scholarly journals Song repertoires and sensory exploitation: reconsidering the case of the common grackle

1996 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 795-800 ◽  
Author(s):  
DAVID A. GRAY ◽  
JULIE C. HAGELIN
2004 ◽  
Vol 76 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-218 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicole Geberzahn ◽  
Henrike Hultsch

Songbirds are well known for settling their disputes by vocal signals, and their singing plays a dominant role. Most studies on this issue have concentrated on bird species that develop and use small vocal repertoires. In this article we will go farther and focus on examples of how species with large song repertoires make use of their vocal competence. In particular, we will outline the study of interaction rules which have been elucidated by examining time- and pattern-specific relationships between signals exchanged by territorial neighbors. First we present an inquiry into the rules of song learning and development. In birds with large song repertoires, the ontogeny of such rules proceeds along a number of trajectories which help in understanding the often remarkable accomplishments of adult birds. In both approaches, our model species will be the Common Nightingale Luscinia megarhynchos that has been investigated intensively in the field and in the laboratory.


Our Nature ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haimanti Bhattacharya ◽  
J. Cirillo ◽  
D. Todt

Aside from some exceptions, songbird species differ in the structure of their singing and usually also in the size and performance mode their song repertoires. In the past, most studies concentrated on the species specific differences of singing, and thereby contributed to a better understanding of their diversity. In our approach, however, we focussed on the opposite perspective; i.e. we investigated whether and how far songbirds share structural song properties. To have a solid data base we focussed on four species of thrushes which were famous for their large vocal repertoires. The two Asian bird species were Oriental Magpie Robins (Copsychus saularis) and Shama Thrushes (Copsychus malabaricus), the two European species the Common Nightingale (Luscinia megarhynchos) and the Thrush Nightingale (Luscinia luscinia). The latter were incorporated into a sample 40 other European songbird species (Table 1) serving as a framework for our comparative approach (Figure 2, 4). Besides well-known differences among species, our analyses of song material yielded some remarkably similar relationships between structural and functional song properties, which often were shared even by unrelated species. In particular measures of song durations were usually related to song application during vocal interaction. And, individual variation of song duration was mainly a result of differences in syllable repetition within trilled song sections. Although some of these findings were predicted already by former studies (see Todt, 2004), their essentials can be based now on profound data sets of detailed measurement.Keywords: European Thrushes, Asian Thrushes, Copsychus saularis, C. malabaricus, song structure, signal lengths.doi: 10.3126/on.v6i1.1648Our Nature (2008)6:1-14


1978 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 389-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chr. de Vegt

AbstractReduction techniques as applied to astrometric data material tend to split up traditionally into at least two different classes according to the observational technique used, namely transit circle observations and photographic observations. Although it is not realized fully in practice at present, the application of a blockadjustment technique for all kind of catalogue reductions is suggested. The term blockadjustment shall denote in this context the common adjustment of the principal unknowns which are the positions, proper motions and certain reduction parameters modelling the systematic properties of the observational process. Especially for old epoch catalogue data we frequently meet the situation that no independent detailed information on the telescope properties and other instrumental parameters, describing for example the measuring process, is available from special calibration observations or measurements; therefore the adjustment process should be highly self-calibrating, that means: all necessary information has to be extracted from the catalogue data themselves. Successful applications of this concept have been made already in the field of aerial photogrammetry.


Author(s):  
Ben O. Spurlock ◽  
Milton J. Cormier

The phenomenon of bioluminescence has fascinated layman and scientist alike for many centuries. During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries a number of observations were reported on the physiology of bioluminescence in Renilla, the common sea pansy. More recently biochemists have directed their attention to the molecular basis of luminosity in this colonial form. These studies have centered primarily on defining the chemical basis for bioluminescence and its control. It is now established that bioluminescence in Renilla arises due to the luciferase-catalyzed oxidation of luciferin. This results in the creation of a product (oxyluciferin) in an electronic excited state. The transition of oxyluciferin from its excited state to the ground state leads to light emission.


Author(s):  
Ezzatollah Keyhani

Acetylcholinesterase (EC 3.1.1.7) (ACHE) has been localized at cholinergic junctions both in the central nervous system and at the periphery and it functions in neurotransmission. ACHE was also found in other tissues without involvement in neurotransmission, but exhibiting the common property of transporting water and ions. This communication describes intracellular ACHE in mammalian bone marrow and its secretion into the extracellular medium.


Author(s):  
R. Hegerl ◽  
A. Feltynowski ◽  
B. Grill

Till now correlation functions have been used in electron microscopy for two purposes: a) to find the common origin of two micrographs representing the same object, b) to check the optical parameters e. g. the focus. There is a third possibility of application, if all optical parameters are constant during a series of exposures. In this case all differences between the micrographs can only be caused by different noise distributions and by modifications of the object induced by radiation.Because of the electron noise, a discrete bright field image can be considered as a stochastic series Pm,where i denotes the number of the image and m (m = 1,.., M) the image element. Assuming a stable object, the expectation value of Pm would be Ηm for all images. The electron noise can be introduced by addition of stationary, mutual independent random variables nm with zero expectation and the variance. It is possible to treat the modifications of the object as a noise, too.


Author(s):  
Anthony A. Paparo ◽  
Judith A. Murphy

The purpose of this study was to localize the red neuronal pigment in Mytilus edulis and examine its role in the control of lateral ciliary activity in the gill. The visceral ganglia (Vg) in the central nervous system show an over al red pigmentation. Most red pigments examined in squash preps and cryostat sec tions were localized in the neuronal cell bodies and proximal axon regions. Unstained cryostat sections showed highly localized patches of this pigment scattered throughout the cells in the form of dense granular masses about 5-7 um in diameter, with the individual granules ranging from 0.6-1.3 um in diame ter. Tissue stained with Gomori's method for Fe showed bright blue granular masses of about the same size and structure as previously seen in unstained cryostat sections.Thick section microanalysis (Fig.l) confirmed both the localization and presence of Fe in the nerve cell. These nerve cells of the Vg share with other pigmented photosensitive cells the common cytostructural feature of localization of absorbing molecules in intracellular organelles where they are tightly ordered in fine substructures.


Author(s):  
Shaul Barkan

Cooling down solid state detecors, with other different way then liquid Nitrogen, is a goal of many vendors and customers since the invention of these detectors. THe disadvantage of the common way of liquid Nitrogen is first the inavailibility of the LN in many uses (like space military and any other applications that are not done inside a well organize Laboratory). The use of LN also considers as a Labor consumer in addition to the big dewar that has to be added to any detector for storing the LN, the boiling of the LN, may cause microphonics problesm and the refiling of the dewar in many Labs is a complicated process due to inconvenience location of the microscope.In this paper I will show a spectra result of 10mm2 SiLi detector for microanalysis use, cooled by peltier cooler. The peltier cooler has the advantage of non-microphonics and non-labor needed (like adding LN to the dewar).


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