Birdsong is among the main model system in animal communication. One reason is, next to its accessibility and biological function, the striking variability within and across species. This complexity raises interesting questions on the mechanisms, functions, and evolution of singing traits. Complexity of birdsong occurs at different levels, ranging from the phonological and syntactical...
Primates exhibit an astonishing diversity of communicative systems, with important variation in both the nature and the number of signals they produce. Although the link between social and communicative complexity has been supported across communicative modalities, several aspects of communicative complexity have not been systematically addressed. In this talk, I will give an overview about...
Humans and mice differ quite strongly in their communication means. The hearing range of mice is not identical to humans. Mice communicate within the human hearing range and out in a world beyond our perception in the ultrasonic spectrum (20 kHz - 110 kHz) Mice are vocalizing in our human hearing range if they want to warn others or are in distress. But mostly for social interactions they...
Communication calls serve multiple purposes in the animal kingdom, with alarm calls playing a vital role in warning group members about imminent dangers. These alarm calls are prevalent in various animal species, especially among mammalian societies, and provide valuable insights into the study of social complexity and group coordination. Despite the wide range of predators bats encounter,...
Songbird vocal communication ranges from simple, monosyllabic sounds through to complex song. Birdsong has generally been thought to be a male trait that is used only in the breeding season to attract mates and defend territories. However, we now know this is no longer a representative definition of birdsong as we are finding more species that sing year-round and have female song. This raises...
Vocal contextual learning is the ability to use or understand an existing vocalization in a new context, while vocal production learning is the ability to modify an already existing vocalization or innovate a novel one. Both abilities result from experience with other individuals and thus constitute a form of social learning. Here, we present observations of spontaneous behavior and three...
The evolution of vocal flexibility has mainly been studied across species. Much less focus has been on which variables create differences between individuals. To address this gap, we studied monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus) as model species and tested how socio-ecological variables affect the vocal flexibility in an open-ended vocal production learner with socially complex nesting and...
Singing by songbirds is a complex, culturally learned motor skill acquired during juvenile development and in some songbird species also before the onset of the breeding season. Outside of these specific periods, it is believed that the singing motor program is stable or ‘crystallized’, and 'solo' songs are used to illustrate the complexity of birdsong learning and production. I will show that...
Conversation about careers, progression, social networking for early career researchers in field related to the workshop. Co-lead by Dr Michelle Roper .
In temperate songbirds, song is seasonal and therefore often dependent on gonadal hormones, testosterone and its androgenic and estrogenic derivatives. Elevated testosterone levels at the beginning of the breeding season lead to species-typical song patterns. Canaries are seasonal singers in which song is highly organized in the breeding season and variable in the non-breeding season. This...
A thought-provoking conversation about what complexity actually is, what it isn't, and why we think the way we do about it.
Vocal production learning (VPL) is considered a crucial component of human language. VPL is rare and among birds has been detected only in songbirds, hummingbirds, and parrots. Parrots are probably the most advanced vocal learners who learn new vocalisations throughout their lives and are known for their ability to imitate human speech. Thus parrots present an intriguing model to shed light on...
Songbirds sing to defend their territory and to attract partners. However, zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) are not territorial, they find their partner when young, and partners mate for life. Therefore, conventional theory predicts that zebra finches should not sing much at all. Yet, they do and their individually recognisable song is the focus of hundreds of lab-based studies. I here...
One of the factors which makes animal communication complex is the multimodality. Estrildid finches are one of the most studied songbird families for acoustic communication. They often combine their songs with body movements (i.e., dance) during courtship. However, there are still few empirical studies on the behavioral mechanisms and functions of dancing compared to songs. Our study species,...
For many bird species, songs play a central role in mate choice, and birdsong has been implicated as a possible driver of avian speciation. However, songs are socially learned, and the songs young birds experience influence the songs they produce later in life. This raises questions as to how innate biases play a part in enabling young birds to learn the song of their own species in an...
Communication is crucial in social relationships, and its complexity is acknowledged to coevolve with social complexity. The social complexity hypothesis for communicative complexity is widely supported, yet there is a lack of clarity around what researchers refer to as ‘communicative complexity’. By illustrating my points with examples from the available literature and my own research, I will...
New Zealand has successfully used invasive species eradications and threatened species translocations to successfully conserve many avian species from extinction – using a network of islands and protected sanctuaries. These conservation approaches also provide an opportunity to undertake field-based experiments and research aimed at understanding song diversity and cultural evolution in free...
Understanding the genetics of bird migration is a long-standing goal in evolutionary biology. Blackcaps Sylvia atricapilla are ideal for this work as different populations exhibit enormous difference in migratory behaviour and little else. We characterize (i) phenotype, population structure and demographic history the blackcap, and (ii) identify sequence variants and signaling pathways that...
In my group, we elucidate the elements that shape short-term migratory decisions using various experimental and observational approaches. Using state-of-the-art high-resolution biologging in combination with experimental approaches like delayed-releases, and translocations, we are exploring the underlying causes for behavioral variation among individuals from within and across populations.
