Brittany Coppinger

Michigan State University | MSU

Dominance interactions and hierarchies are of long-standing interest in the field of animal behaviour. Currently, dominance hierarchies are viewed as complex social structures formed by repeated interactions between individuals. Most studies on this phenomenon come from single-species groups. However, animals are constantly surrounded by and intera...

Individuals of a wide range of species are sensitive to the presence of other species, and can often benefit from associations with other species in mixed-species groups (MSGs) through food-finding or avoiding predation. In an earlier field study, we found that both Carolina chickadees, Poecile carolinensis, and tufted titmice, Baeolphus bicolor ,...

Animal signallers are subject to audience effects when they alter communication due to changes in the presence or characteristics of receivers. Studies aimed at understanding audience effects have typically examined effects of conspecific audiences on signaller communication. Less work has focused on heterospecific audiences, which present an impor...

Recent theory in animal communication predicts that a group’s communicative complexity is connected to its social complexity. Social complexity has typically been measured using group size as an index, with larger groups thought to be more complex than smaller groups. However, group size alone does not account for other social differences that coul...

Signalers can vary their vocal behavior, depending on the presence or absence of conspecific group members, and on the composition of the group. Here we asked whether Carolina chickadee (Poecile carolinensis) signalers varied their vocal behavior, depending on whether they were in the presence of familiar or unfamiliar flockmates. We sorted 32 Caro...

Correspondence: B. Coppinger, University of Tennessee, Department of Psychology, Walters Life Science Building, Knoxville, TN 37996, U.S.A.