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Communal roosting is an animal behavior where a group of individuals, typically of the same species, congregate in an area for a few hours based on an external signal and will return to the same site with the reappearance of the signal.[1][2] Environmental signals are often responsible for this grouping, including nightfall, high tide, or rainfall.[2][3] The distinction between communal roosting and cooperative breeding is the absence of chicks in communal roosts.[2] While communal roosting is generally observed in birds, the behavior has also been seen in bats, primates, and insects.[2][4] The size of these roosts can measure in the thousands to millions of individuals, especially among avian species.[5]
There are many benefits associated with communal roosting including: increased foraging ability, decreased thermoregulatory demands, decreased predation, and increased conspecific interactions.[4][6] While there are many proposed evolutionary concepts for how communal roosting evolved, no specific hypothesis is currently supported by the scientific community as a whole.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:0was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b c d Richner, Heinz; Heeb, Phillip (March 1996). "Communal life: Honest signaling and the recruitment center hypothesis" (PDF). Behavioral Ecology. 7: 115–118. doi:10.1093/beheco/7.1.115.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:4was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Beauchamp, Guy (1999). "The evolution of communal roosting in birds: origin and secondary losses". Behavioral Ecology. 10 (6): 675–687. doi:10.1093/beheco/10.6.675.
- ^ Pérez-García, Juan (2012). "The use of digital photography in censuses of large concentrations of passerines: the case of a winter starling roost-site" (PDF). Revista Catalana d'Ornitologia.
- ^ Ientile, Renzo (2014). "Year-round used large communal roosts of Black-billed Magpie Pica pica in an urban habitat". Avocetta.