Acoustic communication and sound degradation: how do the individual signatures of male and female zebra finch calls transmit over distance?

ABSTRACT:

Background

Assessing the active space of the various types of information encoded by songbirds' vocalizations is important to address questions related to species ecology (e.g. spacing of individuals), as well as social behavior (e.g. territorial and/or mating strategies). Up to now, most of the previous studies have investigated the degradation of species-specific related information (species identity), and there is a gap of knowledge of how finer-grained information (e.g. individual identity) can transmit through the environment. Here we studied how the individual signature coded in the zebra finch long distance contact call degrades with propagation.

Methodology

We performed sound transmission experiments of zebra finches' distance calls at various propagation distances.

SUBMITTER: Mouterde SC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4111290 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature