Elsevier

Animal Behaviour

Volume 61, Issue 4, April 2001, Pages 835-846
Animal Behaviour

Regular Articles
Late song learning in song sparrows

https://doi.org/10.1006/anbe.2000.1673Get rights and content

Abstract

In many oscine species, young males learn songs that match those of their first breeding-season neighbours. Because sharing songs with neighbours may be advantageous, selection should favour birds that retain the capacity to memorize new songs later in their first year as the birds cannot know for sure who their neighbours will be until spring. We investigated whether song sparrows, Melospiza melodia, from a sedentary western population were capable of acquiring new songs after their natal summer in a two-stage laboratory experiment. In the first stage (30–90 days of age), we rotated hand-reared males equally among one set of four live tutors that had been neighbours in the field (and therefore shared songs between them). During the second stage (140–330 days old), we removed two of the original tutors and replaced them with two new tutors (which did not share any songs with the original tutors). During stage two, subjects were not rotated, but were stationed next to only one of the four tutors (they could hear the other three at a distance). Eight of 12 subjects learned songs from tutors they only heard after they were 140 days old, and six subjects learned most of their songs from a late tutor. Thus, sedentary song sparrows are capable of acquiring many songs de novo in late autumn. These results are consistent with a song-learning strategy that provides young male song sparrows with a repertoire of songs they will share with their first breeding-season neighbours.

References (47)

  • D.A. Nelson et al.

    The capacity for song memorization varies in populations of the same species

    Animal Behaviour

    (1996)
  • J.C. Nordby et al.

    Social influences during song development in the song sparrow: a laboratory experiment simulating field conditions

    Animal Behaviour

    (2000)
  • R.B. Payne et al.

    Song copying and cultural transmission in indigo buntings

    Animal Behaviour

    (1993)
  • L. Petrinovich et al.

    Song development in the white-crowned sparrow: modification of learned song

    Animal Behaviour

    (1987)
  • L.F. Baptista et al.

    Social interaction and vocal development in birds

  • M.D. Beecher

    Birdsong learning in the laboratory and field

  • M.D. Beecher et al.

    Correlation of song learning and territory establishment strategies in the song sparrow

    Proceedings of the National Academy of Science

    (1994)
  • M.A. Cunningham et al.

    Vocal learning in white-crowned sparrows: sensitive phase and song dialects

    Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

    (1983)
  • T. Dabelsteen et al.

    Dynamic acoustic communication and interactive playback

  • A. Davis et al.

    An examination of migration in song sparrows using banding recovery data

    North American Bird Bander

    (1999)
  • B.B. DeWolfe et al.

    Song development and territory establishment in Nuttall's white-crowned sparrows

    Condor

    (1989)
  • C.H. Hill et al.

    Song sharing in two populations of song sparrows

    Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

    (1999)
  • M. Hughes et al.

    Song type sharing in song sparrows: implication for repertoire function and song learning

    Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology

    (1998)
  • Cited by (0)

    f1

    Correspondence at present address: J. Cully Nordby, University of California–Berkeley, Ecosystem Sciences Division–ESPM, 151 Hilgard Hall No. 3110, Berkeley, CA 94720-3110, U.S.A. (email:[email protected]).

    f2

    S. E. Campbell and M. D. Beecher are at the Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Box 351525, Seattle, WA 98195-1525, U.S.A.

    View full text