The Role of Dawn Song in Tree Swallows and its Place in the Diversity of Oscine Song Learning

Taft, Benjamin Nichols

Publication:
The Role of Dawn Song in Tree Swallows and its Place in the Diversity of Oscine Song Learning

dc.contributor.advisor	Jeffrey Podos
dc.contributor.advisor	Ethan D. Clotfelter
dc.contributor.advisor	Elizabeth M. Jakob
dc.contributor.author	Taft, Benjamin Nichols
dc.contributor.department	University of Massachusetts Amherst
dc.date	2023-09-23T03:36:53.000
dc.date.accessioned	2024-04-26T19:48:33Z
dc.date.available	2024-04-26T19:48:33Z
dc.date.issued	2011-02-01
dc.description.abstract	Aspects of the behavioral ecology of bird song learning are examined in three parts. First, an approach from image analysis is extended to allow rapid, quantitative description of animal sounds. In this approach, sounds are summarized as sets of time-frequency-amplitude landmarks. Second, the role of dawn song in tree swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) breeding biology is examined. Song syllable sharing among tree swallows was found to be high among birds nesting at the same site, but sharing was lower between birds nesting at different sites. When birds nested at different sites, the distance between those sites was not related to the amount of difference between the birds' syllable repertoire compositions. All tree swallow song repertoires did not remain constant during the breeding season; some individuals added new syllable types, others modified existing types. Singing performance was correlated with reproductive success in tree swallows: males that sang more precise repetitions of their syllable types attracted more extra-pair mates. Furthermore, pairwise comparisons between the social and genetic fathers of extra-pair young found that the genetic fathers averaged higher syllable consistency than the cuckolded males. Third, a comparative study of the phylogenetic distribution of vocal mimicry examined the evolutionary history of song learning in oscine passerines. Vocal mimicry, defined as the habitual incorporation of heterospecific sounds into song displays, was found in twenty-eight separate clades of oscines. These clades were found in every major oscine superfamily, but made up a higher proportion of daughter groups within the most ancient superfamilies of oscines. The most plesiomorphic lineages of oscines were found to contain many highly-skilled mimics. These observations support the hypothesis that the course of song learning in oscines has run repeatedly from permissive learning rules that permit mimicry to restrictive learning rules that limit mimicry.
dc.description.degree	Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
dc.description.department	Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
dc.identifier.doi	https://doi.org/10.7275/1929999
dc.identifier.uri	https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14394/38794
dc.relation.url	https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1360&context=open_access_dissertations&unstamped=1
dc.source.status	published
dc.subject	acoustic landmarks
dc.subject	bird song
dc.subject	mimicry
dc.subject	sexual selection
dc.subject	Tachycineta bicolor
dc.subject	vocal learning
dc.subject	Biology
dc.subject	Other Cell and Developmental Biology
dc.title	The Role of Dawn Song in Tree Swallows and its Place in the Diversity of Oscine Song Learning
dc.type	dissertation
dc.type	article
dc.type	dissertation
digcom.contributor.author	Taft, Benjamin Nichols
digcom.identifier	open_access_dissertations/357
digcom.identifier.contextkey	1929999
digcom.identifier.submissionpath	open_access_dissertations/357
dspace.entity.type	Publication