What is mobbing behavior?
As described by Konrad Lorenz in his seminal book On Aggression (1966), mobbing is a “counteroffensive” of the prey-predator relationship, a process in which a group of social animals attack the “eating enemy” that poses a threat to them (Lorenz 1966). Mobbing is simply defined as a “cooperative anti-predator behavior” and has been widely reported in birds, mammals, and fish (Lord et al., 2009). Mobbing also functions as a alarm call, one prompted by a predator that is posing a threat (Magrat et al., 2015).
Mobbing is commonly seen in birds. As seen above, crows mob a predatory bald eagle. [Courtesy of Youtube - link in references]
Framework for Study: Tinbergen's Four Questions
- Mechanism (Causation) - Causal explanation in terms of what the behavior is and how it is constructed [i.e., stimulus, physical morphology, molecular mechanisms, underlying biology]
- Ontogeny (development) - developmental explanation for sequential changes across the lifetime of an individual; degree to which a behavior can be changed through learning
- Adaptive Value (survival value) - functional explanation regarding the utility of the current form of behavior with regards to lifetime reproductive fitness.
- Phylogeny (evolution) - evolutionary explanation that accounts for the history of a behavior, such as the first ancestor.