Dataset Information

The songs of male pied flycatchers: exploring the legacy of the fathers.

ABSTRACT: Singing is a key element of songbirds' behavioral repertoire, particularly for males, which sing during the breeding season to defend resources against other males and to attract females. Different song traits may convey honest information about males' qualities or conditions, which may be used by females to select their mates. Traits under strong sexual selection have an important component of additive genetic variation (i.e., the main genetic inheritance from parents), and so relatively high heritability; therefore, it can be expected that song traits also do. Although the act of singing is an innate behavior, and thus, genetically determined, songbirds need to learn their songs and therefore the genetic contribution to song traits may be reduced by the effect of environmental factors. We tested this hypothesis in seven song traits recorded in the long-distance migratory bird, the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca). From a 23-year database (1992-2015), we obtained songs for 28 father-son pairs, and for each song trait we applied parent-offspring regressions to estimate heritability. The type of syllables sung are learned from tutors, and here we also determined the cultural contribution of fathers to the song repertoires of their sons, by quantifying the percentage of syllables that sons shared with their fathers, and compared this with what sons shared with other males in the population (e.g., neighbors). The heritabilities of song traits were highly variable (ranging from -0.22 to 0.56), but most of these were around zero and none of them were significant. These results indicate that the seven song traits are most likely determined by environmental factors. Sons shared more syllables with their fathers than with neighbors (21% vs. 3%), suggesting that fathers are important song tutors during the nestling period. We conclude that there is a cultural inheritance from fathers to their sons' syllable repertoires, but there is no strong evidence for a genetic contribution of fathers to the seven song traits studied.

SUBMITTER: Labra A

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6076429 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

The songs of male pied flycatchers: exploring the legacy of the fathers.

Labra Antonieta A Lampe Helene M HM

PeerJ 20180801

Singing is a key element of songbirds' behavioral repertoire, particularly for males, which sing during the breeding season to defend resources against other males and to attract females. Different song traits may convey honest information about males' qualities or conditions, which may be used by females to select their mates. Traits under strong sexual selection have an important component of additive genetic variation (i.e., the main genetic inheritance from parents), and so relatively high h ...[more]

PMID: 30083477

Similar Datasets

Project description:Many small passerines regularly fly slowly when catching prey, flying in cluttered environments or landing on a perch or nest. While flying slowly, passerines generate most of the flight forces during the downstroke, and have a 'feathered upstroke' during which they make their wing inactive by retracting it close to the body and by spreading the primary wing feathers. How this flight mode relates aerodynamically to the cruising flight and so-called 'normal hovering' as used in hummingbirds is not yet known. Here, we present time-resolved fluid dynamics data in combination with wingbeat kinematics data for three pied flycatchers flying across a range of speeds from near hovering to their calculated minimum power speed. Flycatchers are adapted to low speed flight, which they habitually use when catching insects on the wing. From the wake dynamics data, we constructed average wingbeat wakes and determined the time-resolved flight forces, the time-resolved downwash distributions and the resulting lift-to-drag ratios, span efficiencies and flap efficiencies. During the downstroke, slow-flying flycatchers generate a single-vortex loop wake, which is much more similar to that generated by birds at cruising flight speeds than it is to the double loop vortex wake in hovering hummingbirds. This wake structure results in a relatively high downwash behind the body, which can be explained by the relatively active tail in flycatchers. As a result of this, slow-flying flycatchers have a span efficiency which is similar to that of the birds in cruising flight and which can be assumed to be higher than in hovering hummingbirds. During the upstroke, the wings of slowly flying flycatchers generated no significant forces, but the body-tail configuration added 23 per cent to weight support. This is strikingly similar to the 25 per cent weight support generated by the wing upstroke in hovering hummingbirds. Thus, for slow-flying passerines, the upstroke cannot be regarded as inactive, and the tail may be of importance for flight efficiency and possibly manoeuvrability.

Dataset Information

The songs of male pied flycatchers: exploring the legacy of the fathers.

Publications

The songs of male pied flycatchers: exploring the legacy of the fathers.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets