How humans and wild birds collaborate to get precious resources of honey and wax

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-07/uoc-hha071816.php

Public Release: 21-Jul-2016
How humans and wild birds collaborate to get precious resources of honey and wax
University of Cambridge

By following honeyguides, a species of bird, people in Africa are able to locate bees' nests to harvest honey. Research now reveals that humans use special calls to solicit the help of honeyguides and that honeyguides actively recruit appropriate human partners. This relationship is a rare example of cooperation between humans and free-living animals.

Humans have trained a range of species to help them find food: examples are dogs, falcons and cormorants. These animals are domesticated or taught to cooperate by their owners. Human-animal collaboration in the wild is much rarer. But it has long been known that, in many parts of Africa, people and a species of wax-eating bird called the greater honeyguide work together to find wild bees' nests which provide a valuable resource to them both.

Honeyguides give a special call to attract people's attention, then fly from tree to tree to indicate the direction of a bees' nest. We humans are useful collaborators to honeyguides because of our ability to subdue stinging bees with smoke and chop open their nest, providing wax for the honeyguide and honey for ourselves.

Experiments carried out in the Mozambican bush now show that this unique human-animal relationship has an extra dimension: not only do honeyguides use calls to solicit human partners, but humans use specialised calls to recruit birds' assistance. Research in the Niassa National Reserve reveals that by using specialised calls to communicate and cooperate with each other, people and wild birds can significantly increase their chances of locating vital sources of calorie-laden food.

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