Chapter 3 A Review of Vocal Duetting in Birds

Hall, Michelle L.

doi:10.1016/s0065-3454(09)40003-2

Cited by 232 publications

(279 citation statements)

References 178 publications

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“…In most duetting bird species, the female initiates duetting by responding to the male and turning his solo song into a duet (Hall 2009). White-browed Coucals were no exception to this, with 83% of all the duets led by the male.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the wake of these early studies, a considerable body of literature on the structure and function of bird duets has accumulated (Hall 2009). To date, more than 400 species have been found to duet (Hall 2009), and since the majority of them breed in the tropics, it has often been suggested that tropical natural histories may be linked to the evolution of avian duetting (reviewed by Slater and Mann 2004;Hall 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To date, more than 400 species have been found to duet (Hall 2009), and since the majority of them breed in the tropics, it has often been suggested that tropical natural histories may be linked to the evolution of avian duetting (reviewed by Slater and Mann 2004;Hall 2009). However, two recent comparative studies challenge this view: Odom et al (2015) suggest that the ecology and life history features that were thought to favour the evolution of duetting are rather associated with female song, and Logue and Hall (2014) argue that the evolution of duetting is primarily related to the absence of migration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although the significance of avian duetting is still debated, joint territory defence is considered one of the primary functions in many species (Todt and Naguib 2000;Hall 2009;Tobias et al 2016). Other supported hypotheses for the function of duetting include mate guarding (Rogers et al 2006;Seddon and Tobias 2006), recognition and contact between partners (Logue 2007;Mennill and Vehrencamp 2008), ensuring reproductive synchrony (Todt and Hultsch 1982;Hall 2006), and pair commitment (Wickler 1980;Templeton et al 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous duet studies have focused mainly on passeriform birds (Hall 2009;Logue and Hall 2014. But see Seddon 2002 andWright andDahlin 2007 for notable exceptions).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

On the natural history of duetting in White-browed Coucals: sex- and body-size-dependent differences in a collective vocal display

Brumm

Goymann

2017

J Ornithol

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Avian duets have long fascinated biologists, but much remains unknown about what information may be contained in these collective displays and how duet structures vary between taxa. In this study, we describe the structure and performance rules of duets in White-browed Coucals Centropus superciliosus, a tropical non-parasitic Cuckoo. We recorded vocal behaviours of 11 focal pairs and measured temporal, frequency, and amplitude characteristics of their duets. Molecular sexing and radio telemetry revealed that duets were initiated by both sexes, but the majority of them were led by the male. Moreover, we found that duet contributions were sex specific with females producing lower-pitched songs than males, reflecting the general size dimorphism in this species. Finally, we also found that song peak frequencies varied with body size within each sex, suggesting that songs used in duets may act as index signals of body size. We speculate that sexual selection has driven White-browed Coucals to sing as low as possible, a notion that is further supported by our observation of special singing postures that may help in lowering song pitch even further.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Previous duet studies have focused mainly on passeriform birds (Hall 2009;Logue and Hall 2014. But see Seddon 2002 andWright andDahlin 2007 for notable exceptions).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

On the natural history of duetting in White-browed Coucals: sex- and body-size-dependent differences in a collective vocal display

Brumm

Goymann

2017

J Ornithol

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Adult male–female social bond advertising: The primary function of coordinated singing intensity in a small ape

Fan

2021

American J Primatol

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Adult male and female coordinated singing occur in diverse animal taxa. Adult male-female social bond advertising and strengthening have been proposed as two important functional hypotheses of coordinated singing. Here we studied these two functions in four groups of cao vit gibbon (Nomascus nasutus), a small ape that lives in polygynous family groups and adult members coordinated their sex-specific songs to produce complex duets or trios (three members sing together), using 6-year field behavioral data. In this study, we used the number of successful great call sequences per bout or per minute, and latency period from start of the adult male call to the first successful great call sequence to represent singing intensity. We used the proportion of proximity, behavioral synchronization, and grooming between adult male and female to represent bond strength. We used linear mixed-effects model to investigate the correlation between singing intensity and adult male-female social bond strength. We found a negative correlation between all three bond strength indicators and female latency period (N = 209), and a positive correlation between the number of successful great call sequences per bout (N = 253) and per minute (N = 254) and proximity. We used paired Wilcoxon signed-rank test to investigate if adult gibbons increase bond strength after singing. We found proximity (hourly level: N = 45; daily level: N = 54), behavioral synchronization (hourly level: N = 57; daily level: N = 49), and grooming (daily level: N = 34) in most of the groups did not increase significantly after singing in an hourly or daily level. Together, these results indicate that cao vit gibbon coordinated singing serves primarily in adult male-female social bond advertising and distinct singing intensity indicators advertise different information on adult male-female social bond strength.

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Partners coordinate territorial defense against simulated intruders in a duetting ovenbird

Diniz

Rech

Ribeiro

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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Duets in breeding pairs may reflect a situation of conflict, whereby an individual answers its partner's song as a form of unilateral acoustic mate guarding or, alternatively, it may reflect cooperation, when individuals share in territory defense or safeguard the partnership. The degree of coordination between the sexes when responding to solo versus paired intruders may elucidate the function of songs in duets. We examined this issue in a study with rufous horneros (Furnarius rufus), a duetting, socially monogamous Neotropical species with low levels of extrapair paternity. We exposed social pairs during the nonbreeding season to playbacks of duets, male solos, female solos, and control heterospecific songs. Partners approached all conspecific stimuli together and responded by singing quickly, at higher rates and by coordinating ~80% of their songs into duets. For both sexes, most response variables (seven of nine) did not vary across conspecific treatments. These results suggest that partners duet and coordinate behaviors to cooperatively defend common territories. However, females spent more time in territorial vigilance, and partners were highly coordinated (correlated responses) in response to duets and female solos in comparison with male solos. This indicates that female intrusions (paired or solo) might be more threatening than male intrusions in the nonbreeding season, especially for territorial females, and that females are less cooperative with their partners in territory defense against male intruders.

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Chapter 3 A Review of Vocal Duetting in Birds

Cited by 232 publications

References 178 publications

On the natural history of duetting in White-browed Coucals: sex- and body-size-dependent differences in a collective vocal display

On the natural history of duetting in White-browed Coucals: sex- and body-size-dependent differences in a collective vocal display

Adult male–female social bond advertising: The primary function of coordinated singing intensity in a small ape

Partners coordinate territorial defense against simulated intruders in a duetting ovenbird

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