We find that in the duet-initiating bird, the onset of the partner's contribution to the duet triggers a change in rhythm in the periodic neural discharges that are exclusively locked to the initiating bird's own vocalizations. Here we investigate the neural basis of vocal duetting behavior by using an approach that enables simultaneous recordings of individual vocalizations and multiunit vocal premotor activity in songbird pairs ranging freely in their natural habitat. The neural mechanisms that enable rhythmic interindividual coordination of motor actions are unknown. Many organisms coordinate rhythmic motor actions with those of a partner to generate cooperative social behavior such as duet singing. Notably, our analysis of correlated evolution suggests that extreme syllable and song repertoire sizes drive the evolution of adult song plasticity or stability, providing novel evidence that sexual selection may indirectly influence open- versus closed-ended learning. Song plasticity appears to drive bi-directional transitions between monogamous and polygynous social mating systems. Across 67 species, we found that lineages with adult song plasticity show directional evolution toward increased syllable and song repertoires, while several other song characteristics evolved faster, but in a non-directional manner. Here, we compiled data about song plasticity, song characteristics, and mating system and then examined evolutionary interactions between these traits. It remains unknown whether the strength of sexual selection on song characteristics, such as repertoire size, affects adult song plasticity, or whether adult song plasticity affects song evolution. Some oscine songbird species modify their songs throughout their lives (‘adult song plasticity’ or ‘open-ended learning’), while others crystallize their songs around sexual maturity. This study provides the first evidence that song discrimination at the onset of song learning is robust to the presence of closely related heterospecifics in nature, which may be an important adaptation in sympatry between potentially interbreeding taxa. However, although many songbirds hear and respond to acoustic signals before fledging, golden-crowned sparrow nestlings that heard different amounts of heterospecific song did not behave differently in response to heterospecific playbacks. We characterized the amount of each species' song audible in golden-crowned sparrow nests and showed that even in a relatively small area, the ratio of heterospecific to conspecific song exposure varies widely. We then asked whether natural exposure to more frequent or louder heterospecific song explained any variation in golden-crowned nestling response to heterospecific song playbacks. In a population where sister species, golden-crowned and white-crowned sparrows, breed syntopically, we found that nestlings discriminate between heterospecific and conspecific song playbacks prior to the onset of song memorization.
Thus, it remains unknown whether natural variation in acoustic exposure prior to song learning affects the template for recognition.
Because birds are capable of hearing birdsong very early in life, early exposure to song could plausibly affect recognition of appropriate models however, this idea conflicts with the traditional view that song learning occurs only after a bird leaves the nest.
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Young songbirds face a challenging task: how to recognize and selectively learn only their own species' song, often during a time-limited window. Oscine songbirds are an ideal system for investigating how early experience affects behavior.
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