scholarly journals Contact calls in woodpeckers are individually distinctive, show significant sex differences and enable mate recognition

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ewa Węgrzyn ◽  
Wiktor Węgrzyn ◽  
Konrad Leniowski
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Vocal Communication ◽  
Mate Recognition ◽  
Acoustic Parameter ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Contact Call ◽  
Census Methods ◽  
Contact Calls ◽  
Acoustic Analyses ◽  
Middle Spotted Woodpecker

AbstractVocal communication of woodpeckers has been relatively little studied so far, mostly because majority of species use drumming to communicate. Our recent study on the Middle Spotted Woodpecker revealed that a call which is specific for floaters is individually distinctive and functions as a vocal signature of unpaired individuals. The aim of the current study is to investigate whether a contact call of paired territory owners of the same species enables discrimination of individuals and their sex. Acoustic analyses revealed that the call is individually distinctive and experimental approach confirmed that woodpeckers are able to distinguish between a contact call of their partner and a stranger. We also found that the contact call shows significant sex differences. Interestingly, the acoustic parameter enabling sex identification is different than the parameters coding individual variability of the call. The design of a call so that its first part would code the identity of an individual and the second part would code its sex presents an effective and fine-tuned communication system. The results of our study also suggest that the contact call of paired Middle Spotted Woodpeckers may be useful for conservation biologists as a tool supporting other census methods.

scholarly journals Vocal repertoire of the New Zealand kea parrot Nestor notabilis

2012 ◽  
Vol 58 (5) ◽  
pp. 727-740 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raoul Schwing ◽  
Stuart Parsons ◽  
Ximena J. Nelson
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Cohesion ◽  
Communication System ◽  
Vocal Communication ◽  
Vocal Repertoire ◽  
Contact Call ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Call Type ◽  
Cognitive Studies ◽  
Contact Calls

Abstract The unique alpine-living kea parrot Nestor notabilis has been the focus of numerous cognitive studies, but its communication system has so far been largely neglected. We examined 2,884 calls recorded in New Zealand’s Southern Alps. Based on audio and visual spectrographic differences, these calls were categorised into seven distinct call types: the non-oscillating ‘screech’ contact call and ‘mew’; and the oscillating ‘trill’, ‘chatter’, ‘warble’ and ‘whistle’; and a hybrid ‘screech-trill’. Most of these calls contained aspects that were individually unique, in addition to potentially encoding for an individual’s sex and age. Additionally, for each recording, the sender’s previous and next calls were noted, as well as any response given by conspecifics. We found that the previous and next calls made by the sender were most often of the same type, and that the next most likely preceding and/or following call type was the screech call, a contact call which sounds like the ‘kee-ah’ from which the bird’s name derives. As a social bird capable of covering large distances over visually obstructive terrain, long distance contact calls may be of considerable importance for social cohesion. Contact calls allow kea to locate conspecifics and congregate in temporary groups for social activities. The most likely response to any given call was a screech, usually followed by the same type of call as the initial call made by the sender, although responses differed depending on the age of the caller. The exception was the warble, the kea’s play call, to which the most likely response was another warble. Being the most common call type, as well as the default response to another call, it appears that the ‘contagious’ screech contact call plays a central role in kea vocal communication and social cohesion.

scholarly journals Geographic Variation in Contact Calls of Feral North American Populations of the Monk Parakeet

The Condor ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 109 (2) ◽  
pp. 389-398 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susannah C. Buhrman-Deever ◽  
Amy R. Rappaport ◽  
Jack W. Bradbury
Keyword(s):  
Geographic Variation ◽  
Learning Preferences ◽  
Founder Effects ◽  
Contact Call ◽  
Isolated Populations ◽  
Monk Parakeet ◽  
Call Structure ◽  
Myiopsitta Monachus ◽  
Limited Dispersal ◽  
Contact Calls

Abstract Introduced feral populations offer a unique opportunity to study the effects of social interaction and founder effects on the development of geographic variation in learned vocalizations. Introduced populations of Monk Parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus) have been growing in number since the 1970s, with a mixture of isolated and potentially interacting populations. We surveyed diversity in contact calls of Monk Parakeet populations in Connecticut, Texas, Florida, and Louisiana. Contact call structure differed significantly among the isolated populations in each state. Contact call structure also differed significantly among potentially interacting nest colonies in coastal Connecticut, and these differences did not follow a geographic gradient. Limited dispersal distances, founder effects, and social learning preferences may play a role in call structure differences.

Individual variability and sex differences in conditioned pain modulation and the impact of resilience, and conditioning stimulus pain unpleasantness and salience

Pain ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol Publish Ahead of Print ◽  
Author(s):  
Shahrzad Firouzian ◽  
Natalie R. Osborne ◽  
Joshua C. Cheng ◽  
Junseok A. Kim ◽  
Rachael L. Bosma ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Conditioning Stimulus ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Pain Modulation ◽  
Conditioned Pain Modulation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Pain Unpleasantness

Male courtship displays and vocal communication in the polygynous bat Carollia perspicillata

Behaviour ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 151 (6) ◽  
pp. 781-798 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirjam Knörnschild ◽  
Marion Feifel ◽  
Elisabeth K.V. Kalko
Keyword(s):  
Vocal Communication ◽  
Mate Recognition ◽  
Courtship Behaviour ◽  
Male Courtship ◽  
Courtship Display ◽  
Carollia Perspicillata ◽  
Fruit Bat ◽  
Distress Calls ◽  
Individual Signature ◽  
Courtship Displays

Male courtship behaviour towards choosy females often comprises elaborate displays that address multiple sensory channels. In bats, detailed quantitative descriptions of multimodal courtship displays are still fairly scarce, despite the taxon’s speciose nature. We studied male courtship behaviour in a polygynous Neotropical bat, Seba’s short-tailed fruit bat Carollia perspicillata, by monitoring harem males in a captive colony. Courting male C. perspicillata performed stereotypic tactile, visual and acoustic displays. A courtship sequence, directed at one female at a time, lasted up to 120 s. During courtship, males approached females by brachiating or flying, hovered in front of them, pursued them on the wing, sniffed them and repeatedly poked the females with one or both folded wings; the latter behaviour was the most conspicuous male courtship display. Immediately before copulation, males wrapped their wings around the females and bit their necks. As acoustic display, courting male C. perspicillata produced highly variable, monosyllabic courtship trills. The species’ vocal repertoire consisted of ten different social vocalisation types, three for benign interactions (courtship trills, wobbles, isolation calls), four for aggressive encounters (aggressive trills, down-sweeps, warbles, distress calls) and the remaining three for unknown behavioural contexts (V-shaped calls, flat down-sweeps, hooks). Courtship trills and aggressive trills were exclusively produced by males. We measured 245 courtship trills of five males and found statistical evidence for a strong individual signature which has the potential to facilitate female choice, mate recognition or neighbour–stranger recognition among male competitors.

Disfluencies of Normally Speaking Two-Year-Old Children

1981 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 490-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ehud Yairi
Keyword(s):  
Sex Differences ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Large Individual ◽  
Number Of Children ◽  
Verbal Output

The spontaneous verbal output of 33 2-year-old children was analyzed to identify disfluencies. The results showed large individual variability and no significant sex differences. A substantial number of children were disfluent only infrequently. Certain disfluency types not reported in previous studies of 2-year-olds were exhibited by the children. The most prominent disfluency element was repetition of short segments, one syllable or less.

Perceptual mechanism for vocal individual recognition in jungle crows (Corvus macrorhynchos): contact call signature and discrimination

Behaviour ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 147 (8) ◽  
pp. 1051-1072 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
◽  
Keyword(s):  
Long Range ◽  
Individual Recognition ◽  
Complex Societies ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Contact Call ◽  
Discrimination Ability ◽  
Social Lives ◽  
Contact Calls ◽  
Corvus Macrorhynchos ◽  
Perceptual Mechanism

AbstractIn long-range fission-fusion complex societies, individuals are often recognized by audiovocal signals because of long-range propagation. The signature voice system is a well-known mechanism involving both acoustic individuality of a certain call type and discrimination ability. Previous studies on vocal individual recognition of birds have emphasized its involvement in breeding contexts such as mate, parent and offspring, and territorial-neighbour recognition. However, there has been less focus on the recognition of non-breeding flock members despite the socio-ecological demand of such ability in the complex social lives of highly social birds including corvids. Here we report a signature voice system in jungle crows by showing both acoustic individuality of contact calls and discrimination ability. We first performed a discriminant functional analysis on contact ka calls of five crows to examine their discriminatory potential and demonstrate inter-individual distinctions. We next used an operant conditioning to verify the perceptual ability to discriminate non-breeding familiar conspecifics based on ka calls. Four of the five crows successfully transferred discrimination of individual calls to the novel ka calls. Our results provide the first evidence of a signature voice system as a perceptual mechanism for individual recognition of familiar individuals in non-breeding flocks of a highly social crow.

scholarly journals Harnessing natural variation to identify cis regulators of sex-biased gene expression in a multi-strain mouse liver model

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan J. Matthews ◽  
David J Waxman
Keyword(s):  
Gene Expression ◽  
Growth Hormone ◽  
Sex Differences ◽  
Genetic Variants ◽  
Mouse Liver ◽  
Regulatory Elements ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Sex Bias ◽  
Mouse Strains ◽  
Strain Dependent

Sex differences in gene expression are widespread in the liver, where a large number of autosomal factors act in tandem with growth hormone signaling to regulate individual variability of sex differences in liver metabolism and disease. Here, we compare hepatic transcriptomic and epigenetic profiles of mouse strains C57Bl/6J and CAST/EiJ, representing two subspecies separated by 0.5-1 million years of evolution, to elucidate the actions of genetic factors regulating liver sex differences. We identify 144 protein coding genes and 78 lncRNAs showing strain-conserved sex bias; many have gene ontologies relevant to liver function, are more highly liver-specific and show greater sex bias, and are more proximally regulated than genes whose sex bias is strain-dependent. The strain-conserved genes include key growth hormone-dependent transcriptional regulators of liver sex bias; however, three other transcription factors, Trim24 , Tox , and Zfp809, lose sex-biased expression in CAST/EiJ mouse liver. To elucidate these strain specificities in expression, we characterized the strain-dependence of sex-biased chromatin opening and enhancer marks at cis regulatory elements (CREs) within expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) regulating liver sex-biased genes. Strikingly, 208 of 286 eQTLs with strain-specific, sex-differential effects on expression were associated with a complete gain, loss, or reversal of expression sex differences between strains. Moreover, 166 of the 286 eQTLs were linked to the strain-specific gain or loss of localized sex-biased CREs. Remarkably, a subset of these CREs lacked strain-specific genetic variants yet showed coordinated, strain-dependent sex-biased epigenetic regulation. Thus, we directly link hundreds of strain-specific genetic variants to the high variability in CRE activity and expression of sex-biased genes, and uncover underlying genetically-determined epigenetic states controlling liver sex bias in genetically diverse mouse populations.

scholarly journals Vocalization Analyses of Nocturnal Arboreal Mammals of the Taita Hills, Kenya

Diversity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 473
Author(s):  
Hanna Rosti ◽  
Henry Pihlström ◽  
Simon Bearder ◽  
Petri Pellikka ◽  
Jouko Rikkinen
Keyword(s):  
Cloud Forest ◽  
Contact Call ◽  
Mammal Species ◽  
Montane Forests ◽  
Forest Patches ◽  
Otolemur Garnettii ◽  
Loud Calls ◽  
Call Structure ◽  
Taita Hills ◽  
Contact Calls

Three poorly known nocturnal mammal species from the montane forests of the Taita Hills in Kenya, were studied via vocalization analysis. Here, their acoustic behaviour is described. The studied animals were the tree hyrax (Dendrohyrax sp.), the small-eared greater galago (Otolemur garnettii), and the dwarf galago (Paragalago sp.). High-quality loud calls were analysed using RAVEN PRO, and compared to calls of presumed closest relatives. Our findings include the first detailed descriptions of tree hyrax songs. Moreover, our results suggest that the tree hyrax of Taita Hills may be a taxon new to science, as it produces a characteristic call, the ‘strangled thwack’, not previously known from other Dendrohyrax populations. Our data confirms that the small-eared greater galago subspecies living in the Taita Hills is Otolemur garnettii lasiotis. The loud calls of the elusive Taita Hills dwarf galago closely resemble those of the Kenya coast dwarf galago (Paragalago cocos). Thus, the population in the Taita Hills probably belongs to this species. The Taita Hills dwarf galagos are geographically isolated from other dwarf galago populations, and live in montane cloud forest, which is an unusual habitat for P. cocos. Intriguingly, two dwarf galago subpopulations living in separate forest patches in the Taita Hills, Ngangao and Mbololo, have clearly different contact calls. The Paragalagos in Mbololo Forest may represent a population of P. cocos with a derived call repertoire, or, alternatively, they may actually be mountain dwarf galagos (P. orinus). Hence, differences in habitat, behaviour, and contact call structure suggest that there may be two different Paragalago species in the montane forests of the Taita Hills.

The cessation of contact calls does not provoke or modulate alarm behaviour in a social passerine

Behaviour ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Estelle Meaux ◽  
Chao He ◽  
Luying Qin ◽  
Eben Goodale
Keyword(s):  
Social Factors ◽  
Group Living ◽  
Alarm Call ◽  
Alarm Calls ◽  
Playback Experiments ◽  
Contact Call ◽  
Alarm Calling ◽  
Alarm Behaviour ◽  
Contact Calls ◽  
Crucial Information

Abstract Vocalizations that signal predation risk such as alarm calls provide crucial information for the survival of group-living individuals. However, alarm calling may attract the predator’s attention and, to avoid this cost, animals can opt for alternative strategies to indicate danger, such as ‘adaptive silence’, which is the cessation of vocalizations. We investigate here whether abrupt contact call cessation would provoke alarm responses, or would reinforce the signal given by an alarm call. In an aviary setting, we conducted playback experiments with a group-living passerine, the Swinhoe’s white-eye, Zosterops simplex. We found that birds did not respond to a sudden call cessation, nor did they have a stronger response to alarm calls followed by silence than to alarm calls followed by contact calls. Confirming previous work investigating contact call rate, it appears that in this species contact calls encode information about social factors but not environmental conditions.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document