Does song complexity matter in an intra-sexual context in common blackbirds
| Autor: | Hesler, Nana, Sacher, Thomas, Coppack, Timothy, Mundry, Roger, Dabelsteen, Torben |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Rok vydání: | 2008 |
| Zdroj: | Hesler, N, Sacher, T, Coppack, T, Mundry, R & Dabelsteen, T 2008, ' Does song complexity matter in an intra-sexual context in common blackbirds ', Paper presented at European Conference on Behavioural Biology, Dijon, France, 18/07/2008-20/07/2008 . |
| Popis: | Bird song is thought to be subject of both inter- and intra-sexual selection and song complexity a signal of male quality. One aspect of song complexity, repertoire size, correlates with estimates of male quality in several passerine species. The Common Blackbird (Turdus merula) has a large repertoire of different song patterns which are organized in a complex structure without fixed song types. Previous studies found that Blackbirds show large individual differences in repertoire sizes and use these repertoires in both inter- and intra-sexual contexts. In this study we investigate the signal value of repertoire size in Blackbirds in an intra-sexual context with the hypothesis, that males use the repertoire sizes of rivals as a cue to assess their quality. We conducted playback experiments in which we broadcast songs of conspecifics with different repertoire sizes to the test birds. The responses will be discussed in relation to the test birds own repertoire sizes. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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