Forebrain nuclei linked to woodpecker territorial drum displays mirror those that enable vocal learning in songbirds.

ABSTRACT: Vocal learning is thought to have evolved in 3 orders of birds (songbirds, parrots, and hummingbirds), with each showing similar brain regions that have comparable gene expression specializations relative to the surrounding forebrain motor circuitry. Here, we searched for signatures of these same gene expression specializations in previously uncharacterized brains of 7 assumed vocal non-learning bird lineages across the early branches of the avian family tree. Our findings using a conserved marker for the song system found little evidence of specializations in these taxa, except for woodpeckers. Instead, woodpeckers possessed forebrain regions that were anatomically similar to the pallial song nuclei of vocal learning birds. Field studies of free-living downy woodpeckers revealed that thes

SUBMITTER: Schuppe ER 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9488818 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature