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Male song of the Aquatic Warbler, a promiscuous bird without paternal care, is more complex than previously thought

The Aquatic Warbler Acrocephalus paludicola is one of the rarest European passerines and is characterised by promiscuity, lack of pair-bonds and female-only parental care. This makes the species an important model for studying the function of avian courtship song. The song of the Aquatic Warbler con...

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Autores principales: Osiejuk, Tomasz S., Kubacka, Justyna
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10082015/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37029246
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-33001-9
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author Osiejuk, Tomasz S.
Kubacka, Justyna
author_facet Osiejuk, Tomasz S.
Kubacka, Justyna
author_sort Osiejuk, Tomasz S.
collection PubMed
description The Aquatic Warbler Acrocephalus paludicola is one of the rarest European passerines and is characterised by promiscuity, lack of pair-bonds and female-only parental care. This makes the species an important model for studying the function of avian courtship song. The song of the Aquatic Warbler consists of whistle and rattle phrases produced as discontinuous A-, B- and C-songs, which are built by a single rattle, a rattle and a whistle, and more than two phrases of both kinds, respectively. The A- and B-songs are thought to be aggressive signals in male-male interactions, while C-songs are thought to be important for female choice. Here, we analysed recordings of 40 individually marked males, and determined the phrase repertoire. The enumerated repertoire (males recorded for ≥ 10 min) ranged from 16 to 158 (mean 99), however, it did not capture the complete phrase repertoires. We then used models from species diversity ecology to estimate the actual phrase repertoire size, which ranged between 18 and 300 phrases (mean 155). The estimated repertoire was predicted by the number of C-songs. The rattle repertoire was larger than the whistle repertoire, and both positively correlated with the number of C-songs. Our study indicates that male Aquatic Warblers have highly complex phrase repertoires that vary widely in size. Their courtship song is flexible and efficient, enabling relative song complexity to be demonstrated in a short sample, thus facilitating both female attraction through the quick presentation of large phrase repertoires and rival deterrence through the production of many short and simple A- and B-songs.
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spelling pubmed-100820152023-04-09 Male song of the Aquatic Warbler, a promiscuous bird without paternal care, is more complex than previously thought Osiejuk, Tomasz S. Kubacka, Justyna Sci Rep Article The Aquatic Warbler Acrocephalus paludicola is one of the rarest European passerines and is characterised by promiscuity, lack of pair-bonds and female-only parental care. This makes the species an important model for studying the function of avian courtship song. The song of the Aquatic Warbler consists of whistle and rattle phrases produced as discontinuous A-, B- and C-songs, which are built by a single rattle, a rattle and a whistle, and more than two phrases of both kinds, respectively. The A- and B-songs are thought to be aggressive signals in male-male interactions, while C-songs are thought to be important for female choice. Here, we analysed recordings of 40 individually marked males, and determined the phrase repertoire. The enumerated repertoire (males recorded for ≥ 10 min) ranged from 16 to 158 (mean 99), however, it did not capture the complete phrase repertoires. We then used models from species diversity ecology to estimate the actual phrase repertoire size, which ranged between 18 and 300 phrases (mean 155). The estimated repertoire was predicted by the number of C-songs. The rattle repertoire was larger than the whistle repertoire, and both positively correlated with the number of C-songs. Our study indicates that male Aquatic Warblers have highly complex phrase repertoires that vary widely in size. Their courtship song is flexible and efficient, enabling relative song complexity to be demonstrated in a short sample, thus facilitating both female attraction through the quick presentation of large phrase repertoires and rival deterrence through the production of many short and simple A- and B-songs. Nature Publishing Group UK 2023-04-07 /pmc/articles/PMC10082015/ /pubmed/37029246 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-33001-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2023 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
Osiejuk, Tomasz S.
Kubacka, Justyna
Male song of the Aquatic Warbler, a promiscuous bird without paternal care, is more complex than previously thought
title Male song of the Aquatic Warbler, a promiscuous bird without paternal care, is more complex than previously thought
title_full Male song of the Aquatic Warbler, a promiscuous bird without paternal care, is more complex than previously thought
title_fullStr Male song of the Aquatic Warbler, a promiscuous bird without paternal care, is more complex than previously thought
title_full_unstemmed Male song of the Aquatic Warbler, a promiscuous bird without paternal care, is more complex than previously thought
title_short Male song of the Aquatic Warbler, a promiscuous bird without paternal care, is more complex than previously thought
title_sort male song of the aquatic warbler, a promiscuous bird without paternal care, is more complex than previously thought
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10082015/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37029246
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-33001-9
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