Is song–type matching a conventional signal of aggressive intentions?
Top Cited Papers
Open Access
- 7 August 2001
- journal article
- Published by The Royal Society in Proceedings Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences
- Vol. 268 (1476), 1637-1642
- https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2001.1714
Abstract
Song–type matching is a singing strategy found in some oscine songbirds with repertoires of song types and at least partial sharing of song types between males. Males reply to the song of a rival male by subsequently singing the same song type. For type matching to serve as an effective long–distance threat signal, it must be backed up by some probability of aggressive approach and impose some type of cost on senders that minimizes the temptation to bluff. Western subspecies of the song sparrow exhibit moderate levels of song–type sharing between adjacent males and sometimes type match in response to playback of song types they possess in their repertoires. Interactive playback experiments were used in order to examine the subsequent behaviour of type–matching birds and to quantify the responses of focal birds to type–matching versus non–matching stimuli. Birds that chose to type match the playback of a shared song type subsequently approached the speaker much more aggressively than birds that did not type match. Moreover, birds approached a type–matching stimulus much more aggressively than a non–matching stimulus. These results and consideration of alternatives suggest that type matching in song sparrows is a conventional signal in which honesty is maintained by a receiver retaliation cost against bluffers.Keywords
This publication has 44 references indexed in Scilit:
- Conventional Signalling in Aggressive Interactions: the Importance of Temporal StructureJournal of Theoretical Biology, 1998
- Towards a General Theory of Biological SignalingJournal of Theoretical Biology, 1997
- The cost of threat displays and the stability of deceptive communicationJournal of Theoretical Biology, 1995
- Must reliable signals always be costly?Animal Behaviour, 1994
- Status signalling, motivational condition and dominance: an experimental study in the great tit, Parus major L.Animal Behaviour, 1993
- Song-type matching in the song sparrowCanadian Journal of Zoology, 1992
- Song and information about aggressive responses of blackbirds, Turdus merula: evidence from interactive playback experiments with territory ownersAnimal Behaviour, 1990
- Biological signals as handicapsJournal of Theoretical Biology, 1990
- Song switching and agonistic stimulation in the song sparrow (Melospiza melodia): five testsAnimal Behaviour, 1985
- On Functions of Vocal Matching: Effect of Counter‐replies on Song Post Choice and SingingZeitschrift Fur Tierpsychologie, 1981