Being angry, singing fast? Signalling of aggressive motivation by syllable rate in a songbird with slow song

Linhart, Pavel; Jaška, Pavel; Petrusková, Tereza; Petrusek, Adam; Fuchs, Roman

doi:10.1016/j.beproc.2013.06.012

Cited by 48 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…Syllable interval was the only consistently repeatable song characteristic on all timescales. However, syllable interval is substantially affected by social context (Linhart et al 2013) and can only be used for individual recognition if this is taken into account.…”

Section: General Song Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The colouration of Chiffchaffs is monomorphic, cryptic, and without significant individual variation. Nevertheless, males are very vocal throughout the breeding season (Rodrigues 1996) and their songs function in territorial defence (Linhart et al 2012(Linhart et al , 2013 and likely for individual recognition as well. Indeed, Chiffchaffs are able to distinguish between their neighbours by a single, randomly chosen song (Jaška et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cues to individual identity in songs of songbirds: testing general song characteristics in Chiffchaffs Phylloscopus collybita

2017

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Individual variation in vocalizations has been widely studied among different animal taxa, and it is commonly reported that vocalizations could be potentially used to monitor individuals in many species. Songbirds represent a challenging group of animals for the study of signalling of individual identity. They are highly vocal, but their songs are complex and can change over time. In this study, we tested whether general song characteristics, which are independent of song type, can be used to discriminate and consistently identify Chiffchaff males within and between days and between years. There was individual variation in songs of recorded Chiffchaffs, and it was possible to easily discriminate between males at any one point in time. However, the level of re-identification of males across days and years was low. For effective identification it was necessary to compare songs of a single song type. However, Chiffchaffs haphazardly switch among song types, sometimes singing the same song type for a long time, making it difficult to collect equivalent song types or to sample the birds' full repertoires. For example, 5-min recordings of males taken in different years did not contain equivalent song types, leading to low identification success. Although we were not successful in the re-identification of males based on general song characteristics, we discuss methods of acoustic identification which are not dependent on song repertoire content and are potentially valuable tools for the study of species such as the Chiffchaff.

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Section: General Song Characteristicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cues to individual identity in songs of songbirds: testing general song characteristics in Chiffchaffs Phylloscopus collybita

2017

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“…The average length of the song is approximately 12 syllables, equal to approximately 4 s . The average syllable duration is 117 ms and the average inter-syllable interval is 234 ms (Linhart et al 2013). The band-width of the chiffchaff song lies between 2.5 and 7 kHz with most of sound energy concentrated around 4350 Hz ).…”

Section: Chiffchaffmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automatic recognition of bird individuals on an open set using as-is recordings

et al. 2015

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“…Despite the theoretical links between motor skill and physical display, there is little behavioural evidence to back its existence in nature. Most research supporting the idea that these phenomena are connected comes from studies of birdsong, whereby the supposed motor challenge of singing syllables at faster rates is positively associated with superior competitive ability (Linhart, Jaška, Petrusková, Petrusek, & Fuchs, ; Moseley, Lahti, & Podos, ). Among physical displays, the primary work that points to the importance of motor skill is in a tropical bird called the golden‐collared manakin ( Manacus vitellinus ) (Barske et al., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High‐speed displays encoding motor skill trigger elevated territorial aggression in downy woodpeckers

Schuppe

Fuxjager

2017

Functional Ecology

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Abstract1. Many species perform social displays that incorporate complex body movements.However, the reason why such exaggerated behavioural signals evolve in the first place is unclear.2. Recent work posits that physical displays arise in part because they showcase an animal's motor skill-that is, the ability to produce challenging motor acts with great coordination, precision and/or speed. Support for this idea is largely correlational, with few studies attempting to manipulate metrics of motor skill to assess their effect on physical display efficacy. Here, we address this issue in the downy woodpecker (Dryobates pubescens).Individuals of this species compete for territories through the performance of drums, which are complex displays produced by rapidly hammering the bill against a resonate surface at rates of 16 hits/s. This display is a whole-body endeavour, and its production relies on the ability to swiftly oscillate the head forward and backward at fraction-of-a-second periods.4. Using a series of playback studies, we expose resident birds to experimentally engineered drums that reflect putative fine-scale differences in the motor command of the head and neck. We show that resident individuals respond more aggressively to drums characterized by a cadence with a 9-ms faster beat speed. These residents even modulate their own drum speed to resemble this high-performance stimulus, although they often fail to reach it. Residents also appear to appraise drum acceleration by listening to the time intervals between successive beats in a single drum, while tracking how these time intervals change as the signal progresses. 5. Our data support a connection between motor skill and the effectiveness of a physical display produced through elaborate body movement. We, therefore, suspect that motor skill is adaptive and evolves in response to selection by competition for effective drum displays. K E Y W O R D Sdowny woodpecker, evolution, gestural signal, motor skill, territorial behaviourThis is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.

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Being angry, singing fast? Signalling of aggressive motivation by syllable rate in a songbird with slow song

Cited by 48 publications

References 53 publications

Cues to individual identity in songs of songbirds: testing general song characteristics in Chiffchaffs Phylloscopus collybita

Cues to individual identity in songs of songbirds: testing general song characteristics in Chiffchaffs Phylloscopus collybita

Automatic recognition of bird individuals on an open set using as-is recordings

High‐speed displays encoding motor skill trigger elevated territorial aggression in downy woodpeckers

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