Song trait similarity in great tits varies with social structure.

ABSTRACT: For many animals, long-range signalling is essential to maintain contact with conspecifics. In territorial species, individuals often have to balance signalling towards unfamiliar potential competitors (to solely broadcast territory ownership) with signalling towards familiar immediate neighbours (to also maintain so-called "dear enemy" relations). Hence, to understand how signals evolve due to these multilevel relationships, it is important to understand how general signal traits vary in relation to the overall social environment. For many territorial songbirds dawn is a key signalling period, with several neighbouring individuals singing simultaneously without immediate conflict. In this study we tested whether sharing a territory boundary, rather than spatial proximity, is related to si

SUBMITTER: Snijders L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4333210 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature