Risk vs. Reward: A Systematic Review on the Threat Faced by Mobbers

This systematic review uses a Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcome, and Study type (PICOS) framework to identify papers on mobbing behavior in the family Paridae, comparing non-threat, low-threat, and high-threat stimulus presentations. Using the family Paridae, we discuss how using a theoretical framework of risk and reward can help us assess if mobbing behavior carries a risk to the mobber. Paridae use different strategies, weighing the cost of mobbing with the benefits of antipredator behavior, where high and low threat predators elicit different responses. This suggests that Parids may selectively respond to different threats in an effort to mitigate risks inherent to mobbing behavior. Our results show that Parids primarily use a graded mobbing response strategy, mobbing high threats more than low threats, while ignoring non threats. We suggest that our results indicate that there is risk to the mobber that must be mitigated, and that Parids most likely use a graded strategy to best balance the costs and benefits of mobbing.