Timing vocal behaviour: Experimental evidence for song overlap avoidance in Eurasian wrens

Timing vocal behavior: Lack of temporal overlap avoidance to fluctuating noise levels in singing Eurasian wrens

“…Several songbird species are also reported to avoid song overlap with conspecific competitors (e.g., Wasserman, 1977;Gochfeld, 1978;Yang et al, 2014) and even with different species (e.g., Ficken et al, 1974;Popp et al, 1985;Brumm, 2006). The avoidance of song overlap presumably prevents jamming or acoustic interference and is apparently a widespread phenomenon within and among bird species (Planqué and Slabbekoorn, 2008;Searcy and Beecher, 2009;Naguib and Mennill, 2010).…”

“…Songs of Eurasian wrens typically consist of a series of rapidly modulated elements with several repetitive trills connected by unrepeated components (e.g., Kroodsma, 1980;Holland et al, 2000;Amrhein and Erne, 2006;Camacho-Schlenker et al, 2011;Yang et al, 2014). In our study population, the spectral bandwidth of Eurasian wren songs ranged from 2.5 to 9.2 kHz (measurements for natural song recordings from 22 territories, which were collected between 5:00 and 10:00 am from March to May 2010).…”

“…It may be especially likely that some bird species will be capable of avoiding short-term fluctuations in traffic noise as there are many examples of birds timing their songs to vocalizations of other singing birds. In a previous study, we revealed experimentally that male Eurasian wrens (Troglodytes troglodytes) have the ability of temporal avoidance during vocal interactions (Yang et al, 2014). The wrens achieved significantly lower overlap than expected by chance with a playback series of conspecific songs.…”

Sounds of the city: The effects of urbanization and noise on mountain and black-capped chickadee communication.

“…Vocal plasticity in particular may allow some avian species to overcome the masking effects of low-frequency urban noise pollution (Slabbekoom, 2013;Francis et al, 201 lc). Some species of birds appear able to adjust by spatially or temporally avoiding noisy conditions (avoidance Fuller et al, 2007;McClure et al, 2013), by singing higher (spectral plasticity Slabbekoom & Peet, 2003;Verzijden et al, 2010;Luther & Derryberry, 2012), by singing longer (temporal plasticity, Hamao et al, 2011; but see (Yang et al, 2014)), and/or by singing louder (amplitude plasticity Brumm, 2004). As the world's human population grows, predicting which species can use vocal adjustment to cope with noise pollution is a necessary part of assessing species' vulnerability to urbanization.…”

“…Shifting to lower frequencies could an appropriate response when noise is uncommon, typically occupies a narrow bandwidth, or arises from more natural sources. For example, if noise 4.4 Discussion experienced in quiet areas is generally bird song from other species, it might be more appropriate to shift down to avoid high-frequency inter-specific masking (Pohl et a l, 2009;Yang et al, 2014).…”