How do Social Interactions Affect Song Learning?

It is clear from laboratory studies of song learning that the social interactions that take place between a juvenile and his song tutor are critical for learning. Although field studies of song learning have historically been avoided because of the challenge imposed by following birds throughout their ontogeny, recent developments in technology make this type of study feasible. My thesis research involves radio-tracking young male Song Sparrows (Melospiza melodia) throughout the song learning phase of the first year. Radio tracking juvenile birds will allow me to observe a life stage that has previously been treated as a black box in song learning studies. In particular, these data will allow me to observe (1) how tutors and tutees interact in nature, (2) whether the movement patterns of young birds influence the songs they incorporate into their repertoire, and (3) how social interactions among juveniles affect song learning.

Some Initial Findings...

The bulk of this project is ongoing, and includes a large-scale field project that follows 20 different juvenile males throughout their entire first year of life. We've found a few interesting things from our pilot work so far though. Perhaps one of the most interesting is shown in this map. The map shows telemery observations for several juvenile males during August/September of 2005, with each color representing a different one of our focal birds. The clear pattern is that birds moved back and forth between two different neighborhoods (often daily!). We're still working out the significance of this finding, but it does seem to indicate a bet hedging strategy, perhaps for learning songs in different neighborhoods. Another interesting finding is that birds rarely interact with adult song tutors, suggesting that perhaps overhearing, or eavesdropping is important for song learning.

This summer, we'll know how a juvenile's movement patterns and social interactions affect the songs he learns...stay tuned!

Department of Biology