Titel
Phylogenetic signal in the vocalizations of vocal learning and vocal non-learning birds
Abstract
Some animal vocalizations develop reliably in the absence of relevant experience, but an intriguing subset of animal vocalizations is learned: they require acoustic models during ontogeny in order to develop, and the learner's vocal output reflects those models. To what extent do such learned vocalizations reflect phylogeny? We compared the degree to which phylogenetic signal is present in vocal signals from a wide taxonomic range of birds, including both vocal learners (songbirds) and vocal non-learners. We used publically available molecular phylogenies and developed methods to analyse spectral and temporal features in a carefully curated collection of high-quality recordings of bird songs and bird calls, to yield acoustic distance measures. Our methods were initially developed using pairs of closely related North American and European bird species, and then applied to a non-overlapping random stratified sample of European birds. We found strong similarity in acoustic and genetic distances, which manifested itself as a significant phylogenetic signal, in both samples. In songbirds, both learned song and (mostly) unlearned calls allowed reconstruction of phylogenetic trees nearly isomorphic to the phylogenetic trees derived from genetic analysis. We conclude that phylogeny and inheritance constrain vocal structure to a surprising degree, even in learned birdsong.
Stichwort
evolution of communicationvocal learningbirdsongphylogenetic signalbioacoustics
Objekt-Typ
Sprache
Englisch [eng]
Persistent identifier
Erschienen in
Titel
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Band
376
Ausgabe
1836
ISSN
0962-8436
Erscheinungsdatum
2021
Publication
The Royal Society
Projekt
Kod / Identifikator
W1262-B29
Erscheinungsdatum
2021
Zugänglichkeit
Rechteangabe
© 2021 The Authors

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