TY - JOUR
T1 - Testing the function of song-matching in birds
T2 - Responses of eastern male song sparrows Melospiza melodia to partial song-matching
AU - Anderson, Rindy C.
AU - Searcy, William A.
AU - Nowicki, Stephen
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank the Pennsylvania Game Commission and Pymatuning State Park for access to study sites, and the Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology, University of Pittsburgh, for logistical support and use of facilities. We thank David Shutler and three anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript. Financial support was provided by grants from the National Science Foundation to W.A.S. (IBN-0315566) and to S.N. (IBN-0315377).
PY - 2008/3/1
Y1 - 2008/3/1
N2 - Song-matching has been hypothesized to be a signal of aggressive intentions whereby matching an opponent signals that the singer is likely to attack. Theory predicts that an aggressive signal should impose a cost that enforces the signal's reliability. A receiver-dependent cost imposed by the matched bird's aggressive retaliation has been proposed for song-matching. We tested for such a cost for partial song-matching in an eastern population of song sparrows where males lack the shared song types necessary for song type matching, but can perform partial song-matching using shared song segments. We tested aggressive response, as measured by average distance to a playback speaker, to partial-matching songs and non-matching songs. We predicted a stronger aggressive response to partial-matching songs, as has been shown for whole song-matching in western song sparrow populations. The birds in our study responded no differently to partial-matching and non-matching songs. Neither the distance to the playback speaker nor singing responses differed between playback treatments. Our results do not support a receiver-dependent cost to partial song-matching, as would be expected if partial-matching is a direct threat. Instead, we suggest that partial song-matching functions as a signal of attention.
AB - Song-matching has been hypothesized to be a signal of aggressive intentions whereby matching an opponent signals that the singer is likely to attack. Theory predicts that an aggressive signal should impose a cost that enforces the signal's reliability. A receiver-dependent cost imposed by the matched bird's aggressive retaliation has been proposed for song-matching. We tested for such a cost for partial song-matching in an eastern population of song sparrows where males lack the shared song types necessary for song type matching, but can perform partial song-matching using shared song segments. We tested aggressive response, as measured by average distance to a playback speaker, to partial-matching songs and non-matching songs. We predicted a stronger aggressive response to partial-matching songs, as has been shown for whole song-matching in western song sparrow populations. The birds in our study responded no differently to partial-matching and non-matching songs. Neither the distance to the playback speaker nor singing responses differed between playback treatments. Our results do not support a receiver-dependent cost to partial song-matching, as would be expected if partial-matching is a direct threat. Instead, we suggest that partial song-matching functions as a signal of attention.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=38149014843&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=38149014843&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1163/156853908783402876
DO - 10.1163/156853908783402876
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:38149014843
VL - 145
SP - 347
EP - 363
JO - Behaviour
JF - Behaviour
SN - 0005-7959
IS - 3
ER -