International Research Fellowship Program: Information Content and Signal Function of Song and Bright Plumage in a Wild Bird

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0202704ParkerThe International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.This award will support a twenty-four month research fellowship by Dr. Timothy H. Parker to work with Dr. Benjamin C. Sheldon at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.Bird song is one of the most ubiquitous sounds in nature. In many species, song may act to attract mates, but this possibility has not been well studied. Studying animal behaviors, such as bird song, is important both to our basic knowledge of nature and to our ability to address applied problems of conservation and species management. This project breaks new ground by 1) using experimental manipulations to determine the causes of variation in songs among individuals within a species and 2) integrating the results of the song study with the collaborators' ongoing study of visual (feather) signals and mate attraction in the same population. Thus, this will be the most comprehensive study to date of the relative condition dependence and signaling roles of multiple signals (song and bright feathers) within a single species. The PI and his collaborators will manipulate brood size (add or remove chicks from nests) in a common European bird. This manipulates the provisioning demands on the parents and the food delivered per chick and is thus a proven method for increasing or decreasing condition in both parents and offspring. In the year subsequent to brood manipulations, the PI will record the songs of the fathers of manipulated broods, and the songs of returning males who were reared in manipulated broods. This will be a uniquely thorough assessment of the degree to which different song components contain different information about their bearer's condition. If signal expression (i.e., song) is condition dependent, theory predicts that it can be useful in intra-specific communication. The PI will assess the importance of different aspects of song in determining male access to females and male success in holding a territory. Once again, song and plumage data will be integrated to generate a comprehensive picture of the function of sexual signals in the study species.In addition to Dr. Sheldon, the PI will collaborate with Dr. Simon Griffith. Both of researchers have been involved in some of the most important avian sexual selection research in recent years. The host department is one of the leading institutions in the world for the study of avian field ecology, with a tradition of innovative research extending back over a half a century.