from across
6:37
Speaker 2: the globe. I was thinking this just sounded like a
6:39
Speaker 2: great excuse to go to all sorts of exotic locations
6:42
Speaker 2: as well. But congratulations on it. It really is fantastic.
6:48
Speaker 2: And we really enjoyed it. And you did it from teaching,
6:51
Speaker 2: but have you always been a keen bird watcher? Is
6:54
Speaker 2: that kind of what got you into it? Or have
6:56
Speaker 2: you kind of become a keen bird watcher and a
6:59
Speaker 2: keen observer of birds after having sort of started teaching
7:03
Speaker 2: some of the examples?
7:06
Speaker 3: So my first book was called Slow Birding. And that
7:10
Speaker 3: kind of describes the sort of birder that I have
7:14
Speaker 3: more or less always been. I love to watch them.
7:18
Speaker 3: I love to look at them. I didn't really have
7:21
Speaker 3: a life list until, uh, Ebert kind of forced it
7:26
Speaker 3: on me, but I, I always looked at birds from,
7:31
Speaker 3: from childhood. My, my father was a German Jewish immigrant, uh,
7:37
Speaker 3: right before, right before the war and brought his old
7:41
Speaker 3: German binoculars and, um, Germans have a great tradition of, uh,
7:47
Speaker 3: loving the natural world and going hiking and just knowing
7:52
Speaker 3: what's out there. And so I really got it from him.
7:56
Speaker 3: And I did look at birds from a very young age,
8:02
Speaker 3: but not in a very thorough way.
8:04
Speaker 1: And sort of so the book is, as you said,
8:10
Speaker 1: built up from really from sort of you looking into
8:14
Speaker 1: other people's work and bringing it together, how easy or
8:18
Speaker 1: difficult was it to access all of the information and
8:21
Speaker 1: data you needed?
8:24
Speaker 3: So since I am in the field, I was even
8:29
Speaker 3: kind of ironically president of the Animal Behavior Society at
8:34
Speaker 3: a time I worked neither on behavior nor animals. I'm
8:41
Speaker 3: very much of an insider. And so many of the
8:46
Speaker 3: people were friends. And actually, I did no traveling for
8:53
Speaker 3: this book. It was all travel for various scientific reasons
8:58
Speaker 3: that took me to places where then I just did
9:03
Speaker 3: a little bit on the side. So people were extremely
9:08
Speaker 3: kind and generous with their most personal stories. Which I
9:13
Speaker 3: then used freely.
9:19
Speaker 2: So what might be nice to do is to kind
9:21
Speaker 2: of go through a few of examples in the book
9:25
Speaker 2: of some of the ways that birds behave socially. Because
9:27
Speaker 2: I think one of the things that your readers and
9:30
Speaker 2: our listeners will be intrigued about is actually the wide
9:32
Speaker 2: variety of ways in which birds behave. And, you know,
9:36
Speaker 2: I think perhaps, you know, sort of I found really
9:39
Speaker 2: compelling was was one of the studies you talked about,
9:41
Speaker 2: which are these common red shanks and the geometry of safety,
9:48
Speaker 2: as it would be. So I mean, would you like
9:51
Speaker 2: to kind of explain a little bit about what they do?
9:53
Speaker 2: Because it's quite impressive about how they behave to try
9:57
Speaker 2: and minimize the risk of predation for sparrowhawks and things.
10:02
Speaker 3: So this is based on Will Cresswell's work and the
10:06
Speaker 3: work of his team over many years. And red shanks
10:10
Speaker 3: have a problem. And that is they're not a small bird,
10:15
Speaker 3: but they eat very small prey, much smaller for their
10:19
Speaker 3: size than most other birds. So like I might wish
10:24
Speaker 3: I could do, they just have to eat all the
10:27
Speaker 3: time to get their tiny food. And the best place
10:33
Speaker 3: for that food is actually closer to the shore than
10:39
Speaker 3: closer to the forest side of the shore, which is
10:41
Speaker 3: the very place that the sparrow hawks lurk. And so
10:47
Speaker 3: they just have this challenge between where the best food is,
10:52
Speaker 3: is not a very safe place to be. So they
10:56
Speaker 3: do spend a lot of time farther out on the
10:58
Speaker 3: mud flats where the food isn't as abundant. And when
11:02
Speaker 3: they're close to the forests and to these dangerous sparrow hawks,
11:09
Speaker 3: They use safety in numbers. They use the geometry of
11:12
Speaker 3: the selfish herd, as Hamilton's wonderful paper was called, to
11:19
Speaker 3: try to reduce the chance that any one of them
11:21
Speaker 3: would be the one that was eaten.
11:24
Speaker 2: And it works. I mean, you know, it's a successful strategy.
11:28
Speaker 2: And I think one of the themes that runs through
11:29
Speaker 2: your book is all of these behaviors are about maximizing
11:34
Speaker 2: survival and reproduction. So it's all about, you know, staying
11:37
Speaker 2: alive to breed. Yes.
11:40
Speaker 3: Yes. It's, it's very important. Sort of the first half
11:44
Speaker 3: of the book is, uh, about individuals that are in
11:49
Speaker 3: it for themselves and they themselves must survive to, to
11:54
Speaker 3: find a mate and breed. And then the second half
11:57
Speaker 3: of the book is about animals that themselves might not survive,
12:04
Speaker 3: but they help their relatives or their offspring survive. So
12:08
Speaker 3: it's sort of, uh, Two different halves to this story.
12:13
Speaker 1: So, Joan, is it sort of, I apologize in advance
12:16
Speaker 1: if this is a ridiculous question, but within the same
12:20
Speaker 1: type of bird sort of community, are there these two types?
12:25
Speaker 3: Would there be.
12:25
Speaker 1: Both types, the selfish kind of bird that only wants
12:28
Speaker 1: themselves to survive and then those that look after the
12:32
Speaker 1: entire flock? Or is it very much this type of bird?
12:35
Speaker 1: Everybody looks after the flock and this type of bird.
12:39
Speaker 1: They're all selfish.
12:41
Speaker 3: So maybe it's more the kind of behaviors. So nearly
12:47
Speaker 3: all birds have parental care. So the parents are altruistically,
12:53
Speaker 3: you might say, taking care of their young. Although I
12:56
Speaker 3: do like to talk about conflicts within families. I have
13:00
Speaker 3: three kids, so it kind of comes naturally. But it's
13:05
Speaker 3: more so birds that flock might also do other kinds
13:09
Speaker 3: of behaviors so it's more like that not so much
13:14
Speaker 3: as a as a dimorphism in behavior or poly yeah
13:19
Speaker 3: it's it's it's not that some are being selfish and
13:23
Speaker 3: some are not it's it's more um focused on the
13:28
Speaker 3: kinds of behavior than necessarily the kinds of birds okay.
13:33
Speaker 2: So the red shanks come together to feed things like
13:36
Speaker 2: black vultures which is another example from your book They
13:40
Speaker 2: come together to share information, right? They're information brokers almost
13:43
Speaker 2: when they're coming back to their roost. So I thought
13:47
Speaker 2: that was a kind of a fascinating study as well.
13:49
Speaker 2: I wonder if you can tell us a little bit
13:50
Speaker 2: more about that.
13:52
Speaker 3: So the black– I just loved reading about the black
13:56
Speaker 3: vultures because– they do have what might be called information centers,
14:02
Speaker 3: which is an idea that Amit Zahavi and Peter Ward
14:07
Speaker 3: had early on that was really annihilated by Doug Mock
14:14
Speaker 3: and subsequent work that really showed birds aren't generally going
14:19
Speaker 3: to go somewhere and altruistically tell non-relatives where the food is.
14:25
Speaker 3: But if the food is abundant, lasts only a short time,
14:30
Speaker 3: and because vultures spend a lot of time with their
14:34
Speaker 3: young and don't turn over that often, then it really
14:39
Speaker 3: makes sense. So if there's a rotting pig carcass that
14:44
Speaker 3: you can only eat at for three days, there's no
14:49
Speaker 3: harm in sharing the information. And, uh, one that shares
14:54
Speaker 3: one day might benefit from the information of another, the next.
14:58
Speaker 3: So it's a, it's an unusual example of that kind
15:03
Speaker 3: of sharing. And I have to say Patty Parker herself,
15:06
Speaker 3: who's a colleague of mine in St. Louis, though at
15:09
Speaker 3: a different university was, uh, also a very colorful person
15:14
Speaker 3: to talk to.
15:15
Speaker 2: And how do they, I will, I'll come back to
15:19
Speaker 2: that and find a little bit more, but, um, How
15:21
Speaker 2: do they share the information? Is it because one of
15:23
Speaker 2: them comes back smelling of dead pig or has kind
15:25
Speaker 2: of got blood all over its head and feathers? Or
15:28
Speaker 2: are they talking to one another?
15:31
Speaker 3: I would say probably neither. I think they just go there.
15:36
Speaker 3: And if you know that you don't really know where
15:39
Speaker 3: the food is and you see someone else taking off
15:42
Speaker 3: in a purposeful direction, you just follow them.
15:45
Speaker 2: So tell us about this colorful, colorful colleague.
15:52
Speaker 3: Patty Parker is just a fantastic colleague. After her PhD
15:58
Speaker 3: on these vultures, she's more recently spent an awful lot
16:02
Speaker 3: of time looking at birds like Galapagos hawks. I mean,
16:07
Speaker 3: for her PhD, she lived in this shack that had
16:11
Speaker 3: no bathroom, no running water. She heated water in a
16:15
Speaker 3: metal tub to bathe in and had the right accent,
16:21
Speaker 3: the nice North Carolina accent. So these country folk trusted her.
16:28
Speaker 3: And let her into their their parents and grandparents homes
16:37
Speaker 3: because they had largely been abandoned as the paved roads
16:42
Speaker 3: went in a couple hundred meters over from where the
16:47
Speaker 3: old roads were. So there was this whole geography, human
16:52
Speaker 3: geography of newer houses with old abandoned ones behind which
16:58
Speaker 3: were where the vultures nested. So Yeah, it was just
17:02
Speaker 3: really fun to think of Patty studying this bird that
17:07
Speaker 3: most people despise. She had to put tags not on
17:11
Speaker 3: their feet, but on their shoulders because the birds cool
17:15
Speaker 3: themselves by defecating on their legs. And so that would
17:20
Speaker 3: cause their legs to get infected if they had bad
17:25
Speaker 3: bands on them. Yeah, it was just a cool story.
17:29
Speaker 1: It definitely is, Joan. And if there's any PhD students listening,
17:32
Speaker 1: you don't know how good you've got it, guys. I
17:38
Speaker 1: was just thinking about this, just sort of going through
17:42
Speaker 1: the book and this idea of these partnerships that males develop.
17:47
Speaker 1: So to sort of try and impress choosy females that
17:52
Speaker 1: you talk about. I wondered if you could tell us
17:54
Speaker 1: a little bit about that.
17:56
Speaker 3: So you're talking about the lance-tailed mannequins. And there's an
18:01
Speaker 3: alpha and a beta. And they do these dances on
18:06
Speaker 3: low parallel twigs. And they'll just do them incessantly trying
18:12
Speaker 3: to get a female to come and mate with the alpha.
18:17
Speaker 3: This is a lex species. So in lex species, there's no...
18:23
Speaker 3: care by the male, the females just get a mating.
18:26
Speaker 3: And so exactly what they're going for has been puzzling.
18:32
Speaker 3: And This is a story I just love. The researcher
18:39
Speaker 3: is Emily Duvall, who was actually an undergrad at Rice University,
18:45
Speaker 3: worked in my lab, not with me, but with a
18:48
Speaker 3: colleague who was working there on grackles. Emily was in
18:54
Speaker 3: our Rice University orientation group, which meant she came to
18:58
Speaker 3: our house for dinner when she was 18. And now
19:02
Speaker 3: she's 50 and she's just president of the Animal Behavior Society.
19:06
Speaker 3: And she's been doing this work for many, many years.
19:11
Speaker 3: So she's figured out all kinds of things about these legs.
19:15
Speaker 1: Do we know what the beta male gets out of this?
19:18
Speaker 1: Does the beta male then go on themselves to become
19:21
Speaker 1: an alpha male at some point?
19:24
Speaker 3: Yes, they can. The challenge is.
19:31
Speaker 3: Wondering whether or not there are other things other males
19:34
Speaker 3: are doing instead of being beta males that might also
19:39
Speaker 3: lead to success. So one experiment Emily did was temporarily
19:46
Speaker 3: removing the alpha males and seeing if the betas just
19:52
Speaker 3: took over and became alphas themselves. But the beta males,
19:57
Speaker 3: sometimes they'd go find another alpha to be beta too.
20:01
Speaker 3: Sometimes they took over but were then chased away by
20:04
Speaker 3: something else. So It seems that there are survival and
20:10
Speaker 3: other advantages to being beta. But like so much in biology,
20:16
Speaker 3: the more you really study the story, the more complicated
20:21
Speaker 3: it gets. And in this book, I did try hard
20:25
Speaker 3: not to simplify things to make it look like we'd
20:29
Speaker 3: figured everything out and despair new grad students from ever
20:33
Speaker 3: imagining they might find an unanswered question.
20:38
Speaker 2: So, I mean, on that line, maybe it would be
20:40
Speaker 2: a useful kind of time to have a little bit
20:43
Speaker 2: of a discussion about kin selection. So can you explain
20:47
Speaker 2: to our listeners what kin selection is? Because that's kind
20:50
Speaker 2: of one of the things that helps drive the evolution
20:52
Speaker 2: of social behavior.
20:55
Speaker 3: Yes. So kin selection is an idea that Once you
21:00
Speaker 3: hear about it, it seems kind of obvious. It was
21:04
Speaker 3: championed and made very clear by Richard Dawkins in his
21:09
Speaker 3: famous book, The Selfish Gene. Kin selection simply means that
21:14
Speaker 3: you can pass on genes by ways other than rearing
21:18
Speaker 3: your own young. You can help your parents rear additional young.
21:23
Speaker 3: You can help. your siblings rear young, you can help
21:30
Speaker 3: other individuals rear young. And this is what explains the
21:35
Speaker 3: workers in social insects that are that are sterile. They're
21:39
Speaker 3: all they're females helping their mother rear more young. So
21:46
Speaker 3: the basic idea is if you have a gene for
21:49
Speaker 3: if you have any kind of gene, and the way
21:54
Speaker 3: evolution works is genes that succeed become more common in
21:58
Speaker 3: the next generation. The standard way that happens is by
22:02
Speaker 3: rearing your own young to whom you're 50% related. So
22:07
Speaker 3: a gene that you have has a 50% chance of
22:10
Speaker 3: being in any given young and will be carried on.
22:16
Speaker 3: But the gene and other kinds of relatives can also
22:20
Speaker 3: be passed on. So You have 50% of your mom's
22:26
Speaker 3: genes if you help rear a sibling. If it's a
22:30
Speaker 3: full sibling sharing mother and father, you have on average
22:34
Speaker 3: 50% there too. So that's the relatedness side of kin selection.
22:41
Speaker 3: Equally important is the costs and benefits. And originally, it
22:47
Speaker 3: was easier to look at them than at relatedness. But
22:51
Speaker 3: now with genetic techniques, relatedness is easy. And we have
22:56
Speaker 3: to wonder about why you would ever be able to
23:00
Speaker 3: rear more siblings than you might be able to rear
23:04
Speaker 3: progeny of your own. And the nice thing about having
23:09
Speaker 3: to worry about that is you really have to do
23:12
Speaker 3: field work and you really have to get outside and
23:15
Speaker 3: look at the animals in nature. And, uh, if possible,
23:22
Speaker 3: you can compare those rearing their own young to those
23:25
Speaker 3: helping a relative, which is something I spent many years
23:29
Speaker 3: doing with a Primitively use social wasps and see what
23:34
Speaker 3: the advantages are to passing on genes by helping what
23:39
Speaker 3: we call non-descendant kin, relatives that aren't just your own babies.
23:45
Speaker 1: Sorry, I was still processing what you were saying there
23:49
Speaker 1: about the kin selection, because it's difficult to make the
23:54
Speaker 1: parallels with humans in a way there, right? I mean,
23:57
Speaker 1: you can to an extent... but then it becomes, and
24:01
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's, I'm trying to sort of,
24:03
Speaker 1: I was just trying to think, is it because we're
24:06
Speaker 1: when it can't be because we're more evolved, it's just
24:08
Speaker 1: evolved in a different way, I guess. Right.
24:11
Speaker 3: So actually, um, if you look at humans, there's just
24:16
Speaker 3: a huge role for, you know, maiden aunts and bachelor uncles. And, uh, uh,
24:25
Speaker 3: I hesitate to give any examples because I'm not, uh,
24:30
Speaker 3: a human biologist, but there are societies where certain family
24:36
Speaker 3: sizes might have more unmarried individuals that really do devote
24:42
Speaker 3: themselves to rearing their nieces and nephews. And, you know,
24:47
Speaker 3: I think our, if you look at our fiction, it's
24:50
Speaker 3: just full of really close, warm, and loving relationships between
24:57
Speaker 3: children and their aunts or uncles, you know, people they
25:00
Speaker 3: can turn to when their parents are difficult. So, and
25:05
Speaker 3: I actually think humans have very strong extended family networks
25:11
Speaker 3: and do lots of helping outside of just the parent offspring,
25:18
Speaker 3: I think. kind of think the parent offspring thing is
25:21
Speaker 3: kind of a 1950s America myth that we would all
25:25
Speaker 3: be very happy to get rid of.
25:27
Speaker 2: No, I think that's right. And, you know, being able
25:30
Speaker 2: to drop off young kids with a sister, you know,
25:33
Speaker 2: with an aunt or, you know, grandparents is important. But
25:36
Speaker 2: going back to birds, one of the bits that I
25:40
Speaker 2: really enjoyed about your book was a type of cuckoo,
25:43
Speaker 2: a tropical cuckoo, their greater Annie, I didn't know about this.
25:47
Speaker 2: Do you want to explain that crazy some of that?
25:50
Speaker 2: I mean, talk about like a, you know, a sort
25:54
Speaker 2: of crazy set of behaviors, but perhaps you could talk
25:56
Speaker 2: us through those. Oh, that's fascinating. Yeah.
25:59
Speaker 3: So the Anis, they are the Anis. neotropical cuckoos, and
26:05
Speaker 3: they do not lay eggs in another nest like the
26:09
Speaker 3: common cuckoo of Great Britain, or Europe. What they do
26:16
Speaker 3: instead is they have communal breeding. And this is really
26:19
Speaker 3: not so common, because it's, it's that they basically they'll
26:25
Speaker 3: pair up you know, a good monogamous pair, but then
26:30
Speaker 3: they'll all lay eggs in the same nest. And so
26:34
Speaker 3: this was something that Sandy Varenkamp first worked on with
26:38
Speaker 3: the groove-billed annies. And then Christy Real worked on with
26:45
Speaker 3: the greater annies and Jim Quinn worked on with the
26:48
Speaker 3: smooth-billed annies. So the groove-billed annies kind of started it.
26:54
Speaker 3: And the way they worked was they'd have a nest
26:58
Speaker 3: And there'd be a group of them, usually, not always,
27:03
Speaker 3: but often, you know, two pairs, three pairs, something like that.
27:08
Speaker 3: And they would all lay eggs, but they didn't really
27:13
Speaker 3: like each other, so to speak. So if you had
27:18
Speaker 3: not yet started laying eggs and you saw an egg
27:21
Speaker 3: in the nest, you would tump it out. And so...
27:27
Speaker 3: The sooner you started laying eggs, the worse off you were. Now,
27:31
Speaker 3: birds can only lay one egg a day and annies
27:34
Speaker 3: maybe even every two or three days. And so it's
27:40
Speaker 3: just this sort of game of who's going to lay first,
27:43
Speaker 3: because the last laid eggs also don't really get cared for.
27:48
Speaker 3: So the birds lay many more eggs than are ever
27:51
Speaker 3: going to be reared. Now, the greater annis that Christy
27:55
Speaker 3: Real studied only reproduce successfully in these groups. And there
28:02
Speaker 3: is sometimes sort of hanky-panky among the various partners, as
28:07
Speaker 3: one might imagine. And So Sandy Varenkamp's work in Costa
28:12
Speaker 3: Rica on the groove build Anis, she had a tame
28:15
Speaker 3: Ani that she used to lure the birds into a
28:19
Speaker 3: cage and band them and then let them go. Christy
28:24
Speaker 3: worked in Barra, Colorado Island and netted or caught at
28:29
Speaker 3: the nest her birds. And the Crazy thing about her
28:34
Speaker 3: work is these nests were overhanging the water in Gatun
28:40
Speaker 3: Lake around Barro, Colorado Island. It's an artificial lake created
28:44
Speaker 3: by the formation of the Panama Canal. So there she
28:48
Speaker 3: is in a small boat, often on a ladder, trying
28:54
Speaker 3: desperately to catch these birds or to census them, you know,
28:59
Speaker 3: with mirrors on stick and stuff. while there's crocodiles and alligators,
29:07
Speaker 3: caimans and alligators in the water. I should rephrase that.
29:12
Speaker 3: There's for sure caimans. I'm not sure about the others.
29:15
Speaker 3: In the water, waiting to either eat an unfortunate bird
29:20
Speaker 3: or could nip a researcher or an undergraduate that slips
29:25
Speaker 3: into the water. So it's really, really quite a fabulous study.
29:33
Speaker 1: That's amazing. So you think about the lengths you go
29:36
Speaker 1: to for your research. Most of us don't consider we
29:39
Speaker 1: might get eaten by some, you know, lake dwelling creature.
29:44
Speaker 3: Exactly.
29:44
Speaker 2: So one of the wonderful things about your book is
29:47
Speaker 2: you kind of, you know, weave these stories that you've
29:50
Speaker 2: been talking about, you know, of the research and the
29:53
Speaker 2: findings that come up from it. Was there anything that
29:56
Speaker 2: really jumped out at you? Do you have a favorite?
29:59
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe we've touched it already. I don't know.
30:01
Speaker 2: But do you have sort of a favorite bit of
30:04
Speaker 2: research or a favorite behavior, kind of social behavior that
30:07
Speaker 2: you just thought, God, isn't evolution just astonishing sometimes?
30:12
Speaker 3: Generally, my favorite is the one I just read about
30:14
Speaker 3: because there's so many, so many great stories. I think
30:23
Speaker 3: one that might be of interest to your reader, to
30:27
Speaker 3: your listeners, is the Taiwan yuhina. And so this is
30:33
Speaker 3: another communal breeding bird that usually has, uh, two or
30:39
Speaker 3: at most three pairs breeding in the same nest. And
30:42
Speaker 3: it's a small bird. It's one that I saw myself
30:46
Speaker 3: in Taiwan. They're not rare. And what I thought was
30:50
Speaker 3: really cool about them is, so they fight like crazy
30:55
Speaker 3: to keep each other from laying eggs in the nest,
30:58
Speaker 3: even though they do all care for the young together
31:01
Speaker 3: and everything. They try to keep the others from laying
31:05
Speaker 3: eggs and So that's fine. That's conflict. That's no surprise.
31:10
Speaker 3: What really surprised me about them was that in cold,
31:16
Speaker 3: rainy weather, they were less able or less desirous of
31:24
Speaker 3: fighting each other. These are small birds. They get cold easily.
31:28
Speaker 3: So when the weather was really terrible, they would fight
31:32
Speaker 3: each other less. And you'd think in bad weather, they'd
31:37
Speaker 3: have less reproductive success. But in fact, because that cold
31:43
Speaker 3: weather meant they could fight less, they actually did better.
31:48
Speaker 3: And they produced more young. So it just makes you think, honestly,
31:53
Speaker 3: if you guys would just all get along, it would
31:56
Speaker 3: be better for everybody. But that's just not how biology works.
32:01
Speaker 2: The trade-offs between competition and cooperation.
32:05
Speaker 3: Yeah.
32:06
Speaker 2: So we're kind of running out of time. Do you
32:08
Speaker 2: have a final question before I mention the book again, Simon?
32:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I was just curious. So you sort
32:15
Speaker 1: of said that, you know, this book arose out of
32:19
Speaker 1: your teaching primarily. But do you think going forward it's
32:22
Speaker 1: sort of perhaps changed? Has it made you want to
32:26
Speaker 1: do your own research into this area? sort of looking
32:29
Speaker 1: at sort of birds and their social behaviors?
32:33
Speaker 3: So I do have one paper from many years ago.
32:38
Speaker 3: It was a grad student's work on mockingbirds and she
32:42
Speaker 3: never published it. And we have finally worked up the
32:46
Speaker 3: data and we will publish that. I would say that
32:53
Speaker 3: more than anything, I feel like We scientists have figured
32:58
Speaker 3: out so much. And I just like my new niche
33:05
Speaker 3: of being the interpreter of science rather than the generator
33:10
Speaker 3: of new actual research. And I hope maybe in the book,
33:17
Speaker 3: there are some new insights, but I really feel that
33:23
Speaker 3: going forward, I will be doing more and more with
33:26
Speaker 3: trying to share the knowledge of science with the world
33:32
Speaker 3: as a whole.
33:33
Speaker 2: So, Joan Strassman, the book is The Social Life of Birds, Flocks,
33:37
Speaker 2: Communes and Families. It's beautifully illustrated by Anthony Bartley. It
33:42
Speaker 2: has different publishers in the US and the UK, and
33:45
Speaker 2: you can find the details below. We'll put them down there.
33:50
Speaker 2: It's a really wonderful read. It's informative. It's delightful. It's
33:56
Speaker 2: got some fantastic biological and research stories in it. It's
34:00
Speaker 2: well worth reading. And I just wish I was one
34:03
Speaker 2: of your students, Joan. You got to this through teaching,
34:06
Speaker 2: but it really is fantastic. So very many congratulations. And
34:10
Speaker 2: I'd encourage all of our listeners to go and buy
34:13
Speaker 2: a copy. Thank you, Joan, for joining us. It's been
34:16
Speaker 2: an absolute pleasure. Yeah, thank you.
34:18
Speaker 3: It's been so much fun. Thank you so much for
34:21
Speaker 3: talking with me.
34:22
Speaker 2: The pleasure's all ours. Well, what do you think of that, Saima?
34:26
Speaker 2: Now when you're wandering around looking at those three birds
34:28
Speaker 2: that you see outside a cafe, you'll be able to
34:31
Speaker 2: interpret a little bit more what they're up to. Absolutely.
34:34
Speaker 1: That was mind-boggling. Just the diversity of behaviours.
34:39
Speaker 2: No, I mean, it's, you know, birds, they're, you know,
34:42
Speaker 2: a very successful group of, animals and incredibly diverse i
34:50
Speaker 2: think most people would know they're diverse when you go
34:53
Speaker 2: in terms of size when you go from things like
34:55
Speaker 2: hummingbirds to ostriches in coloration where you get you know
35:00
Speaker 2: incredibly brightly colored things like gouldian finches to your little
35:04
Speaker 2: brown jobs like your warblers people probably know that but
35:07
Speaker 2: what they probably didn't realize is quite how diverse some
35:10
Speaker 2: of their social behavior is whether it's flocking whether it's
35:13
Speaker 2: roosting together at night when they're sharing information like the
35:16
Speaker 2: vultures she talked about Or whether it's about these nuts,
35:19
Speaker 2: cuckoos that like, you know, want to lay their eggs
35:22
Speaker 2: in the middle of everyone else, laying their eggs in
35:24
Speaker 2: a communal nest, the annies.
35:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think, you know, and also
35:29
Speaker 1: sort of encourage people to read the book because we couldn't,
35:32
Speaker 1: we could certainly not touch on every aspect of the
35:36
Speaker 1: social behavior of birds that Joan talks about in the book.
35:39
Speaker 1: We sort of talked about a few examples, but there's
35:41
Speaker 1: all sorts of other, the things of bad birds sort
35:43
Speaker 1: of warning each other, for example. Yeah. you know, giving
35:46
Speaker 1: out alarm calls and all sorts.
35:48
Speaker 2: No, exactly. And she does do a really lovely job
35:51
Speaker 2: in the book of, of explaining, of tying these examples
35:54
Speaker 2: together really nicely through the, the theme of, of, of
35:58
Speaker 2: kin selection, which you talked about and how that's led
36:00
Speaker 2: to all of these interesting social behaviors is you have
36:03
Speaker 2: sort of push and pull of, of working together, but
36:06
Speaker 2: also conflict because you, you know, evolution, she said, everyone
36:11
Speaker 2: wants to maximize the number of genes they leave in
36:15
Speaker 2: the next, in the next generation. And they can do
36:17
Speaker 2: that either by breeding themselves or by like working with
36:20
Speaker 2: their relatives. Yeah, absolutely.
36:23
Speaker 1: And as we also mentioned, you know, while we were
36:27
Speaker 1: talking to Jane, and she mentioned herself, the book is
36:29
Speaker 1: beautifully illustrated.
36:30
Speaker 2: It's called Anthony Bartley. And I think he's based in
36:35
Speaker 2: the US somewhere.
36:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's based in Chicago. And he's got this great website,
36:39
Speaker 1: which is fadingroyalty.com, in which he sort of has a
36:45
Speaker 1: bunch of his artwork, but also talks about some of the,
36:47
Speaker 1: you know, the motivations behind them. And a lot of
36:50
Speaker 1: it's sort of motivated by issues in mental health. So
36:53
Speaker 1: it's well worth taking a look at that too.
36:55
Speaker 2: And of course, one thing that we didn't have time
36:57
Speaker 2: to talk about, but Joan mentioned to us is she
37:01
Speaker 2: kind of looked deliberately for an illustrator for the book
37:03
Speaker 2: to draw these illustrations for someone who's kind of up
37:06
Speaker 2: and coming and who perhaps hasn't done this sort of
37:10
Speaker 2: work before. But I think it works really well. And
37:12
Speaker 2: I'd encourage our our readers to buy Joan's book. I
37:15
Speaker 2: really enjoyed it. You know, I'm a biologist and I
37:17
Speaker 2: know a reasonable amount of natural history, but I learned
37:20
Speaker 2: a lot, you know, reading it, whether it's these kind
37:22
Speaker 2: of crazy leks where the males compete with one another
37:25
Speaker 2: to get the mating or it's, you know, the red
37:30
Speaker 2: shanks foraging, you know, out where sparrowhawks are trying to
37:33
Speaker 2: get them. Hard life is a bird sometimes.
37:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. It's not just a case of, you know,
37:39
Speaker 1: flying around and having fun, right?
37:40
Speaker 2: LAUGHTER No, it really isn't. Anyway, great to see you, Simon. Yeah,
37:47
Speaker 2: you too. See you soon. Take care. Bye.
37:49
Speaker 3: Bye.