Anatomical bases of sex‐ and size‐related acoustic variation in herring gull alarm calls

Hardouin, Loïc A.; Thompson, Richard; Stenning, Martyn J.; Reby, David

doi:10.1111/j.1600-048x.2013.00144.x

Cited by 19 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…No sex differences were found in the "kyow" and "kek" alarm calls of European Herring Gulls (Larus argentatus) (Hardouin et al 2013). Although males are somewhat larger than females, the fundamental frequency did not differ between sexes in either call types.…”

Section: Order Charadriiformesmentioning

confidence: 82%

Gender identification using acoustic analysis in birds without external sexual dimorphism

Volodin

Volodina²,

Klenova

et al. 2015

Avian Res

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Zoo and wildlife management faces a problem with bird sexing, as many bird taxa have indiscernible gender differences in size and coloration. Problematic groups are geese, cranes, rails, raptors, owls, parrots, doves, auks, shearwaters and some passerines. Commonly accepted invasive sexing techniques based on genetics, laparoscopy, morphometric and on cloacal inspection, are all needed in bird capturing and handling. Capturing and subsequent manipulations may be inapplicable for free-ranging birds, whereas distant voice-based sexing is relevant for many species. This review evaluates the potential for noninvasive sexing by separate calls or duet calls, for adult birds of 69 species from 16 orders and for chicks of 11 species from 7 orders. For adult birds of 25 species, a single call per individual was sufficient for 100 % reliable sexing by ear or using spectrographic analysis. For chicks, the potential for voice-based sexing seems to be very limited. For birds calling rarely or unpredictably, we propose a simple way of provoking vocalization using playbacks of species-specific calls that are available from sound libraries. We conclude that sexing by voice may represent a feasible alternative to the classical sexing techniques, both in the wild and in captivity.

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Section: Order Charadriiformesmentioning

confidence: 82%

Gender identification using acoustic analysis in birds without external sexual dimorphism

Volodin

Volodina²,

Klenova

et al. 2015

Avian Res

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“…Bird calls are generated by vibrations of membranes in the syrinx (source, determining the fundamental frequency, " 0 ") and are subsequently filtered by the suprasyringeal vocal tract (filter, resulting in amplified frequencies called "formants"). The source-filter theory of mammal vocal production (Fant, 1969;Taylor and Reby, 2010) has recently been shown to be useful in gaining a far greater understanding of individual identity information contained in seabird vocalisations (Hardouin et al, 2014;Favaro et al, 2015). Following the source-filter theory approach, we determined whether the contact calls of Magellanic and Humboldt penguins have the potential to allow individual discrimination of the callers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Vocal individuality and species divergence in the contact calls of banded penguins

Favaro

Gili

Rugna

et al. 2016

Behavioural Processes

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Penguins produce contact calls to maintain social relationships and group cohesion. Such vocalisations have recently been demonstrated to encode individual identity information in the African penguin. Using a source-filter theory approach, we investigated whether acoustic cues of individuality can also be found in other Spheniscus penguins and the acoustic features of contact calls have diverged within this genus. We recorded vocalisations from two ex-situ colonies of Humboldt penguin and Magellanic penguin (sympatric and potentially interbreeding in the wild) and one ex-situ group of African penguins (allopatric although capable of interbreeding with the other two species in captivity). We measured 14 acoustic parameters from each vocalisation. These included temporal (duration), source-related (fundamental frequency, f0), and filter-related (formants) parameters. They were then used to carry out a series of stepwise discriminant function analyses (with cross-validation) and General Linear Model comparisons. We showed that contact calls allow individual discrimination in two additional species of the genus Spheniscus. We also found that calls can be classified according to species in a manner far greater than that attributable by chance, even though there is limited genetic distance among African, Humboldt, and Magellanic penguins. Our results provide further evidence that the source-filter theory is a valuable framework for investigating the biologically meaningful information contained in bird vocalisations. Our findings also provide novel insights into penguin vocal communication and suggest that contact calls of the penguin family are affected by selection for individuality.

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“…For example, in ducks, the relative shape and size of a part of the syrinx, the bulla, did not show significant intraspecific variation, while the number of tracheal rings varied with neck length in males and females (92). There seems generally little to no evidence of selection for a certain number of rings constituting a syrinx or airway, although factors presumably affecting acoustic production (e.g., ring diameter in the cranial or caudal part of the airway, size of the labia where present) may vary (92,94).…”

Section: Development and Novelty In The Respiratory Tract-how Did Thementioning

confidence: 92%

Identity and novelty in the avian syrinx

Kingsley

Eliason

Riede

et al. 2018

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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In its most basic conception, a novelty is simply something new. However, when many previously proposed evolutionary novelties have been illuminated by genetic, developmental, and fossil data, they have refined and narrowed our concept of biological “newness.” For example, they show that these novelties can occur at one or multiple levels of biological organization. Here, we review the identity of structures in the avian vocal organ, the syrinx, and bring together developmental data on airway patterning, structural data from across tetrapods, and mathematical modeling to assess what is novel. In contrast with laryngeal cartilages that support vocal folds in other vertebrates, we find no evidence that individual cartilage rings anchoring vocal folds in the syrinx have homology with any specific elements in outgroups. Further, unlike all other vertebrate vocal organs, the syrinx is not derived from a known valve precursor, and its origin involves a transition from an evolutionary “spandrel” in the respiratory tract, the site where the trachea meets the bronchi, to a target for novel selective regimes. We find that the syrinx falls into an unusual category of novel structures: those having significant functional overlap with the structures they replace. The syrinx, along with other evolutionary novelties in sensory and signaling modalities, may more commonly involve structural changes that contribute to or modify an existing function rather than those that enable new functions.

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Anatomical bases of sex‐ and size‐related acoustic variation in herring gull alarm calls

Cited by 19 publications

References 39 publications

Gender identification using acoustic analysis in birds without external sexual dimorphism

Gender identification using acoustic analysis in birds without external sexual dimorphism

Vocal individuality and species divergence in the contact calls of banded penguins

Identity and novelty in the avian syrinx

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