Vocal and Social Learning of Avian Calls

人类语言是进化最令人印象深刻的结果之一。我们是少数几种学会发声的哺乳动物之一（鲸鱼、大象、海豹和蝙蝠，但没有其他灵长类动物）。相比之下，发声学习在鸟类中很常见，成千上万的物种需要社会输入来学习。鸟类鸣叫已经成为解决生物学各个方面的一个非常重要的模型系统，从基因表达和神经功能到生态和进化问题。就像人类产生不同的单词和语言一样，许多鸟类也有不同的发声方式来交流有关环境的各种信息。然而，迄今为止，这些信号中只有一种（性信号，或“歌曲”）被研究与声乐学习有关。这项提议的工作将是第一个研究其他类型的鸟类发声（“呼叫”）的声乐学习。我将研究鸟类用来交流环境的两种最重要的发声方式：蜂群鸣叫和社会群体鸣叫。拟议的研究将集中在两类鸟类上，它们都拥有高度发达的社会和生态系统：山雀（鹦鹉科）和鹦鹉（鹦鹉科）。山雀是我们在英国最喜爱的后院鸟类之一，尽管人们对它们的许多行为都进行了很好的研究，但我们对它们的蜂鸣声警报却知之甚少。这些叫声表明有捕食者，并招募其他鸟群成员骚扰或“骚扰”它们。首先，我将通过野外实验来研究每一种英国山雀（大山雀、蓝山雀、煤山雀、沼泽山雀、柳树山雀和冠山雀）的鸣叫声，以观察鸣叫声的系统发育模式，以及它们是否使用与北美山雀相似的信号系统。山雀拥有所有动物中最复杂的警报系统之一，不同的叫声表明捕食者的类型，而叫声中的细微变化表明了特定的威胁程度。英国山雀是否使用类似的声音系统来交流环境中的捕食者？接下来，我将通过在圣安德鲁斯进行的一系列实验室实验来研究鸟类是如何学会发出蜂群警报的。最后，我将通过一系列的社会学习实验来研究鸟类是如何学会利用其他物种的警报叫声来获取捕食者的信息的。动物窃听其他物种声音信号的能力是生物声学研究中最令人兴奋的领域之一，这将是第一个实验研究它们如何学习这种行为的研究。和山雀一样，鹦鹉也有复杂的社会系统。因为它们经常生活在不断变化的群体组成的裂变融合社会中，它们使用社会叫声与群体成员交流。最近的观察表明，眼镜鹦鹉可能会更进一步：它们在与特定个体接触时使用特定的声音。这些直接的呼叫类似于人的名字吗？我将在圣安德鲁斯对一群眼镜鹦鹉进行实验，并对巴拿马的野生鸟类进行仔细的行为观察，以测试鸟类如何使用它们的社交呼叫与群中的其他成员进行交流。如果这些鸟类使用与人类类似的系统，这将是鸟类物种中第一次展示“名字”，并将为真正的比较工作（与人类和海豚）提供基础，研究“名字”进化所需的生态条件。“这项与山雀和鹦鹉的结合工作将是对鸟类鸣叫的社会和声音学习进行的第一次研究，将为我们理解动物如何与自己和其他物种的成员就环境进行交流提供关键进展，将导致重要的研究出版物，并使我能够建立我的英国职业生涯并发展我作为领先生物声学研究员的声誉。”

Human language is one of the most impressive outcomes of evolution. We are one of just a few mammals (whales, elephants, seals, and bats, but no other primates) that learn their vocalizations. In contrast, vocal learning is common in birds, with thousands of species requiring social input for learning. Bird songs have become an exceptionally important model system for addressing all aspects of biology, ranging from gene expression and neural function to ecological and evolutionary questions. Just like humans produce different words and languages, many bird species also have diverse vocalizations for communicating a wide variety of information about their environments. However, to date only one of these signals (the sexual signals, or 'songs') has been studied in relation to vocal learning. The proposed work will be the first to examine vocal learning in other types of bird vocalizations ('calls'). I will examine vocal learning of two of the most important types of vocalizations that birds use to communicate about their environments: mobbing calls, and social group calls. The proposed study will focus on two groups of birds, each of which possesses highly developed social and ecological systems: tits (Family Paridae) and parrots (Family Psittacidae). Tits are some of our most beloved back-yard birds in the UK and although many of their behaviours are well studied, we know surprisingly little about their mobbing alarm calls. These calls advertise predators and recruit other flock members to harass, or 'mob' them. First, I will examine the mobbing calls of each species of British tit (great, blue, coal, marsh, willow, and crested tits) with field experiments to look at phylogenetic patterns in mobbing calls and whether they use a similar signalling system to North American chickadees. Chickadees have one of the most sophisticated alarm call systems of any animal, with different calls indicating the type of predator and subtle variations within a call indicating the specific level of threat. Do British tits use a similar vocal system to communicate about predators in their environment? Next, I will examine how birds learn to produce their mobbing alarm calls using a series of laboratory experiments conducted at St Andrews. Last, I will study how birds learn to use the alarm calls of other species to gain information about predators through a series of social learning experiments. The ability of animals to eavesdrop on the vocal signals of other species is one of the most exciting areas of research in bioacoustics and this will be the first study to experimentally examine how they learn this behaviour.Like tits, parrots have complex social systems. Because they often live in fission-fusion societies with ever changing flock composition, they use social calls to communicate with flock members. Recent observations suggest that spectacled parrotlets may go one step further: they use specific vocalizations when engaging with certain individuals. Are these directed calls akin to human names? I will conduct experiments with a colony of spectacled parrotlets at St Andrews and make careful behavioural observations with wild birds in Panama to test how birds use their social calls to communicate with other members of their flock. If these birds use a system similar to humans, it will be the first demonstration of 'names' in an avian species, and will provide the basis for truly comparative work (with humans and dolphins) examining the ecological conditions required for the evolution of 'names.'This combination of work with tits and parrotlets will be some of the first research conducted on social and vocal learning of bird calls, will provide key advances in our understanding of how animals communicate about their environments with members of their own and other species, will lead to important research publications, and will enable me to establish my UK career and develop my reputation as a leading bioacoustics researcher.