This led to zebra finches with different combinations of genetic traits (e.g., body size) and culturally acquired traits (e.g., dialect). For this purpose, zebra finch chicks of one population were raised by zebra finch parents from another population. The researchers conducted so-called "cross-fostering" experiments to tease apart the roles of genes and culture in mate choice. Importantly, the new study also shows that these dialects are biologically highly relevant, as they play a key role in mate choice. It appears that there are cryptic dialects in zebra finches, which remained undetected by conventional analysis methods." Foster parents with different dialect and appearance Forstmeier, one of the two lead authors of the study, explains: "We were indeed surprised by this result. When the scientists fed the program with the songs of subsequent generations, the program assigned them to the correct population with remarkable accuracy. To do this, the researchers trained a "Sound Classifier" with the songs of males from four different, separately kept zebra finch populations. However, together with collaborators, their doctoral student Daiping Wang and other members of their research group, Wolfgang Forstmeier and Bart Kempenaers have now been able to detect dialects in zebra finch songs using artificial intelligence. Because of these individual signatures in songs, it has long been assumed that dialect formation is not possible in zebra finches. Each male develops his own little song that he then uses for a lifetime-as if he wanted to communicate his identity, his name. Males also learn their song from conspecifics and only at an early age, but they do this in an individual-specific manner. Zebra finches belong to a third singing type. Each male zebra finch develops his own song Within a region, all males sing their song in the same way, but between regions, songs differ and obvious borders can be identified where two dialects meet. However, such species with “uniformist” song often show variation at a larger geographic scale. They copy the sounds of their conspecifics as closely as possible, and thereby make it easy for anyone to recognize the species. In other species, such as the yellowhammer, males are a lot more stereotypic and uniform. In some of the >5,000 songbird species, the males are real “virtuosos.” Throughout their life, they acquire new sounds and thus can vary their songs accordingly, possibly because this impresses the females the most. Which species is it, and which individual?īy subscribing, you agree to receive email related to Lab Manager content and products. In either case it should be clear from the signal who the sender of the message is. A male’s song may serve to repel a male neighbor, or to attract a female. However, if we want to understand why birds sing, we have to consider that song may have multiple functions. Thus, female zebra finches pay more attention to a cultural trait than to male appearance. They also discovered that these “cryptic dialects” are decisive for the females' choice of mate. However, with the help of an artificial intelligence technique, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology (Biological Intelligence, in foundation), have now been able to show that the songs of four different zebra finch populations differ systematically. Because of this individual-specific song, it was long assumed that dialects do not exist in zebra finches. To stand out in the crowd, each male develops its own unique song. Male zebra finches learn their song by imitating conspecifics.
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