Hall ML
Division of Botany and Zoology, Australian National University
Anim Behav. 2000 Nov;60(5):667-677. doi: 10.1006/anbe.2000.1517.
Avian duetting is a poorly understood phenomenon despite many hypotheses as to its function. Contrary to the recent view that duetting functions for mate guarding and is a result of conflict between the sexes, Australian magpie-larks, Grallina cyanoleuca, do not use duetting as a paternity guard. I used a playback experiment to investigate the role of antiphonal duetting in territorial defence and pair bond maintenance, two traditional hypotheses about the function of duetting. The experiment showed that, like many nonduetting species, magpie-larks recognize neighbours on the basis of song. It also provided evidence of functional differences between duetting and solo singing which indicate that temporal coordination of song between partners is used to maintain the territory and pair bond. Duets were more threatening territorial signals than solo songs: males initiated more vocalizations in response to playback of duets than playback of solos. Simulated intrusion also caused males and females to approach the speaker together and coordinate more of their vocalizations to form duets. Females did not engage in sex-specific territorial defence, responding equally strongly to playback of male and female song, and maintaining both territory and pair bond by attempting to exclude intruders of either sex. Males initiated more vocalizations in response to playback of male than female song, and their likelihood of duetting appeared to be related more to threats to the pair bond, in particular desertion by their partner. Copyright 2000 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
尽管关于鸟类二重唱的功能有诸多假说，但这一现象仍未得到充分理解。与近期认为二重唱具有配偶守卫功能且是两性冲突结果的观点相反，澳大利亚鹊鹩（Grallina cyanoleuca）并不将二重唱用作亲子关系的保护手段。我通过回放实验来探究呼应式二重唱在领地防御和配偶关系维持中的作用，这是关于二重唱功能的两个传统假说。实验表明，和许多不进行二重唱的物种一样，鹊鹩通过歌声来识别邻居。实验还提供了二重唱和独唱功能差异的证据，这表明配偶之间歌声的时间协调用于维持领地和配偶关系。二重唱比独唱更具威胁性的领地信号：相较于独唱回放，雄性对二重唱回放发出的叫声更多。模拟入侵也会使雄性和雌性一起靠近扬声器，并更协调地发出叫声以形成二重唱。雌性并不参与特定性别的领地防御，对雄性和雌性歌声的回放反应同样强烈，并且通过试图驱逐任何性别的入侵者来维持领地和配偶关系。相较于雌性歌声回放，雄性对雄性歌声回放发出的叫声更多，而且它们二重唱的可能性似乎更多地与配偶关系受到的威胁有关，特别是来自伴侣抛弃的威胁。版权所有2000动物行为研究协会。
