Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

In eight groups of animals, including humans and songbirds, vocalizations are inherited through social learning, where young animals learn to vocalize by listening to adults. These culturally inherited traits play a vital role in animal survival and mating. Culturally-inherited traits have important consequences for ecology: learned vocalizations are critical for defending territories and attracting mates. They also have important consequences for evolution: learning promotes geographic variation and influences population divergence and speciation. Birds provide a model system for studying vocal learning and animal culture because they produce diverse vocal signals, they have short generation times, and they respond to experimental playback. Traditional studies have focused on learning in males, temperate animals, and captive individuals. Breaking with tradition, my research involves studies of communication in both males and females, in both temperate and tropical animals, and in wild animals in their natural environment. With a team of students and postdoctoral researchers, I will conduct research on two model systems: a population of temperate sparrows where males use songs to defend territories and attract mates; and a population of tropical wrens where both sexes use solo songs and coordinated vocal duets in diverse contexts. We will teach songs to young birds using loudspeakers that simulate vocal tutors and we will conduct long-term acoustic monitoring to assess the ecological and evolutionary consequences. This will allow us to test new hypotheses about vocal learning and animal culture in both males and females, and in both temperate and tropical environments. In part A, studying temperate birds, we will test the hypotheses that the presence of a physical tutor enhances learning, that young animals learn songs based on frequency of exposure, that interactions between tutors and tutees influences learning, and that birds undergo a process of selective attrition in choosing song tutors. In part B, studying duetting tropical birds, we will test hypotheses that learning is sex-specific in tropical animals, that duets facilitate vocal learning, and that birds learn not only their vocalizations but also their duetting behaviour. In part C, we will study cultural evolution in both temperate and tropical birds by documenting patterns of acoustic changes through time and space, thereby developing a better understanding of the roles of imitation, innovation, selection, and drift. In parts D-H we will study animal communication in other taxa, including other songbirds, frogs, and whales, expanding the scope of our investigations. This body of research will provide groundbreaking insights into the behaviour, ecology, and evolution of animals, and answer novel questions about vocal learning and animal culture. This research will also allow me to train many diverse Canadian scientists, and develop innovative technologies for studying wild animals.