Coordinated visual displays and vocal duetting in different ecological situations among Western Palearctic non-passerine birds

Malacarne, Giorgio; Cucco, Marco; Camanni, S.

doi:10.1080/08927014.1991.9525369

Cited by 45 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Consistent with this functional interpretation, there are positive associations between duetting and both pair-bond duration and year-round territoriality in North American birds [10]. Avian duets are thought to be more common in the tropics [11,12], and may be associated with sexual monochromatism [12,13] (but see [10,11]). Conclusions about the evolution of duetting based on existing comparative analyses are limited by the scopes and methodologies of those studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Migration and the evolution of duetting in songbirds

Logue

Hall

2014

Proc. R. Soc. B.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Many groups of animals defend shared resources with coordinated signals. The best-studied of these signals are the vocal duets produced by mated pairs of birds. Duets are believed to be more common among tropical-breeding species, but a comprehensive test of this hypothesis is lacking, and the mechanisms that generate latitudinal patterns in duetting are not known. We used a stratified sample of 372 songbird species to conduct the first broad-scale, phylogenetically explicit analysis of duet evolution. We found that duetting evolves in association with the absence of migration, but not with sexual monochromatism or tropical breeding. We conclude that the evolution of migration exerts a major influence on the evolution of duetting. The perceived association between tropical breeding and duetting may be a by-product of the migrationduetting relationship. Migration reduces the average duration of partnerships, potentially reducing the benefits of cooperative behaviour, including duetting. Ultimately, the evolution of coordinated resource-defence signals in songbirds may be driven by ecological conditions that favour sedentary lifestyles and social stability.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 90%

Migration and the evolution of duetting in songbirds

Logue

Hall

2014

Proc. R. Soc. B.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We think it more likely that the ancestor was monochromatic given that extant species near the base of the warbler tree are dichromatic. Existing studies have shown that either monochromatism (Malacarne et al, 1991;Price, 2009) or dichromatism (Garamszegi et al, 2007) may be correlated with female song in birds. Our reconstruction indicates that parulid warblers underwent an early shift to dichromatism, but that gains of female song were not correlated with either losses or gains of melanin, carotenoid, or general dichromatism (Table 3).…”

Section: Plumage Dimorphism and Female Songmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…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.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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.

show abstract

“…For example, Amézquita and Hödl (2004) found that Amazonian tree frogs (Hyla parviceps) use a variety of acoustic and visual signals in male-male interactions (i.e., calling, and foot and arm movements), suggesting that the use of both acoustic and visual modalities may enhance the probability of being detected in an acoustically noisy background (see also Grafe and Wanger 2007). Similarly, many bird species are colorful and perform visual displays during social interactions (e.g., Smith 1967;Malacarne et al 1991), and it is possible that these species will modify their vocalizations as well as their visual displays to improve the probability of being detected in an acoustically noisy background.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anthropogenic noise is associated with changes in acoustic but not visual signals in red-winged blackbirds

Ríos-Chelén

Lee

Patricelli

2015

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Some birds in noisy areas produce songs with higher frequency and/or amplitude and altered timing compared to individuals in quiet areas. These changes may function to increase the efficacy of acoustic signals by reducing masking by noise. We collected audio recordings of redwinged blackbirds and measured noise levels. We found that males in noisier places produced songs with fewer syllables and slower repeat rate of elements in some components (rattles). Birds may also improve the efficacy of communication in noise by increasing usage of other signaling modalities. Red-winged blackbirds also perform a visual display in different intensities while singing. We also tested whether this species performs the visual display in different intensities according to current noise levels, and predicted that if the efficacy of songs is impaired in noisy places, males would compensate by performing a more intense visual display. For this, we also collected visual recordings from the same males from which we obtained acoustic recordings. We found no association between acoustic noise and the intensity of the visual display; thus, our results do not support the idea that males are using the visual display as a backup signal to communicate under acoustic noise. We discuss some possible explanations of this negative finding and for the observed noise-related changes in song length and rattle rate in the context of communication under noise.

show abstract

Coordinated visual displays and vocal duetting in different ecological situations among Western Palearctic non-passerine birds

Cited by 45 publications

References 12 publications

Migration and the evolution of duetting in songbirds

Migration and the evolution of duetting in songbirds

Female Song in New World Wood-Warblers (Parulidae)

Anthropogenic noise is associated with changes in acoustic but not visual signals in red-winged blackbirds

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About