Sexually Distinct Song Cultures Across a Songbird Metapopulation

Simple item page
dc.citation.volume9
dc.contributor.authorWebb WH
dc.contributor.authorRoper MM
dc.contributor.authorPawley MDM
dc.contributor.authorFukuzawa Y
dc.contributor.authorHarmer AMT
dc.contributor.authorBrunton DH
dc.contributor.editorHedrick AV
dc.date.accessioned2024-01-08T23:49:12Z
dc.date.accessioned2024-07-25T06:53:55Z
dc.date.available2021-07-27
dc.date.available2024-01-08T23:49:12Z
dc.date.available2024-07-25T06:53:55Z
dc.date.issued2021-11-17
dc.description.abstractSongbirds learn their songs culturally, through imitating tutors. The vocal culture of a songbird population changes as new song units (syllables) are introduced through immigration, copying errors, and innovation, while other syllables fall out of use. This leads to a diversification of the syllable pool across the species, much like the diversification and spatial patterns of human language. Vocal cultures have been well-studied in male songbirds but have been largely overlooked in females. Here we undertake one of the first comparisons of male and female song cultures across a songbird metapopulation—studying New Zealand bellbirds Anthornis melanura spanning a network of six islands. Having classified 20,700 syllables (702 types), we compare population syllable repertoire sizes and overlap between sites and sexes. We show that males and females—both with complex songs—have distinct song cultures, sharing only 6–26% of syllable types within each site. Furthermore, male and female syllable types can be statistically discriminated based on acoustic properties. Despite diverse syllable repertoires within sites, few syllable types were shared between sites (both sexes had highly distinct site-specific dialects). For the few types shared between sites, sharing decreased with distance only for males. Overall, there was no significant difference between sexes in degree of site–site repertoire overlap. These results suggest different cultural processes at play for the two sexes, underlining the inadequacy of male-centric song research and calling for comparisons of male and female song cultures in many more species.
dc.description.confidentialfalse
dc.edition.editionNovember 2021
dc.identifier.citationWebb W, Roper M, Pawley M, Fukuzawa Y, Harmer A, Brunton D. (2021). Sexually distinct song cultures in a songbird metapopulation. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. 9.
dc.identifier.doi10.1101/2021.07.05.451205
dc.identifier.eissn2296-701X
dc.identifier.elements-typejournal-article
dc.identifier.number755633
dc.identifier.urihttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/71115
dc.languageEnglish
dc.publisherFrontiers Media S.A.
dc.relation.isPartOfFrontiers in Ecology and Evolution
dc.rights(c) The author/s
dc.rights.licenseCC BY 4.0
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
dc.subjectfemale song
dc.subjectdialects
dc.subjectcultural evolution
dc.subjectbirdsong
dc.subjectavian
dc.subjectbioacoustics
dc.subjectoscine passerine
dc.subjectsong culture
dc.titleSexually Distinct Song Cultures Across a Songbird Metapopulation
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.elements-id457283
pubs.organisational-groupOther
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 5 of 9
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Evidence 6
Size:
329.91 KB
Format:
Comma-Separated Values
Description:
Download
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Published
Size:
6.43 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Evidence 1
Size:
329.93 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Evidence 2
Size:
329.93 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Evidence 3
Size:
329.98 KB
Format:
Microsoft Excel XML
Description:
Download
Collections
Journal Articles