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Song variation, song learning, and cultural change in two hybridizing songbird species, black-capped (Poecile atricapillus) and Carolina (P. carolinensis) chickadees

Nelson, Stephanie Gene Wright, Nelson
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1471210804

Abstract Details

2016, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Evolution, Ecology and Organismal Biology.
The song of oscine passerines, the songbirds, is a well-studied pre-zygotic isolating mechanism. Songbirds’ song is a learned species-specific acoustic signal that functions in both resource defense and mate attraction. It is a learned behavior for both sexes: individuals must hear the songs of conspecifics when young to in order to “imprint” upon those songs and use them as a guide for vocal production and for identifying potential mates. Geographic variation in song has been used to infer the presence or absence of learning: patterns of locally shared songs imply that the vocalization is acquired by interaction with local individuals while the absence of geographic variation may indicate a genetically canalized behavior. I compared geographic variation in song in two sister songbird species, black-capped and Carolina chickadees. As in other studies, black-capped chickadee song was highly stereotyped across its range with aberrant song types occurring on the geographic periphery. In contrast, the extent of geographic variation in Carolina chickadees’ song differed between two general song categories: one category of song was more invariant across the species’ range while the other category was comprised of song types shared locally. These differences in geographic variation suggest that the functional role of song types and the song learning process may differ between the two species. To investigate the potential song learning differences in black-capped and Carolina chickadees I brought nestlings of each species into the laboratory and reared them under controlled acoustic conditions. In other songbird species the first stage of song learning appears to be guided by an innate neural substrate, a “template,” that focuses early song imprinting on conspecific song to the exclusion of heterospecific song and other environmental sounds. I assessed the specificity of this template in black-capped and Carolina chickadees using a series of experiments conducted when the birds were young. I then correlated those responses to their adult song repertoires. As predicted based on the geographic variation of the species’ songs, black-capped chickadees’ responses suggested a more restrictive song template than in Carolina chickadees, resulting in adult repertoires in black-capped chickadees that were more similar to wild conspecifics than the repertoires of Carolina chickadees raised under similar conditions. These differences in song variation and ontogeny may explain patterns of asymmetric cultural change in the black-capped/Carolina chickadee hybrid zone. I used recordings collected at two sites within the chickadees hybrid zone from 1999 to 2015 to document directional changes in song repertoires resulting in increasing prevalence of Carolina chickadee song types at both sites over time. This cultural change lags behind genetic change by many years, resulting in one population that is genetically all Carolina chickadees and yet still sings black-capped chickadee-like songs and another population where Carolina chickadee song types were first detected 10 years after Carolina chickadee genes. These data indicate that black-capped and Carolina chickadees, while sister species, may not be as behaviorally analogous as previously thought. My results also support current hypotheses about the connection between geographic and repertoire variation and vocal ontogeny in songbirds.
Douglas Nelson, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Jacqueline Augustine, Ph.D. (Advisor)
Ian Hamilton, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
J. Andrew Roberts, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
115 p.
Biology; Ecology; Evolution and Development; Zoology
birdsong; song learning; vocal learning; chickadees; black-capped chickadee; Carolina chickadee; geographic variation; Paridae; hybridization

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Nelson, Nelson, S. G. W. (2016). Song variation, song learning, and cultural change in two hybridizing songbird species, black-capped (Poecile atricapillus) and Carolina (P. carolinensis) chickadees [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1471210804

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Nelson, Nelson, Stephanie. Song variation, song learning, and cultural change in two hybridizing songbird species, black-capped (Poecile atricapillus) and Carolina (P. carolinensis) chickadees. 2016. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1471210804.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Nelson, Nelson, Stephanie. "Song variation, song learning, and cultural change in two hybridizing songbird species, black-capped (Poecile atricapillus) and Carolina (P. carolinensis) chickadees." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1471210804

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1471210804
420
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.