Pairing status moderates both the production of and responses to anti-parasitic referential alarm calls in male yellow warblers

Defending offspring incurs temporal and energetic costs and can be dangerous for the parents. Accordingly, the intensity of this costly behavior should reflect the perceived risk to the reproductive output. When facing costly brood parasitism by brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater), where cowbirds lay eggs in heterospecific nests and cause the hosts to care for their young, yellow warblers (Setophaga petechia) use referential “seet” calls to warn their mates of the parasitic danger. Yellow warblers of both sexes produce this call only in response to cowbirds or seet-calling conspecifics. Seet calls are mainly produced during the laying and incubation stages of breeding, when risk of brood parasitism is highest, rather than during the nestling stage. On the other hand, general alarm calls (chips) are produced throughout the nesting cycle and are also used in conspecific interactions unrelated to nesting. We hypothesized that context shapes responses prior to breeding as well, such that yellow warblers without a mate and active nest would be less likely to respond to playbacks that simulate brood parasitism risk. To test this hypothesis, we presented playbacks of two nest threats, cowbirds (brood parasite) and blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata; nest predator), on territories of unmated male warblers (unpaired) and male warblers with a known mate (paired). We found that unpaired males were unresponsive toward playbacks indicating nest threats, whereas paired males were significantly more aggressive and vocal toward these playbacks compared to control playbacks. However, both paired and unpaired males were vocally responsive toward chip calls, which are informative for males regardless of pairing status. Male yellow warblers appear to adjust their responses during the earliest stages of breeding depending on the contextual relevance of specific threat stimuli, and together with prior studies, our work further supports that referential seet calls are associated with stage-specific risk of brood parasitism.