Price JJ
Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Anim Behav. 1999 Feb;57(2):483-492. doi: 10.1006/anbe.1998.1018.
Males of the cooperatively breeding stripe-backed wren Campylorhynchus nuchalis, learn repertoires of stereotyped calls (termed WAY calls) from older male relatives. As a result, these vocalizations are normally specific to patrilineal family groups but are sometimes shared by male relatives in different groups. To determine whether or not this species can recognize the calls of different family groups, I performed playback experiments with individual call types recorded from males of known social and genealogical relationships. Subjects discriminated between the calls of unrelated neighbouring groups and unfamiliar groups, and they discriminated both of these from calls of their own groups. However, subjects failed to distinguish calls of males in other groups from calls of their own groups when these males were members of the same patriline. These results indicate that stripe-backed wrens can discriminate between repertoires of these calls that match or differ from their own. Consequently, they can recognize members of their patriline, not just members of their immediate group. These vocalizations probably provide a useful mechanism for recognizing group membership in this species and might also provide a mechanism for recognizing unfamiliar relatives in other groups. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
合作繁殖的纹背鹪鹩（Campylorhynchus nuchalis）雄性会从年长的雄性亲属那里学习固定的叫声曲目（称为WAY叫声）。因此，这些发声通常特定于父系家族群体，但有时不同群体中的雄性亲属也会共享。为了确定该物种是否能够识别不同家族群体的叫声，我用从已知社会和谱系关系的雄性个体记录的单个叫声类型进行了回放实验。实验对象能够区分无关的相邻群体和陌生群体的叫声，并且能将这两类叫声与自己群体的叫声区分开来。然而，当其他群体中的雄性与实验对象属于同一父系时，实验对象无法区分这些雄性的叫声与自己群体的叫声。这些结果表明，纹背鹪鹩能够区分与自己的叫声曲目匹配或不同的这些叫声。因此，它们能够识别自己父系的成员，而不仅仅是自己直接群体的成员。这些发声可能为识别该物种中的群体成员提供了一种有用的机制，也可能为识别其他群体中不熟悉的亲属提供了一种机制。版权所有1999动物行为研究协会。
