The evolution of song in female birds in Europe

Garamszegi, László Zsolt; Pavlova, Denitza; Eens, Marcel; Møller, Anders Pape

doi:10.1093/beheco/arl047

Cited by 93 publications

(98 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…Our evidence that singing by both sexes was the ancestral state for many temperate New World blackbirds is consistent with a recent phylogenetic study by Garamszegi et al (2007), showing that female song was present in the ancestors of many European songbirds that now lack female song. That study did not, however, investigate ancestral breeding ranges (Garamszegi et al 2007).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

“…That study did not, however, investigate ancestral breeding ranges (Garamszegi et al 2007). Some authors have further suggested that song in both sexes was the ancestral state for all oscine passerines (Riebel et al 2005), based on evidence for an Australasian origin of songbirds (Barker et al 2002) combined with the prevalence of female song among Australian species today.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…In our analysis, we focused solely on the reported rates of female song relative to male song and ignored comparisons of song structure, since most descriptions did not include sound spectrograms and we could not quantify acoustic differences between songs based on verbal descriptions alone. It was also difficult to reliably differentiate between females that sing relatively infrequently and those that never sing, since infrequent female song in some species could have gone unnoticed by researchers (Garamszegi et al 2007). Therefore, we combined these cases (i.e.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This focus may lead some researchers to assume that the ancestors of these birds resembled temperate species in lacking female song, but it is equally plausible that both sexes sang in ancestors and that female singing has been repeatedly lost during the evolution of temperate taxa (Riebel et al 2005;Garamszegi et al 2007). Indeed, such losses of female song seem especially probable in temperate species that have recent tropical ancestors (Kondo & Omland 2007;Barker et al 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Losses of female song with changes from tropical to temperate breeding in the New World blackbirds

2009

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Birds in which both sexes produce complex songs are thought to be more common in the tropics than in temperate areas, where typically only males sing. Yet the role of phylogeny in this apparent relationship between female song and latitude has never been examined. Here, we reconstruct evolutionary changes in female song and breeding latitude in the New World blackbirds (Icteridae), a family with both temperate and tropical representatives. We provide strong evidence that members of this group have moved repeatedly from tropical to temperate breeding ranges and, furthermore, that these range shifts were associated with losses of female song more often than expected by chance. This historical perspective suggests that male-biased song production in many temperate species is the result not of sexual selection for complex song in males but of selection against such songs in females. Our results provide new insights into the differences we see today between tropical and temperate songbirds, and suggest that the role of sexual selection in the evolution of bird song might not be as simple as we think.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Losses of female song with changes from tropical to temperate breeding in the New World blackbirds

2009

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“…A recent surge of interest in this topic has supported the idea that female song is associated with life-history traits that are common in tropical areas, including yearround territoriality and/or non-migratory behavior, sexual monochromatism, carotenoid dichromatism, and monogamy (Malacarne et al, 1991;Garamszegi et al, 2007;Benedict, 2008;Price, 2009;Price et al, 2009;Logue and Hall, 2014). In particular, gain of migratory behavior is strongly correlated with loss of female song (including duetting; Price et al, 2009;Logue and Hall, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Female Song in New World Wood-Warblers (Parulidae)

Najar

Benedict

2015

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Recent advances have revealed that female birdsong is widespread and multifunctional. Female song was likely ancestral among songbirds and persists in many lineages today. Nevertheless, many species lack female song, and researchers are interested in understanding the selective factors that promote and counter the persistence of this trait. Female song is associated with life-history traits including year-round territoriality, non-migratory behavior, sexual monochromatism, and monogamy. Most studies examining these relationships have looked at clades with a migratory ancestor and have found that gains of migratory behavior are strongly correlated with losses of female song (and duetting). Here, we ask if the reverse pattern exists: in a large clade of songbirds with a migratory ancestor, do losses of migratory behavior correlate with gains of female song and visual signaling traits? We investigated correlations between female song, migration, and dichromatism in 107 species of New World Warblers (Family Parulidae). All of these species are predominantly monogamous and territorial when breeding, 50 (47%) are migratory, 49 (46%) are monochromatic, and 25 (23%) show female song. On a robust genetic phylogeny maximum likelihood methods recover migration and monochromatism as the ancestral state in warblers. Female song is generally not reconstructed as present in any deep nodes of the phylogeny, suggesting that most extant species with female song evolved this trait independently and relatively recently. Gains of female song do not correlate with losses of migration. Losses of dichromatism do correlate with losses of migration. Thus, in this clade, visual signals are associated with sedentary vs. migratory lifestyles, but female acoustic signals are not. Our results show a different pattern from that seen in similar studies and support the hypothesis that losses, but not gains, of female song are driven by life history.

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Dispersal influences genetic and acoustic spatial structure for both males and females in a tropical songbird

Graham

Heath

Mennill

2017

Ecology and Evolution

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Animals exhibit diverse dispersal strategies, including sex‐biased dispersal, a phenomenon common in vertebrates. Dispersal influences the genetic structure of populations as well as geographic variation in phenotypic traits. Patterns of spatial genetic structure and geographic variation may vary between the sexes whenever males and females exhibit different dispersal behaviors. Here, we examine dispersal, spatial genetic structure, and spatial acoustic structure in Rufous‐and‐white Wrens, a year‐round resident tropical bird. Both sexes sing in this species, allowing us to compare acoustic variation between males and females and examine the relationship between dispersal and song sharing for both sexes. Using a long‐term dataset collected over an 11‐year period, we used banding data and molecular genetic analyses to quantify natal and breeding dispersal distance in Rufous‐and‐white Wrens. We quantified song sharing and examined whether sharing varied with dispersal distance, for both males and females. Observational data and molecular genetic analyses indicate that dispersal is female‐biased. Females dispersed farther from natal territories than males, and more often between breeding territories than males. Furthermore, females showed no significant spatial genetic structure, consistent with expectations, whereas males showed significant spatial genetic structure. Overall, natal dispersal appears to have more influence than breeding dispersal on spatial genetic structure and spatial acoustic structure, given that the majority of breeding dispersal events resulted in individuals moving only short distances. Song sharing between pairs of same‐sex animals decreases with the distance between their territories for both males and females, although males exhibited significantly greater song sharing than females. Lastly, we measured the relationship between natal dispersal distance and song sharing. We found that sons shared fewer songs with their fathers the farther they dispersed from their natal territories, but that song sharing between daughters and mothers was not significantly correlated with natal dispersal distance. Our results reveal cultural differences between the sexes, suggesting a relationship between culture and sex‐biased dispersal.

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The evolution of song in female birds in Europe

Cited by 93 publications

References 73 publications

Losses of female song with changes from tropical to temperate breeding in the New World blackbirds

Losses of female song with changes from tropical to temperate breeding in the New World blackbirds

Female Song in New World Wood-Warblers (Parulidae)

Dispersal influences genetic and acoustic spatial structure for both males and females in a tropical songbird

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