I'm hoping someone on this list can point me to a technique for
analyzing similarity between bird songs (within a species). Basically,
we have multiple songs recorded from about 20 bobolinks, and we want to
determine if songs recorded from individuals within a local area are
more similar than songs from different areas. Bobolink songs are
complex, but are a sequence of phrases that are put together in
different ways by different individuals.
My question is whether there is a way to analyze a series of characters
for frequency and placement. For instance we may have the following
three songs, where letters represent phrases:
1 AGHEIGHDDS
2 AGEGDSSHIIJJJ
3 CTQEUYSEKE
Songs 1 and 2 share more phrases and start with the same phrases, so I
would classify them as being more similar. Does anyone know of an
analytical technique for dealing with this sort of data? I'm thinking
that the data is probably similar to some types of genetic data, where
letters would refer to alleles, and I'm also wondering if anyone has
applied genetic analysis methods to this type of data.
Thanks!
Brian
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Brian R. Mitchell
Post-Doctoral Research Associate
University of Vermont
The Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources
81 Carrigan Drive
Burlington, VT 05405-0088
(802) 656-2496
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