Interactions between males are important part of everyday life in birds. Correct recognition and assessment of the rival is a key step in the interaction. Wrong assessment of the rival and consequently wrong decision about a way of proceeding in the interaction (escalation, retreat) can lead to significant energy loss, loss of territory or even injuries or dead.

Recognition based on acoustic signals has a great advantage – males do not need even to show up to their rivals and put themselves in a potential risk.
A specific example of rival interactions is the interspecific competition. There are many species which utilize similar niche (microhabitat and/or food source). This is very often found in closely related species with very similar morphology pushing them into the same ecological niche. There are two possibilities for such species, to shift their niche and separate ecologically or to demonstrate an interspecific territoriality and separate in the space.

Our research focuses on dyads of closely related species suspicious of the interspecific competition and on testing the level of their mutual aggression.

People involved in this research:

• Petr Veselý
• Roman Fuchs
• Pavel Linhart
• Alexandra Průchová
• Tomáš Minařík