Familiarity and homogeneity affect the discrimination of a song dialect

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-1-2024

Publication Title

Animal Behaviour

Volume

209

First Page

9

Keywords

aggressive response, auditory experience, discrimination, local vs foreign, playback experiment, Savannah sparrow, song development, song dialect, wild population

Last Page

20

Abstract

Male songbirds of many species sing local song dialects that are restricted to defined geographical areas. In most tests of responses to local versus foreign dialects, males respond more aggressively to songs from their own dialect, presumably because local males represent more of a threat to their success. We asked how hearing foreign songs during development and territory establishment affects discrimination of the local dialect in wild Savannah sparrows, Passerculus sandwichensis. After foreign songs had been heard from loudspeakers in the study area in at least two consecutive breeding seasons, males reduced the intensity of their responses to the local version of the population-specific buzz segment of the song. Four years after the foreign songs were last broadcast on the study area, males again responded more aggressively to the local version of the buzz. As for the basis of these responses, we found no evidence that birds discriminated among dialects by comparing them to their own songs. However, auditory experience with a foreign song, whether during song development (from speaker-simulated song tutors) or during the current breeding season (from neighbours' songs), reduced the intensity of birds’ responses to the local buzz type. Both familiarity, in the form of auditory experience with a song type, and homogeneity, when a song type is sung by all or nearly all of the population, appear to contribute to heightened aggressive responses to a local song dialect.

DOI

10.1016/j.anbehav.2023.12.011

ISSN

00033472

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS