Sonia Kleindorfer, Lyanne Brouwer, Mark E Hauber, Niki Teunissen, Anne Peters, Marina Louter, Michael S Webster, Andrew C Katsis, Frank J Sulloway, Lauren K Common, Victoria I Austin, Diane Colombelli-Négrel
AbstractVocal production learning (the capacity to learn to produce vocalizations) is a multidimensional trait that involves different learning mechanisms during different temporal and socioecological contexts. Key outstanding questions are whether vocal production learning begins during the embryonic stage and whether mothers play an active role in this through pupil-directed vocalization behaviors. We examined variation in vocal copy similarity (an indicator of learning) in eight species from the songbird family Maluridae, using comparative and experimental approaches...
February 2024: American Naturalist