Repertoire Size and Syllable Sharing in the Song of the Clay-Colored Thrush (Turdus grayi)

Vargas-Castro, Luis E.; Sánchez, Natalie V.; Barrantes, Gilbert

doi:10.1676/11-044.1

Cited by 23 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Moreover, the sedentary habits of this species with high territorial density may increase the chance of imitation between individuals, as observed in other species (Kroodsma et al 1999). Although it has been observed that males from this population share syllable types with close neighbors (Vargas-Castro et al 2012), it is uncertain if the syllables added during the final period of the breeding season by the C2-year-old males were learnt by imitation. Two of these syllables may have been added through gradual transformation of another syllable, and in one of these cases, the new syllable was a more similar version to that of a syllable present in the repertoire of other males.…”

Section: Song Plasticity Between Successive Breeding Seasonsmentioning

confidence: 83%

“…1). Cumulative curves of new syllable types showed that full syllable repertoires are detected after classifying 350 syllables (Vargas-Castro et al 2012). For one male in 2008, we only recorded 272 syllables, but since the cumulative curve quickly approached an asymptote for this male, we were confident that we detected his full repertoire.…”

Section: Song Plasticity Between Successive Breeding Seasonsmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…In general, broadcast syllables have higher amplitude and simple acoustic structure compared with soft syllables. During spontaneous song bouts, clay-colored thrushes predominantly use broadcast syllables (97 % of total syllables) and only a few soft syllables may be embedded in these songs (Vargas-Castro et al 2012). In other songbird species, soft songs are mainly used in courtship displays or aggressive signaling, or both, during close range interactions (Dabelsteen et al 1998;Searcy and Beecher 2009).…”

Section: Clay-colored Thrushes and Their Songsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This syllable sample size is comparable with approximately 16 min of effective recording time. The recordings from 2008 used here have also been included in a previous study investigating local repertoire sharing among males (Vargas-Castro et al 2012). On average, repertoires are composed of 13 (range 10-17) syllable types, and even though most syllable types are unique to particular males, 28 ± 15 % (mean ± SD) syllable types of their repertoires may be shared with other males.…”

Section: Song Plasticity Between Successive Breeding Seasonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1). A similar procedure has been used in other studies to classify bird vocalizations (Molles and Vehrencamp 1999;Rassmussen and Dabelsteen 2002;Nicholson et al 2007;Vargas-Castro et al 2012). All syllables were inspected by two independent observers to determine which syllables were present in more than one breeding season.…”

Section: Syllable Classification and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Song plasticity over time and vocal learning in clay-colored thrushes

2015

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Songbirds have been traditionally classified into close-ended or open-ended learning species according to the length of the sensitive period during which birds are able to memorize new vocalizations. Closed-ended learners are generally not capable of changing their song after the first year of life, while open-ended learners show song plasticity as adults. A few Turdus species have been suggested to be open-ended learners, but no long-term study has been conducted to investigate their song plasticity over time. We analyzed the songs of clay-colored thrushes, T. grayi, over four successive breeding seasons to assess song plasticity in their syllable repertoires within and between breeding seasons. A total of 16,262 syllables were classified through visual inspection of spectrograms and multidimensional scaling analysis based on spectrogram correlations. On average, 563 ± 153 (SD) syllables per male per breeding season were analyzed. Male repertoire size was 9-20 syllable types. Males were capable of modifying their syllable repertoire between the initial and final periods of the breeding season. Song plasticity within breeding seasons may be associated with imitation between neighboring males, suggesting song learning in males that were ≥2 years old. This short-term plasticity is not enough, however, to explain the high proportion of change (mean = 65 % syllable types) in repertoire composition between breeding seasons in adult males. Song plasticity resulting from annual changes in repertoire composition could be explained by open-ended learning, but another mechanism, extended memory and re-expression, could also explain long-term plasticity. Experimental studies controlling the acoustic environment are needed to determine which mechanism is responsible for such a high level of song plasticity.

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Section: Song Plasticity Between Successive Breeding Seasonsmentioning

confidence: 83%

Section: Song Plasticity Between Successive Breeding Seasonsmentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Clay-colored Thrushes and Their Songsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Song Plasticity Between Successive Breeding Seasonsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Syllable Classification and Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

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Song plasticity over time and vocal learning in clay-colored thrushes

2015

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Say what? On the transmission of acoustic signals in a Neotropical green city

2021

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Cities do not only represent noisy systems, but also limit acoustic communication given the complex array of artificial structures through which signals can be trapped or obscured. In this study we performed a field experiment to evaluate the loss of energy of a standardized acoustic emission (generated with notes and a call of the Clay-colored Thrush – Turdus grayi). For this, we emitted the acoustic signal and recovered it at increasing radial distances from 26 fixed emission points (i.e., 10 m, 20 m, 40 m, 80 m, 120 m, 160 m) located across the city of Xalapa (Mexico). Our results show that the emitted signal was not recorded beyond 80 m from the emission point. The number and height of the assessed physical obstacles between the emitted signal and the receiving equipment showed to drive our main result, with built elements representing a major barrier than vegetation ones in terms of the recovered energy of the emitted signal. Interestingly, we found that, for both types of physical obstacles, a height of ~7 m was a common threshold influencing the recovered energy of the emitted signal.

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