Study
The adaptive significance of avian mobbing
Curio, Eberhard
Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, 1978
Reviews why birds approach and harass a predator rather than fleeing, setting out the proposed benefits — driving the predator away, alerting relatives, advertising detection so pursuit becomes pointless, and teaching young what to avoid — and the costs of each.
- Studied in
- Aves
- Sample size
- review with experimental work on mobbing function
Mobbing serves several non-exclusive functions, and the balance differs by species and context. Driving the predator from the area and signalling that it has been detected are both supported, and mobbing carries real risk to the mobber.
What it means
The authors' reading, and ours. Where they differ, that difference is the point.
How the authors put it
Mobbing is a functionally heterogeneous behaviour whose benefits must be assessed per species rather than assumed.
How NatureHQ reads it
The framework record. Its most useful contribution to this site is the reminder that mobbing has several possible purposes at once, so demonstrating one does not exclude the others — and that approaching a predator is genuinely dangerous, which any account has to explain rather than assume away.
- A 1978 review; the experimental literature has grown considerably since.
- Bird-focused, though mobbing occurs in mammals and fish too.
What this study is used for on NatureHQ
One study can inform several subjects. Here is everywhere this one is cited.
Published by: Wiley journalsPublished in a Wiley journal.
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