bioacoustics-l
[Top] [All Lists]

Bioacoustic Articles in Behaviour 144 no. 3 (March 2007)

To: "Bioacoustic-L" <>
Subject: Bioacoustic Articles in Behaviour 144 no. 3 (March 2007)
From: "Frank Veit" <>
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2007 13:26:56 +0300
Bioacoustic articles in Behaviour 144/3
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/brill/beh/2007/00000144/00000003

(Abstracts below)

Kapusta, J, GD Sales & R Czuchnowski (2007) Aggression and vocalization behaviour of three sympatric vole species during conspecific and heterospecific same-sex encounters. Behaviour 144: 283-305.

Rehn, N, S Teichert & F Thomsen (2007) Structural and temporal emission patterns of variable pulsed calls in free-ranging killer whales (Orcinus orca). Behaviour 144: 307-329.

Logue, DM, EE Droessler, DW Roscoe, JR Vokey, D Rendall & RM Kunimoto (2007) Sexually antithetical song structure in a duet singing wren. Behaviour 144: 331-350.

--------

Abstracts

Kapusta, J, GD Sales & R Czuchnowski (2007) Aggression and vocalization behaviour of three sympatric vole species during conspecific and heterospecific same-sex encounters. Behaviour 144: 283-305.

The purpose of the present study was to compare the behaviour with vocalization of three sympatric species of voles during encounters within a species and during interactions between particular pairs of species. Bank voles, common voles and field voles were trapped in southeastern Poland and their behaviour and vocalization investigated using 10-min open field tests. Results showed clear differences in behaviour and vocalization between the species of voles. Bank vole interactions were more agonistic than those of common voles and of field voles as seen in the number of attacks, latency to the first attack and duration of attack. Females of the latter two species emitted significantly more ultrasounds than female bank voles. During male encounters common voles produced the highest numbers of ultrasounds. The ultrasonic calls emitted by female and male field voles occurred at a higher frequency (kHz) than those of both bank voles and common voles. The duration of these sounds was similar for all three species of voles. Voles in heterospecific encounters emitted very few ultrasounds. Our results have shown that ultrasounds are a part of bank vole, common vole and field vole behaviour and could play a significant role in vole communication.



Rehn, N, S Teichert & F Thomsen (2007) Structural and temporal emission patterns of variable pulsed calls in free-ranging killer whales (Orcinus orca). Behaviour 144: 307-329.

Resident killer whales off Vancouver Island, British Columbia, produce variable burst pulsedcalls most commonly during close-range interactions such as socialising or social-travelling. Earlier studies indicated that variable calls are graded and can be arranged into a scale from low-frequency calls to high-frequency ones. These graded calls are often emitted in sequences, were call-classes of similar frequency follow one another more often than different classes. However, a detailed analysis of sequences was lacking to date. Therefore, our understanding of the function of variable calls during interactions among killer whales is rather limited. Simultaneous recordings of underwater vocalizations and behavioural observations from resident killer whales were collected off Vancouver Island, British Columbia during1996-2001. Socialising activities were divided into four categories: male-female, male-male, female-juvenile and juvenile-juvenile. Variable call sequences were analysed with RTS and SIGNAL acoustic-software. We found no positive correlation between group-size and number of used calls or the duration of sequences, indicating that only one or a few animals were involved in the production of each sequence. Furthermore, sequences were present in all four behaviour categories and the composition of the group had no influence on the duration of calls and used call-classes. One particular call class (V4) could be further separated into structurally distinct sub-classes. These sub-classes often formed rather stereotyped sequences. The results of our study indicate that sequences of variable calls emit broad motivational information that is not age or sex-related. Sequences of distinct sub-classes might encode more subtle information on emotional states during socialising. Therefore, variable calls might posses different functions, depending on the nature of the interaction. Thus, variable calls might be of great importance for close-range communication in wild killer whales.


Logue, DM, EE Droessler, DW Roscoe, JR Vokey, D Rendall & RM Kunimoto (2007) Sexually antithetical song structure in a duet singing wren. Behaviour 144: 331-350.

Black-bellied wrens (Thryothorus fasciatoventris) use loud songs to communicate sex over long distances. We compared male and female songs recorded from a central Panamanian population of black-bellied wrens. All nine measured features differed significantly between the sexes. Males sang lower fundamental frequencies than females, but this difference cannot be explained by simple body size-frequency scaling. A discriminant function analysis correctly discriminated the singer's sex for all songs in the analysis. When viewed as sonograms, the terminal syllables of male and female songs exhibited opposite structure - all male songs ended in V-shaped syllables, and all female songs ended in arc-shaped syllables. The degree and character of dimorphism lead us to describe song structure in this population as 'sexually antithetical'. Variation in song dimorphism throughout this species' range provides an excellent opportunity to test the hypothesis that signal degradation during transmission selects for divergent signal structure.

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
  • Bioacoustic Articles in Behaviour 144 no. 3 (March 2007), Frank Veit <=
Admin

The University of NSW School of Computer and Engineering takes no responsibility for the contents of this archive. It is purely a compilation of material sent by many people to the Bioacoustics-L mailing list. It has not been checked for accuracy nor its content verified in any way. If you wish to get material removed from the archive or have other queries about the archive e-mail Andrew Taylor at this address: andrewt@cse.unsw.EDU.AU