Functional neurogenomic responses to acoustic threats, including a heterospecific referential alarm call and its referent, in the auditory forebrain of red-winged blackbirds.

ABSTRACT: In animal communication, functionally referential alarm calls elicit the same behavioral responses as their referents, despite their typically distinct bioacoustic traits. Yet the auditory forebrain in at least one songbird species, the black-capped chickadee Poecile atricapillus, responds similarly to threat calls and their referent predatory owl calls, as assessed by immediate early gene responses in the secondary auditory forebrain nuclei. Whether and where in the brain such perceptual and cognitive equivalence is processed remains to be understood in most other avian systems. Here, we studied the functional neurogenomic (non-) equivalence of acoustic threat stimuli perception by the red-winged blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus in response to the actual calls of the obligate brood parasitic

SUBMITTER: Antonson ND 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10810909 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature