Noisy eaters: acoustic feeding cues as social information in socially-foraging fishes and crustaceans

Animals use information from multiple sensory modalities to carry out behaviours which are essential for survival (e.g., foraging, predator detection).

This information comes from a variety of biotic and abiotic sources, and can be socially transmitted from hetero- or conspecifics, either through direct communication or 'eavesdropping'/social information use.

Acoustic cues are particularly important in aquatic environments as sound travels relatively far and quickly in water, and such cues are potentially more reliable than cues from other sensory modalities for aquatic animals in terms of signal transmission distance (e.g., visual) and directionality (e.g., chemical).

This project aims to identify the socially-transmitted acoustic cues to feeding used by crustaceans and fishes (e.g., hermit crabs, sticklebacks) and uncover the (social) learning processes involved.

A further aim is to investigate how these cues are learnt and used in a multisensory way alongside cues from other sensory modalities (e.g., vision), and how both natural soundscapes and anthropogenic noise pollution may impact these processes to alter foraging behaviours/success.

This will be achieved through a combination of field studies, e.g., bioacoustics recordings and analyses; lab-based experimental studies, e.g., playback experiments; and modelling approaches, e.g., modelling transmission loss under different acoustic scenarios.

This research will improve our understanding of how fishes and crustaceans use socially-transmitted acoustic cues to find sources of food, and thus provide insight into social learning processes, social foraging, multisensory learning/integration and the effects of anthropogenic noise pollution.