Dissertation Research: Vocal Behavior at Subspecies and Dialect Boundaries in the Bronzed Cowbird

非技术摘要 提案编号：98001041 PI：M。Ryan / P. Warren 在过去三年中，对青铜色燕八哥（Molothrusaeneus）的研究揭示了一种社会系统，它在许多重要方面与其他鸟类不同。 本项目将试图确定这些差异对它们的演变有什么影响。 雄性古铜色燕八哥的歌声将被记录下来，并在不同的种群中进行比较。 歌曲也将播放给雄性燕八哥，以确定歌曲的变化对鸟类意味着什么。 作为一种寄生虫，燕八哥拥有一种不寻常的繁殖方式;雌性燕八哥在其他鸟类的巢中产卵，然后这些鸟类抚养她的后代，就好像这是他们自己的一样。 雏鸟寄生对燕八哥宿主物种的影响已经被广泛宣传和争论。 但是燕八哥本身的进化结果是什么呢？ 结果之一是，雄性燕八哥只有离开养父母，加入自己的物种，才有机会学习自己的歌曲。 因此，他们的学习机会受到限制的方式不同于其他物种。 在物种形成等进化过程中，歌曲学习扮演了什么角色？ 为了解决这个问题，这项研究提出了一个问题，即燕八哥的群体是否有可能分裂成不同的物种。 人们希望收集到的关于这种很少研究的燕八哥物种的信息将有助于对其行为、栖息地的利用以及对其他物种影响的潜力的全面了解。

Non Technical Abstract Proposal #: 98001041 PI: M. Ryan / P. Warren The last three years of research on the bronzed cowbird (Molothrusaeneus)have uncovered a social system that differs in many important ways from other birds. This project will attempt to determine what effects these differences have on their evolution. Songs of male bronzed cowbirds will be recorded and compared among different populations. Songs will also be played back to male cowbirds to determine what variation in song means to the birds. As brood parasites, cowbirds possess an unusual form of reproduction; the female cowbird lays her eggs in the nests of other bird species who then raise her offspring as if it were their own. The effects of brood parasitism on the cowbirds' host species have been much publicized and much debated. But what are the evolutionary consequences for the cowbirds themselves? One consequence is that male cowbirds do not have the opportunity to learn their songs until they leave their foster parents and join their own species. Thus, their opportunities for learning are constrained in a way unlike that in other species. What role does song learning play in evolutionary processes like speciation? To address this problem, this study asks whether groups of cowbirds which have been separate from one other are likely to split into different species. It is hoped that information gathered on this little-studied species of cowbird will contribute to a general understanding of its behavior, its use of habitat, and therefore its potential to impacts on other species.