Accuracy of song syntax learning and singing consistency signal early condition in zebra finches

Behavioral Ecology

Volumn 19, Issue 6, 2008, Pages 1267-1281

  Holveck, Marie Jeanne ^a,c   Vieira De Castro, Ana Catarina ^a,d   Lachlan, Robert F ^a,b   Ten Cate, Carel ^a   Riebel, Katharina ^a  

^a LEIDEN UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

^b DUKE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^c CENTRE D ECOLOGIE FONCTIONNELLE ET EVOLUTIVE   (France)

^d UNIVERSITY OF MINHO   (Portugal)

Author keywords

Brood size manipulation; Condition dependent signal; Developmental stress hypothesis; Song learning; Taeniopygia guttata; Zebra finch

Indexed keywords

BEHAVIORAL RESPONSE; BIRD; BROOD SIZE; MALE BEHAVIOR; MATE CHOICE; SEXUAL SELECTION; SONGBIRD;

AVES; PASSERI; TAENIOPYGIA GUTTATA;

EID: 56449111895     PISSN: 10452249     EISSN: 14657279     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/beheco/arn078     Document Type: Article

References (92)

1. Andersson M. 1994. Sexual selection. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
2. Becker WA. 1984. Manual of quantitative genetics. 4th. Pullman (WA): Academic Enterprises.
3. Birkhead TR, Fletcher F, Pellatt EJ. 1998. Sexual selection in the zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata: condition, sex traits and immune capacity. Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 44:179-191.
4. Braaten RF, Petzoldt M, Colbath A. 2006. Song perception during the sensitive period of song learning in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). J Comp Psychol. 120:79-88.
5. Brenowitz EA, Lent K, Kroodsma DE. 1995. Brain space for learned song in birds develops independently of song learning. J Neurosci. 15:6281-6286.
6. Buchanan KL, Leitner S, Spencer KA, Goldsmith AR, Catchpole CK. 2004. Developmental stress selectively affects the song control nucleus HVC in the zebra finch. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 271: 2381-2386.
7. Buchanan KL, Spencer KA, Goldsmith AR, Catchpole CK. 2003. Song as an honest signal of past developmental stress in the European starling (Sturnus vulgaris). Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 270: 1149-1156.
8. Byers BE. 2007. Extrapair paternity in chestnut-sided warblers is correlated with consistent vocal performance. Behav Ecol. 18:130-136.
9. Catchpole CK. 1996. Song and female choice: good genes and big brains? Trends Ecol Evol. 11:358-360.
10. Christie PJ, Mennill DJ, Ratcliffe LM. 2004. Pitch shifts and song structure indicate male quality in the dawn chorus of black-capped chickadees. Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 55:341-348.
11. Clayton NS. 1987. Song tutor choice in zebra finches. Anim Behav. 35:714-721.
12. Cohen J. 1988. Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Hillsdale (NJ): Lawrence Earlbaum Associates.
13. Collins SA. 1999. Is female preference for male repertoires due to sensory bias? Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 266:2309-2314.
14. Creel S. 2001. Social dominance and stress hormones. Trends Ecol Evol. 16:491-497.
15. Cynx J. 1990. Experimental determination of a unit of song production in the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata). J Comp Psychol. 104:3-10.
16. Darwin C. 1871. The descent of man and selection in relation to sex. 2nd. London: Murray.
17. de Kogel CH. 1997. Long-term effects of brood size manipulation on morphological development and sex-specific mortality of offspring. J Anim Ecol. 66:167-178.
18. de Kogel CH, Prijs HJ. 1996. Effects of brood size manipulations on sexual attractiveness of offspring in the zebra finch. Anim Behav. 51:699-708.
19. Doutrelant C, Blondel J, Perret P, Lambrechts MM. 2000. Blue tit song repertoire size, male quality and interspecific competition. J Avian Biol. 31:360-366.
20. Draganoiu TI, Nagle L, Kreutzer M. 2002. Directional female preference for an exaggerated male trait in canary (Serinus canaria) song. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 269:2525-2531.
21. Funabiki Y, Konishi M. 2003. Long memory in song learning by zebra finches. J Neurosci. 23:6928-6935.
22. Gentner TQ, Fenn KM, Margoliash D, Nusbaum HC. 2006. Recursive syntactic pattern learning by songbirds. Nature. 440:1204-1207.
23. Gil D, Gahr M. 2002. The honesty of bird song: multiple constraints for multiple traits. Trends Ecol Evol. 17:133-141.
24. Gil D, Naguib M, Riebel K, Rutstein A, Gahr M. 2006. Early condition, song learning, and the volume of song brain nuclei in the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata). J Neurobiol. 66:1602-1612.
25. Goller F, Daley MA. 2001. Novel motor gestures for phonation during inspiration enhance the acoustic complexity of birdsong. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 268:2301-2305.
26. Grafen A. 1990. Biological signals as handicaps. J Theor Biol. 144: 517-546.
27. Holveck MJ, Riebel K. 2007. Preferred songs predict preferred males: consistency and repeatability of zebra finch females across three test contexts. Anim Behav. 74:297-309.
28. Hunt J, Brooks R, Jennions MD. 2005. Female mate choice as a condition-dependent life-history trait. Am Nat. 166:79-92.
29. Jones AE, ten Cate C, Slater PJB. 1996. Early experience and plasticity of song in adult male zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). J Comp Psychol. 110:354-369.
30. Kroodsma DE, Houlihan PW, Fallon PA, Wells JA. 1997. Song development by grey catbirds. Anim Behav. 54:457-464.
31. Lambrechts M, Dhondt AA. 1986. Male quality, reproduction and survival in the great tit (Parus major). Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 19: 57-63.
32. Leadbeater E, Goller F, Riebel K. 2005. Unusual phonation, covarying song characteristics and song preferences in female zebra finches. Anim Behav. 70:909-919.
33. Leitão A, Riebel K. 2003. Are good ornaments bad armaments? Male chaffinch perception of songs with varying flourish length. Anim Behav. 66:161-167.
34. Lessells CM, Boag PT. 1987. Unrepeatable repeatabilities: a common mistake. Auk. 104:116-121.
35. MacDonald IF, Kempster B, Zanette L, MacDougall-Shackleton SA. 2006. Early nutritional stress impairs development of a song-control brain region in both male and female juvenile song sparrows (Melospiza melodia) at the onset of song learning. Proc R Soc B Biol Sci. 273:2559-2564.
36. Mann NI, Slater PJB. 1994. What causes young male zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata, to choose their father as song tutor? Anim Behav. 47:671-677.
37. Marler P, Peters S. 1977. Selective vocal learning in a sparrow. Science. 198:519-521.
38. Marler P, Peters S. 1988. The role of song phonology and syntax in vocal learning preferences in the song sparrow, Melospiza melodia. Ethology. 77:125-149.
39. Møller AP, Pomiankowski A. 1993. Why have birds got multiple sexual ornaments. Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 32:167-176.
40. Naguib M, Nemitz A, Gil D. 2006. Maternal developmental stress reduces reproductive success of female offspring in zebra finches. Proc R Soc B Biol Sci. 273:1901-1905.
41. Naguib M, Riebel K, Marzal A, Gil D. 2004. Nestling immunocompetence and testosterone covary with brood size in a songbird. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 271:833-838.
42. Nakagawa S. 2004. A farewell to Bonferroni: the problems of low statistical power and publication bias. Behav Ecol. 15:1044-1045.
43. Nowicki S, Hasselquist D, Bensch S, Peters S. 2000. Nestling growth and song repertoire size in great reed warblers: evidence for song learning as an indicator mechanism in mate choice. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 267:2419-2424.
44. Nowicki S, Peters S, Podos J. 1998. Song learning, early nutrition and sexual selection in songbirds. Am Zool. 38:179-190.
45. Nowicki S, Peters S, Searcy WA, Clayton C. 1999. The development of within-song type variation in song sparrows. Anim Behav. 57: 1257-1264.
46. Nowicki S, Searcy WA, Peters S. 2002. Brain development, song learning and mate choice in birds: a review and experimental test of the "nutritional stress hypothesis. J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol. 188:1003-1014.
47. Oberweger K, Goller F. 2001. The metabolic cost of birdsong production. J Exp Biol. 204:3379-3388.
48. Okanoya K. 2004. Song syntax in Bengalese finches: proximate and ultimate analyses. Adv Study Behav. 34:297-346.
49. Podos J, Peters S, Nowicki S. 2004. Calibration of song learning targets during vocal ontogeny in swamp sparrows, Melospiza georgiana. Anim Behav. 68:929-940.
50. Price PH. 1979. Developmental determinants of structure in zebra finch song. J Comp Physiol Psychol. 93:260-277.
51. Pytte CL, Gerson M, Miller J, Kirn JR. 2007. Increasing stereotypy in adult zebra finch song correlates with a declining rate of adult neurogenesis. Dev Neurobiol. 67:1699-1720.
52. Rehsteiner U, Geisser H, Reyer HU. 1998. Singing and mating success in water pipits: one specific song element makes all the difference. Anim Behav. 55:1471-1481.
53. Riebel K. 2003a. Developmental influences on auditory perception in female zebra finches - is there a sensitive phase for song preference learning? Anim Biol. 53:73-87.
54. Riebel K. 2003b. The "mute" sex revisited: vocal production and perception learning in female songbirds. Adv Study Behav. 33:49-86.
55. Riebel K, Gil D, Naguib M. Forthcoming. Culture and condition: developmental causes of variation in mating preferences in female zebra finches. Anim Behav.
56. Riebel K, Slater PJB. 1998. Testing female chaffinch song preferences by operant conditioning. Anim Behav. 56:1443-1453.
57. Ritchie GRS, Kirby S, Hawkey DJC. 2008. Song learning as an indicator mechanism: modelling the developmental stress hypothesis. J Theor Biol. 251:570-583.
58. Rose GJ, Goller F, Gritton HJ, Plamondon SL, Baugh AT, Cooper BG. 2004. Species-typical songs in white-crowned sparrows tutored with only phrase pairs. Nature. 432:753-758.
59. Rosnow RL, Rosenthal R. 1996. Computing contrasts, effect sizes and counternulls on other people's published data: general procedures for research consumers. Psychol Methods. 1:331-340.
60. Rowe L, Houle D. 1996. The lek paradox and the capture of genetic variance by condition dependent traits. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 263:1415-1421.
61. Scharff C, Nottebohm F. 1991. A comparative study of the behavioral deficits following lesions of various parts of the zebra finch song system: implications for vocal learning. J Neurosci. 11:2896-2913.
62. Searcy WA, Nowicki S. 2005. The evolution of animal communication: reliability and deception in signaling systems. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
63. Searcy WA, Yasukawa K. 1996. Song and female choice. In: Kroodsma DE, Miller EH, editors. Ecology and evolution of acoustic communication in birds. Ithaca (NY): Comstock/Cornell Publishing Associates. p. 454-473.
64. Siegel S, Castellan NJJ. 1988. Nonparametric statistics for the behavioral sciences. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company.
65. Slater PJB. 1989. Bird song learning - causes and consequences. Ethol Ecol Evol. 1:19-46.
66. Slater PJB, Eales LA, Clayton NS. 1988. Song learning in zebra finches: progress and prospects. Adv Study Behav. 18:1-34.
67. Slater PJB, Mann NI. 1990. Do male zebra finches learn their fathers' songs? Trends Ecol Evol. 5:415-417.
68. Soha JA, Marler P. 2001. Vocal syntax development in the whitecrowned sparrow (Zonotrichia leucophrys). J Comp Psychol. 115: 172-180.
69. Sokal RR, Rohlf FJ. 1995. Biometry: the principles and practice of statistics in biological research. 3rd ed. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company.
70. Soma M, Takahasi M, Ikebuchi M, Yamada H, Suzuki M, Hasegawa T, Okanoya K. 2006. Early rearing conditions affect the development of body size and song in Bengalese finches. Ethology. 112: 1071-1078.
71. Sossinka R, Böhner J. 1980. Song types in the zebra finch Poephila guttata castanotis. Z Tierpsychol. 53:123-132.
72. Spencer KA, Buchanan KL, Goldsmith AR, Catchpole CK. 2003. Song as an honest signal of developmental stress in the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata). Horm Behav. 44:132-139.
73. Spencer KA, Buchanan KL, Goldsmith AR, Catchpole CK. 2004. Developmental stress, social rank and song complexity in the European starling (Stunus vulgaris). Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 271: S121-S123.
74. Spencer KA, Buchanan KL, Leitner S, Goldsmith AR, Catchpole CK. 2005a. Parasites affect song complexity and neural development in a songbird. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 272:2037-2043.
75. Spencer KA, Wimpenny JH, Buchanan KL, Lovell PG, Goldsmith AR, Catchpole CK. 2005b. Developmental stress affects the attractiveness of male song and female choice in the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata). Behav Ecol Sociobiol. 58:423-428.
76. Sturdy CB, Phillmore LS, Weisman RG. 1999. Note types, harmonic structure and note order in the songs of zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). J Comp Psychol. 113:194-203.
77. Tchernichovski O, Lints T, Mitra PP, Nottebohm F. 1999. Vocal imitation in zebra finches is inversely related to model abundance. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 96:12901-12904.
78. Tchernichovski O, Nottebohm F. 1998. Social inhibition of song imitation among sibling male zebra finches. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 95:8951-8956.
79. ten Cate C, Slabbekoorn H, Ballintijn MR. 2002. Birdsong and malemale competition: causes and consequences of vocal variability in the collared dove (Streptopelia decaocto). Adv Study Behav. 31:31-75.
80. ten Cate C, Slater PJB. 1991. Song learning in zebra finches - how are elements from two tutors integrated. Anim Behav. 42:150-152.
81. Vallet E, Beme I, Kreutzer M. 1998. Two-note syllables in canary songs elicit high levels of sexual display. Anim Behav. 55:291-297.
82. Verhulst S, Holveck MJ, Riebel K. 2006. Long-term effects of manipulated natal brood size on metabolic rate in zebra finches. Biol Lett. 2:478-480.
83. Verzijden MN, Etman E, van Heijningen C, van der Linden M, ten Cate C. 2007. Song discrimination learning in zebra finches induces highly divergent responses to novel songs. Proc R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 274:295-301.
84. Williams H. 1990. Models for song learning in the zebra finch - fathers or others. Anim Behav. 39:745-757.
85. Williams H. 2004. Birdsong and singing behavior. Ann NY Acad Sci. 1016:1-30.
86. Williams H, Cynx J, Nottebohm F. 1989. Timber control in zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) song syllables. J Comp Psychol. 103:366-380.
87. Williams H, Staples K. 1992. Syllable chunking in zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) song. J Comp Psychol. 106:278-286.
88. Wingfield JC. 1994. Modulation of the adrenocortical response to stress in birds. In: Davey K, Peter R, Tobey S, editors. Perspectives in endocrinology. Ottawa (Canada): National Research Council of Canada. p. 520-528.
89. Zahavi A. 1975. Mate selection - selection for a handicap. J Theor Biol. 53:205-214.
90. Zann R. 1993. Variation in song structure within and among populations of Australian zebra finches. Auk. 110:716-726.
91. Zann R, Cash E. 2007. Developmental stress impairs song complexity but not learning accuracy in non-domesticated zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata). Behav Ecol Sociobiol. doi: 10.1007/s00265-007-0467-2.
92. Zann RA. 1996. The zebra finch: a synthesis of field and laboratory studies. New York: Oxford University Press.