Alcami Pepe, Ma Shouwen, Gahr Manfred
Department of Behavioural Neurobiology, Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, Seewiesen, Germany.
Division of Neurobiology, Faculty of Biology, LMU Munich, Martinsried, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2025 Mar 5;15:1468782. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1468782. eCollection 2024.
Singing by songbirds is a sexually selected, complex motor skill that is learned during juvenile development. In open-ended learners, adult songs are plastic, that is, birds retain the ability to change their songs. In some seasonal open-ended learners, including canaries, songs become stable at the onset of each breeding season. However, whether context-dependent plasticity of songs occurs during the breeding season remains elusive. We used custom-made telemetric backpack sound recording technology in five groups of canaries to monitor song-based communication from three males in competition for females during the breeding season. This allowed us to record each male's songs during social interactions. We show that canaries proactively overlap their songs in time during aggressive vocal exchanges that we call duels. Birds that engage in duels take leader or follower roles on a song-to-song basis. When a male canary leads a duel, his songs last longer relative to his solo songs, increasing the chance to outlast the follower's song. Moreover, the durations of leader and follower songs in duels are correlated, suggesting an interactive online adjustment of their songs. Remarkably, in each group, only two out of the three males extensively engage in duels whereas the third canary rarely participates. Overall, our findings reveal context-dependent behavioral flexibility of male-directed canary song signaling, characterized by a moment-to-moment plasticity different from the slow, well-studied seasonal plasticity. By their context-dependent modulation of the relative timing and duration of vocal exchanges, canary duels offer a window into the social cognitive abilities of songbirds.
鸣禽唱歌是一种通过性选择的复杂运动技能，在幼年期发育过程中习得。对于开放式学习者而言，成年歌曲具有可塑性，也就是说，鸟类保留了改变其歌声的能力。在一些季节性开放式学习者中，包括金丝雀，歌曲在每个繁殖季节开始时会变得稳定。然而，在繁殖季节期间，歌曲是否存在依赖于环境的可塑性仍然不清楚。我们在五组金丝雀中使用定制的遥测背包录音技术，在繁殖季节监测三只雄性金丝雀为争夺雌性而进行的基于歌声的交流。这使我们能够记录每只雄性在社交互动中的歌声。我们发现，在我们称为决斗的攻击性声音交流中，金丝雀会主动使它们的歌声在时间上重叠。参与决斗的鸟类在每首歌的基础上扮演领导者或跟随者的角色。当一只雄性金丝雀引领一场决斗时，相对于它单独唱歌时，它唱的时间更长，增加了比跟随者唱得久的机会。此外，决斗中领导者和跟随者歌声的时长是相关的，这表明它们的歌声存在交互式的实时调整。值得注意的是，在每组中，三只雄性中只有两只广泛参与决斗，而第三只金丝雀很少参与。总体而言，我们的研究结果揭示了雄性金丝雀歌声信号的依赖于环境的行为灵活性，其特点是瞬间可塑性，不同于经过充分研究的缓慢的季节性可塑性。通过它们对声音交流的相对时间和时长的依赖于环境的调节，金丝雀决斗为了解鸣禽的社会认知能力提供了一个窗口。
