Abstract
Songbird vocalizations serve diverse functions including territory defence against neighbouring conspecific animals. In tropical and south-temperate regions, it is commonplace for both female and male songbirds to sing solo songs and coordinated vocal duets to defend their territories. The Área de Conservación Guanacaste in Costa Rica is the site of an ambitious conservation effort to protect and regrow tropical dry forests; it consists of a mosaic of regenerating and mature forest patches, presenting a special opportunity to study the effect of different numbers of neighbours on male and female wrens living in these fragmented forests. We analyzed recordings of Rufous-and-white Wrens (Thryophilus rufalbus) over a 17-year period, focusing on vocal behaviour and variation in the number of territorial neighbours within the fragmented landscape in the conservation area, and on diel and seasonal variation in female and male song. We hypothesized that the number of conspecific neighbours would influence vocal behaviours, including female and male solo song rate, duet responsiveness rate, repertoire use, and song-switching rate. For females, we found that wrens change song-types more often in areas with more neighbours, whereas the other aspects of female vocal behaviour did not vary with the number of neighbours. For males, we found no aspect of vocal behaviour that varied with the number of neighbours. For both sexes, we found variation in vocal behaviours with time of day and time of year, in keeping with previous research. Our results underscore the idea that we must explore female and male birds independently, because the sexes may respond differently to external factors. We did not find strong links between wren vocal behaviour and variation in the number of neighbours, yet we encourage further behavioural studies on vocal behaviour of birds with varying numbers of neighbours in fragmented landscapes.
Zusammenfassung
Singen in einer fragmentierten Landschaft: Zaunkönige in einem tropischen Trockenwald zeigen Geschlechtsunterschiede hinsichtlich des Einflusses von Nachbarn, Tages- und Jahreszeit.
Die Lautäußerungen von Singvögeln erfüllen verschiedene Funktionen, einschließlich der Verteidigung des Reviers gegen benachbarte Artgenossen. In tropischen und südlich-gemäßigten Regionen setzen üblicherweise sowohl weibliche als auch männliche Singvögel Sologesänge sowie aufeinander abgestimmte Duette zur Revierverteidigung ein. In der Área de Conservación Guanacaste in Costa Rica bemüht sich ein ambitioniertes Projekt darum, die dortigen tropischen Trockenwälder zu schützen und nachwachsen zu lassen. Das Gebiet besteht aus einem Mosaik regenerierender und etablierter Waldstücke, was eine besondere Gelegenheit bietet, den Einfluss der Anzahl von Reviernachbarn auf männliche und weibliche Zaunkönige, die in diesen fragmentierten Wäldern leben, zu untersuchen. Über einen Zeitraum von 17 Jahren analysierten wir Gesangsaufnahmen von Rotrückenzaunkönigen (Thryophilus rufalbus) in der fragmentierten Landschaft des Schutzgebiets, wobei wir uns auf das Lautverhalten und die Variation in der Anzahl von Reviernachbarn sowie auf tägliche und saisonale Schwankungen im Gesang von Weibchen und Männchen konzentrierten. Wir nahmen an, dass die Anzahl der Artgenossen in Nachbarrevieren das Lautverhalten beeinflussen würde, einschließlich der Sologesangsraten von Weibchen und Männchen, der Reaktionsbereitschaft in Gesangsduetten, dem Repertoireeinsatz und der Rate, mit der zwischen verschiedenen Gesängen gewechselt wurde. Wir fanden, dass weibliche Zaunkönige in Gebieten mit mehr Nachbarn den Gesangstyp häufiger wechselten, während andere Aspekte des weiblichen Lautverhaltens nicht mit der Anzahl der Nachbarn zusammenhingen. Bei Männchen variierten keinerlei Aspekte des Lautverhaltens mit der Anzahl der Nachbarn. Für beide Geschlechter schwankte das Lautverhalten abhängig von der Tages- und Jahreszeit, was mit vorherigen Befunden übereinstimmt. Unsere Ergebnisse unterstreichen die Idee, dass weibliche und männliche Vögel getrennt untersucht werden sollten, da die Geschlechter auf externe Faktoren unterschiedlich reagieren könnten. Wir fanden keine starken Zusammenhänge zwischen dem Lautverhalten von Zaunkönigen und der Anzahl von Reviernachbarn, ermutigen jedoch die Durchführung weiterer Studien zum Lautverhalten von Vögeln mit unterschiedlich vielen Nachbarn in fragmentierten Landschaften.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the graduate students who contributed to the Rufous-and-white Wren project over the past 17 years, N. Barker, S. Douglas, B. Graham, K. Hick, K. Kovach, Z. Kahn, A. Osmun, L. Savi, and S. Topp, and the many field assistants who helped collect recordings. We thank the staff at Sector Santa Rosa, Área de Conservación Guanacaste, Costa Rica for logistical support. We thank L. Szucki for creating the wren illustrations in Fig. 2. We thank R. Simpson for assistance with statistical analyses. We thank the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) for funding this research.
Funding
The research was supported by grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) to Dan Mennill.
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Our research was authorized under permits from the Animal Care Committee of the University of Windsor and MINAE permits from the Government of Costa Rica.
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Owen, K.C., Mennill, D.J. Singing in a fragmented landscape: wrens in a tropical dry forest show sex differences in the effects of neighbours, time of day, and time of year. J Ornithol 162, 881–893 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-021-01882-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-021-01882-0