DISSERTATION RESEARCH: The Role of Learning in Duet Development and Sex-specific Repertoire Acquisition in Plain Wrens

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Many animals communicate vocally according to a set of rules. In human conversation for example, individuals avoid overlapping each other, a rule known as "turn taking." Another rule in human conversation, "pair adjacency," dictates that certain responses should follow certain utterances: a greeting should be answered by another greeting, for example, and a question should be followed by an answer. Human conversation is difficult to study because of its complexity, and therefore a need has been recognized for interdisciplinary studies that investigate interaction rules in simpler animal models. This study will address potential biological examples of both turn taking and pair adjacency in a duetting Neotropical bird: the plain wren. This study will be one of the first to address experimentally the development of song in a duetting species and the first to address experimentally the development of the interaction rules that govern duets. Furthermore, this study will support the education of local field guides as well as both Latin and American undergraduates by recruiting them for laboratory and field work.Mated pairs in various songbirds sing together to produce duets. In some species, including the plain wren, the male and female of a pair alternate their songs so rapidly and precisely that it sounds as if a single individual is singing. In many species that duet, again including the plain wren, males and females have repertoires of sex-specific song elements and follow a "duet code" that specifies which syllable of one sex is used to answer a particular syllable from the other sex. This research will provide the first thorough study of how aspects of duets such as precise temporal coordination, sex-specific elements, and duet codes develop. Plain wrens will be hand-reared in captivity and tutored either with duets and solo songs or with solo songs only. This experiment will answer four main questions: 1) Do plain wrens need experience of duet singing during early development to be able to duet with temporal precision? 2) Do plain wrens have an innate predisposition to learn their own sex-specific songs? 3) Are duet codes learned from duets heard during the early stages of life? 4) Can duet codes be altered after individuals have reached adulthood? A list of published material and primary data available upon request will be posted on the Principal Investigator's laboratory website (http://www.bio.miami.edu/searcylab/karla.html) after publication.