Male and female songs propagation in a duetting tropical bird species in its preferred and secondary habitat

Abstract

Acoustic signals produced by animals must transmit through the environment to reach potential receivers and change their behaviour. Both the environment (vegetation, air properties, other animals) and the form of the signal affect the propagation process. Here we investigated how the transmission of different song types of a duetting songbird species inhabiting an extreme environment within African montane forest, varies between males and females as well as different types of micro-habitats. We hypothesised that male and female songs would have different transmission properties, reflecting known differences in signal form and function. We analysed signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), excess attenuation (EA) and tail-to-signal ratio (TSR) of songs of male and female Yellow-breasted Boubous (Laniarius atroflavus) that were played and re-recorded in a range of sites representing the species-typical habitats. We found significant effects of distance, site (habitat) and sex reflected in all three measures of sound degradation. The clearest, primarily distance-dependent pattern was found for SNR of songs propagated in level forest site. EA was substantially higher in shrubs than in forest habitats, while TSR reflecting longer echoes appeared at longer distances in forest sites. Thus, Yellow-breasted Boubou songs are better propagated in forests than in disturbed sites covered with shrubs. We found that all male song types used for broadcast singing propagated farther than female songs, with significantly higher SNR at all distances. The different male song types which are known to have different functions, also demonstrated a differentiated pattern of propagation reflecting their functionality. All signals that were tested propagated the furthest in the ideal condition described as forest with a level terrain. Signals degraded much faster during transmission through shrubs regrowing after forest burning. On this site, the differences in the propagation of male and female songs, as well as the differences between male song types, were relatively least pronounced. Transmission in typical mountain forest among streams and with substantial terrain variation revealed that degradation pattern in such habitat could be perturbed in a non-linear way. Streams acting as a source of high noise level also negatively affected transmission and may strongly limit the perception of birds staying close to them. However, stream noise did not affect sex differences in song propagation as was found for the site located in shrubs. Male songs showed more efficient transmission through all habitats (least in the shrubs) than female song. These differences were the result of male songs having a whistle structure that is better adapted for long-range propagation than the atonal, wideband frequency female vocalisations. Results support the idea that signals of males of the Yellow-breasted Boubous evolved under the pressure of long-range communication both with rivals and females, while females of the species are much more focused on within-pair communication or signalling together with their partner. The consequence of deforestation resulting in pushing back territories to the forest remnants along streams may be a shortening of the song’s active range, in particular, in females.

baRulho: an R package to quantify degradation in animal acoustic signals

“…Sigpro (Pedersen 1998) is, to our knowledge, the only software package specifically dedicated to quantifying animal sound degradation (Holland et al 1998;Balsby et al 2003;Lampe et al 2007;Darden et al 2008;Barker et al 2009;Graham et al 2017;Vargas-Castro et al 2017;Wheeldon et al 2022). Therefore, we compared measurements extracted in baRulho and Sigpro to evaluate their equivalence.…”

“…Such experiments have provided valuable insight into factors that affect signal transmission in natural environments. For instance, both habitat and acoustic structure can affect transmission in a significant manner (Kime et al 2000; Apol et al 2017; Wheeldon et al 2022). In addition, other factors such as anthropogenic noise masking (Leader et al 2005; LaZerte et al 2015; Grabarczyk & Gill 2020), distance of the signaler from the ground, which leads to additional attenuation (Balsby et al 2003; Darden et al 2008; Arasco et al 2022), as well as ambient temperature, humidity, and wind speed (Bradbury & Vehrencamp 2011), which also influence transmission patterns.…”

Detection ranges of forest bird vocalisations: guidelines for passive acoustic monitoring

“…Researchers should keep in mind that the estimations presented in our study will vary (most likely be shorter) depending on the habitat in question 20 . Depending on the time of day and environmental factors that in uence sound propagation, the maximum communication distance of a bird song can vary by about several dozen metres throughout the day 18 .…”