Interspecies Animal Cooperation & Communication

Banded mongooses can cooperate with common warthogs by cleaning them.
Photo Credit: Leela Channer.

Scientific Frontline: Extended "At a Glance" Summary: Interspecies Cooperation and Communication

The Core Concept: Interspecies cooperation is a behavioral phenomenon where animals from different species work together for mutual benefit by exchanging information. This teamwork relies heavily on communication through specific cues and signals to coordinate complementary actions and achieve shared goals.

Key Distinction/Mechanism: Unlike within-species cooperation, which typically occurs among families or social groups, interspecies teamwork requires communicating effectively across biological boundaries. Animals utilize sounds, visual cues, and movements to inform decisions at three distinct stages: identifying or attracting partners, initiating cooperation, and maximizing benefits while preventing harm.

Origin/History: A recent comprehensive review published in the journal Animal Behavior, led by behavioral ecologists from Oregon State University, the University of Oxford, the University of East Anglia, and the University of Cape Town, documented these interactions across twelve distinct types of interspecies cooperation.

Major Frameworks/Components: 

• Cooperative Foraging and Hunting: Distinct species collaborate to increase their success in finding and capturing food (e.g., human fishers responding to visual cues from dolphins, or humans working with honeyguide birds to locate bee nests).
• Food-for-Cleaning Services: Cleaner species, such as specific fish or shrimp, remove parasites from "client" species, benefiting the client's health while securing a food source.
• Food-for-Protection Services: Animals exchange food resources in return for defense against predators, as observed in ants guarding butterfly larvae.
• Shelter-for-Protection: One species provides habitat or shelter in exchange for predator protection services.
• Three-Stage Communication Model: The cooperative process requires identifying and attracting partners, initiating the cooperative act, and coordinating ongoing actions to maximize mutual benefits and prevent harm.

Branch of Science: Behavioral Ecology, Zoology, and Evolutionary Biology.

Future Application: Further research into these behaviors will clarify how naturally occurring cross-species signals compare to trained cooperative interactions (such as those between humans and domestic dogs). It will also help determine the degree to which these complex communicative traits are genetically inherited versus learned.

Why It Matters: Studying communication across species boundaries significantly expands our understanding of how cooperation evolves in nature. It proves that collaborative behavior is not restricted by genetic relatedness or social groupings, highlighting the complex, interconnected ways diverse species shape the natural world.

A female greater honeyguide feeds on beeswax left behind by a human honey-hunter in Mozambique.
 Photo Credit: Dominic Cram.

Even in the animal world, teamwork requires communication—just ask the fish, dolphins, birds, and butterflies that rely on other species for help with food, protection from predators, and even parasite removal.

A new review of the behaviors of animals that engage in interspecies cooperation, a type of behavior where animals from different species work together for mutual benefit, shows that the information exchanged through cues and signals plays an important role in this unique kind of teamwork.

Researchers reviewed a dozen documented types of interspecies cooperation, ranging from fish that clean other fishes, to ants that guard butterfly larvae, and humans who work with honeyguide birds to find bee nests. They found a striking commonality across many of these interactions.

“We found that communication through cues and signals plays an important role in this relatively rare interaction; this helps animals work together in the moment,” said Kyra Bankhead, a doctoral student at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammal Institute and one of the study’s coauthors.

“Animals can use sounds, movements, or other signals to inform decisions about whether, when, or how to cooperate with one another.”

Within-species cooperation is well documented and widespread, but less is known about interspecies cooperation, where animals must communicate effectively across species boundaries while coordinating complementary actions.

A fisher waits for a cue from a dolphin in Laguna, southern Brazil.
Photo Credit: Fabio G. Daura-Jorge.

“We often think of communication as something that happens between members of the same species, but many animals also exchange information with entirely different species to achieve shared goals,” said Cantor, who has extensively studied the cooperative fishing behavior of dolphins and humans.

“These interactions remind us that cooperation is not limited to families, social groups, or even members of the same species,” he said. “Studying how animals communicate across species boundaries helps us understand how cooperation evolves, and more generally, how interactions between species help shape the natural world.”

Animals tend to cooperate across species boundaries in a few areas: cooperative foraging or hunting, where animals work together to increase success; food-for-cleaning services, where a cleaner, such as a fish or shrimp, removes parasites from the bodies of “client” species, which aids the health of the client; food-for-protection services, where food is exchanged for protection from predators; and shelter-for-protection, where shelter is provided in exchange for predator protection services.

This new review of these behaviors clarifies the vital role communication plays in these interactions at three stages: identifying or attracting partners; initiating cooperation; and maximizing the benefits of cooperation through coordination and the prevention of harm by one partner to the other.

For example, when humans and dolphins work together to find and collect fish, a dolphin gives the human a visual cue that discloses where the school of fish is, indicating the right time and place to cast a fishing net; this aids the dolphin in catching its own fish as the net traps them.

While the new paper offers additional insights into interspecies communication, additional study is needed to better understand this behavior, the researchers said. Those questions include: How do naturally occurring cues and signals in interspecies cooperation compare to those in trained cooperative interactions, such as between humans and trained dogs, birds, or other animals? And to what degree are these cues and signals learned or passed down through genetics?

“We still have many unanswered questions about this behavior and hope this work will spur further research,” Bankhead said.

Reference material: What Is: Mutualism

Published in journal: Animal Behavior

Title: The ecology and evolution of cues and signals in animal interspecies cooperation

Authors: K. Dunkley, M. Cantor, A.I. Afan, D.S. Ahlibi, S.J. Allen, J. Amphaeris, S. Atkins, M.C. Attwood, K. Bankhead, C.J. Blair, J.L. Bronstein, Y.R.R. Camargo, S. Carvalho, L.W. Channer, R.R.T. Cuthill, J. Das, F.G. Daura-Jorge, A.K. Deb, T. Dixit, E. Dounias, M. Dyble, D.R. Farine, E. Freymann, P. He, L.S. Hoffmann, H.A. Isack, E.B. Ilha, W.-B.W. Kamboe, A.O. Kilawi, A. Kingston, E.A. Laltaika, D.J. Lloyd-Jones, J. Lund, A.M.S. Machado, K. McGarvey, G.M. M'manga, R. Mphetlhe, I.B. Moreno, C.A. Ngcamphalala, S.O. Nhlabatsi, C.J. Nwaogu, R. Pierotti, I.M. Reeves, E.J.H. Robinson, I. Samad, M. Sanda, N.B. Serpa, P.C. Simões-Lopes, C.N. Spottiswoode, T. Soma, H. Sridhar, T. Tun, N.T. Uomini, J.V.S. Valle-Pereira, L. van Holstein, B.M. Wood, D.L. Cram, and J.E.M. van der Wal

Source/Credit: Oregon State University | Michelle Klampe

Edited by: Scientific Frontline

Reference Number: eco062226_02

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