Interspecific communication and the evolution of alarm calls in birds

关于某些欧洲和美洲鸟类的声音交流的论文可能比所有澳大利亚物种的总和还要多。我们的工作将有助于纠正这种不平衡，通过对澳大利亚鸣禽（鹪鹩、细尾鹩莺、食蜜者和盟友）的主要群体进行声学交流的详细研究，同时解决50年前首次在欧洲鸣禽中发现的呼叫设计中未解决的一般问题。具体来说，我们将测试不同的猎物物种是否会反复进化出类似结构的“鹰”式警报，以及这种进化是否可能是由于在与其他猎物物种交流时具有类似的呼叫所带来的好处。

There are probably more papers on vocal communication in some individual European and American species of birds than there are on all Australian species combined. Our work will contribute to redressing this imbalance by carrying out detailed studies on acoustic communication in a major group of Australian songbirds (scrubwrens, fairy-wrens, honeyeaters and allies), while at the same time addressing an unsolved general problem in call design first identified 50 years ago in European songbirds. Specifically, we will test whether different prey species have repeatedly evolved 'hawk' alarm calls of similar structure, and whether such evolution could be due to benefits of having similar calls when communicating with other prey species.