Acoustic mate copying: female cowbirds attend to other females' vocalizations to modify their song preferences

Abstract

We conducted a tutoring experiment to determine whether female brown-headed cowbirds (Molothrus ater) would attend to vocalizations of other females and use those cues to influence their own preferences for male courtship songs. We collected recordings of male songs that were unfamiliar to the subject females and paired half of the songs with female chatter vocalizations-vocalizations that females give in response to songs sung by males that are courting the females effectively. Thus, chatter immediately following a song provided a cue indicating that the song was sung by a male who was of high-enough quality to court a female successfully. Using a cross-over design, we tutored two groups of females with song-chatter pairings prior to the breeding season. In the breeding season, we placed the tutored females into soundattenuating chambers and played them the same songs without the chatter. Females produced significantly more copulation solicitation displays in response to the songs that they had heard paired with chatter than to songs that had not been paired with chatter. This experiment is the first demonstration that females can modify their song preferences by attending to the vocal behaviour of other females.

A neural basis for password-based species recognition in an avian brood parasite

“…Together, our findings from both experiments indicate that the chatter is more salient than other non-password conspecific vocalizations in juvenile cowbirds. In addition, our findings support previous behavioral experimental evidence that juvenile cowbirds use chatter calls to initially identify groups of conspecifics then learn and adopt the songs of the conspecifics and the acoustic matechoice preference cues only after long-term exposure (Freeberg et al, 1995;Freed-Brown and White, 2009). The chatter was initially identified as a likely candidate to serve as a password that aids in species identification for brown-headed cowbirds because the chatter: (1) is vocalized frequently by females and occasionally by males; (2) is produced throughout the breeding season when young cowbirds are hatching and fledging; and (3) has no dialects throughout the large species range, implying it is not a vocalization that is learned from local conspecifics (Burnell and Rothstein, 1994).…”

Brain-to-brain coupling: a mechanism for creating and sharing a social world

“…This ultimately leads males to sing a more advanced song that will successfully attract many females. Females, in turn, learn their preferences for certain male songs by watching and hearing the responses of other females in the group [13, 14]. Thus, both song production and preferences emerge through social interactions.…”

Avian vocal mimicry: a unified conceptual framework

“…Riebel, 2003;Freed-Brown & White, 2009). Indirect learning could also play a role in the development of female preferences for heterospecific song, if preferences emerge through listening to conspecific male song incorporating imitations, or if females copy other females' preferences, as has been shown for species that only produce species-specific vocalisations (e.g.…”

“…Indirect learning could also play a role in the development of female preferences for heterospecific song, if preferences emerge through listening to conspecific male song incorporating imitations, or if females copy other females' preferences, as has been shown for species that only produce species-specific vocalisations (e.g. Riebel, 2003;Freed-Brown & White, 2009). Alternatively, the mimic might exploit a sensory bias in the receiver, which has developed via learning (sensu ten Cate & Rowe, 2007).…”