moonlight makes owls more chatty月光使猫头鹰更健谈.pdfVIP

Moonlight Makes Owls More Chatty 1,2 ´ 1,3 1 1,4 Vincenzo Penteriani *, Marıa del Mar Delgado , Letizia Campioni , Rui Lourenc¸o ´ ´ ˜ 1 Department of Conservation Biology, Estacion Biologica de Donana, C.S.I.C., Seville, Spain, 2 Finnish Museum of Natural History, Zoological Museum, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland, 3 Laboratory of Ecological and Evolutionary Dynamics, Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, ´ ´ Finland, 4 Institute of Mediterranean Agricultural Sciences (ICAM), University of Evora, Evora, Portugal Abstract Background: Lunar cycles seem to affect many of the rhythms, temporal patterns and behaviors of living things on Earth. Ambient light is known to affect visual communication in animals, with the conspicuousness of visual signals being largely determined by the light available for reflection by the sender. Although most previous studies in this context have focused on diurnal light, moonlight should not be neglected from the perspective of visual communication among nocturnal species. We recently discovered that eagle owls Bubo bubo communicate with conspecifics using a patch of white throat plumage that is repeatedly exposed during each call and is only visible during vocal displays. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we provide evidence that this species uses moonlight to increase the conspicuousness of this visual signal during call displays. We found that call di