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Animals
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Bird Culture: Diversity and Functions of Bird Vocalizations
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Bird Culture: Diversity and Functions of Bird Vocalizations

A special issue of Animals (ISSN 2076-2615). This special issue belongs to the section "Birds".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 July 2022) | Viewed by 12409

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Yanyun Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Interests: ornithology; bird ecology; conservation biology; bird behavior
Dr. Canwei Xia

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Interests: ornithology; bird song; bird community; forest birds

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

Bird songs/calls are among the most beautiful, complex sounds produced in the natural world. These acoustic signals are generally the most important means of communication in birds, and the variation in the efficiency of signaling has major fitness consequences. Although songs/calls serve similar functions (e.g., species recognition, mate attraction, territory defense, status advertising) in many birds, the structure of these signals varies greatly among species. The literature on bird songs/calls has seen rapid growth for the past three decades; however, the research of some vocalizations such as female vocalizations, duets, vocal mimicry, and woodpecker drumming is still in its infancy. By exploring the diversity and functions of bird vocalizations, we can better understand the evolution of animal signals and the role those signals play in speciation and maintaining biological diversity.

In this Special Issue of Animals, we invite the submission of manuscripts, both original research and review articles, addressing the functions of all types of bird vocalizations. Manuscripts that discuss the maintenance of song diversity, playback experiment design, ecoacoustics, and acoustic indices are also welcome. We invite you to share your recent discoveries through this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Yanyun Zhang
Dr. Canwei Xia
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Animals is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • song diversity
  • vocal mimicry
  • call variation
  • playback experiments
  • dawn chorus
  • repertoire sizes
  • ecoacoustics
  • sound detection
  • acoustic indices
  • female vocalization

Published Papers (7 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 8664 KiB  
Article
An Efficient Time-Domain End-to-End Single-Channel Bird Sound Separation Network
by Chengyun Zhang, Yonghuan Chen, Zezhou Hao and Xinghui Gao
Animals 2022, 12(22), 3117; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12223117 - 11 Nov 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1283
Abstract
Bird sounds have obvious characteristics per species, and they are an important way for birds to communicate and transmit information. However, the recorded bird sounds in the field are usually mixed, which making it challenging to identify different bird species and to perform [...] Read more.
Bird sounds have obvious characteristics per species, and they are an important way for birds to communicate and transmit information. However, the recorded bird sounds in the field are usually mixed, which making it challenging to identify different bird species and to perform associated tasks. In this study, based on the supervised learning framework, we propose a bird sound separation network, a dual-path tiny transformer network, to directly perform end-to-end mixed species bird sound separation in the time-domain. This separation network is mainly composed of the dual-path network and the simplified transformer structure, which greatly reduces the computational resources required of the network. Experimental results show that our proposed separation network has good separation performance (SI-SNRi reaches 19.3 dB and SDRi reaches 20.1 dB), but compared with DPRNN and DPTNet, its parameters and floating point operations are greatly reduced, which means a higher separation efficiency and faster separation speed. The good separation performance and high separation efficiency indicate that our proposed separation network is valuable for distinguishing individual birds and studying the interaction between individual birds, as well as for realizing the automatic identification of bird species on a variety of mobile devices or edge computing devices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bird Culture: Diversity and Functions of Bird Vocalizations)
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10 pages, 780 KiB  
Article
Effects of Valley Topography on Acoustic Communication in Birds: Why Do Birds Avoid Deep Valleys in Daqinggou Nature Reserve?
by Songkai Guo, Wenhui Wu, Yaxin Liu, Xiaofang Kang and Chunwang Li
Animals 2022, 12(21), 2896; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12212896 - 22 Oct 2022
Viewed by 1192
Abstract
To investigate the effects of valley topography on the acoustic transmission of avian vocalisations, we carried out playback experiments in Daqinggou valley, Inner Mongolia, China. During the experiments, we recorded the vocalisations of five avian species, the large-billed crow (Corvus macrorhynchos Wagler, [...] Read more.
To investigate the effects of valley topography on the acoustic transmission of avian vocalisations, we carried out playback experiments in Daqinggou valley, Inner Mongolia, China. During the experiments, we recorded the vocalisations of five avian species, the large-billed crow (Corvus macrorhynchos Wagler, 1827), common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus Linnaeus, 1758), Eurasian magpie (Pica pica Linnaeus, 1758), Eurasian tree sparrow (Passer montanus Linnaeus, 1758), and meadow bunting (Emberiza cioides Brand, 1843), at transmission distances of 30 m and 50 m in the upper and lower parts of the valley and analysed the intensity, the fundamental frequency (F0), and the first three formant frequencies (F1/F2/F3) of the sounds. We also investigated bird species diversity in the upper and lower valley. We found that: (1) at the distance of 30 m, there were significant differences in F0/F1/F2/F3 in Eurasian magpies, significant differences in F1/F2/F3 in the meadow bunting and Eurasian tree sparrow, and partially significant differences in sound frequency between the upper and lower valley in the other two species; (2) at the distance of 50 m, there were significant differences in F0/F1/F2/F3 in two avian species (large-billed crow and common cuckoo) between the upper and lower valley and partially significant differences in sound frequency between the upper and lower valley in the other three species; (2) there were significant differences in the acoustic intensities of crow, cuckoo, magpie, and bunting calls between the upper and lower valley. (3) Species number and richness were significantly higher in the upper valley than in the lower valley. We suggested that the structure of valley habitats may lead to the breakdown of acoustic signals and communication in birds to varying degrees. The effect of valley topography on acoustic communication could be one reason for animal species avoiding deep valleys. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bird Culture: Diversity and Functions of Bird Vocalizations)
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11 pages, 17335 KiB  
Article
Urban Low-Rise Residential Areas Provide Preferred Song Post Sites for a Resident Songbird
by Yanhong Chen, Lijing Li, Xiaotian Zhu, Yicheng Shen, Anran Ma, Xinyu Zhang, Pan Chen and Changhu Lu
Animals 2022, 12(18), 2436; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12182436 - 15 Sep 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1475
Abstract
Urbanization is expanding rapidly worldwide, and brings additional selection pressure on animals. The song differences between urban and rural songbirds have been widely verified, but the effects of urban morphological variation on long-settled urban birds have been poorly explored. Here, we investigated the [...] Read more.
Urbanization is expanding rapidly worldwide, and brings additional selection pressure on animals. The song differences between urban and rural songbirds have been widely verified, but the effects of urban morphological variation on long-settled urban birds have been poorly explored. Here, we investigated the distribution and song differences of a common resident songbird—the oriental magpie-robin (Copsychus saularis) between three urban morphology types (i.e., urban park, low-rise residential area, and high-rise residential area). The results indicated that the population density in low-rise residential areas was significantly higher than in urban parks, while it was the lowest in high-rise residential areas. Males in low-rise residential areas had greater song length, syllable numbers, frequency bandwidth, and song diversity than those in urban parks. The song differences were mainly related to habitat types, independent of singing height and perch type. Our findings suggest that low-rise residential areas may provide preferred song post sites for the oriental magpie-robin, which is well-adapted to the low-rise building morphology, but rejects the emerging high-rise buildings. Future studies are needed to assess the effects of urban morphological variation on more resident animals to determine which urban morphologies are conducive to enhancing biodiversity and encouraging animals to settle in urban areas. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bird Culture: Diversity and Functions of Bird Vocalizations)
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15 pages, 2182 KiB  
Article
Geographic Variation in Note Types of Alarm Calls in Japanese Tits (Parus minor)
by Li Zhang, Jiangping Yu, Chao Shen, Dake Yin, Longru Jin, Wei Liang and Haitao Wang
Animals 2022, 12(18), 2342; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12182342 - 08 Sep 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1584
Abstract
Geographic variability in acoustic signals has been documented in many bird species. However, geographic variations in alarm calls have been so far neglected despite their crucial role on reducing risk to group members and relatives. We analyzed the note types and acoustic parameters [...] Read more.
Geographic variability in acoustic signals has been documented in many bird species. However, geographic variations in alarm calls have been so far neglected despite their crucial role on reducing risk to group members and relatives. We analyzed the note types and acoustic parameters of Japanese tit (Parus minor) alarm calls to three types of intruders (a nest predator, an adult predator, and a harmless species) from three populations in China. Our results revealed that tits in the same population produce similar note types to different intruders, but the three populations only shared six note types and each population had unique note types. The frequency and duration parameters of three shared common note types were significantly different among populations. The three populations belong to the same species, thus they have shared note types. We suspect that the unique note types occurring in each population may be related to three potential reasons: founder effect, predation pressure, and vocal learning. The differences in acoustic parameters of common notes among populations may be a consequence of adaptations to their environments. We suggest that population differences in the note levels of bird alarm calls do exist. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bird Culture: Diversity and Functions of Bird Vocalizations)
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13 pages, 1194 KiB  
Article
Subspecies Taxonomy and Inter-Population Divergences of the Critically Endangered Yellow-Breasted Bunting: Evidence from Song Variations
by Wenshuang Bao, Atul Kathait, Xiang Li, Kiyoaki Ozaki, Yukihiro Hanada, Alexander Thomas, Geoffrey John Carey, Jun Gou, Batmunkh Davaasuren, Makoto Hasebe, Paul Ian Holt, Lukas Pelikan, Zhongyong Fan, Siyu Wang and Xiaoying Xing
Animals 2022, 12(17), 2292; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12172292 - 04 Sep 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2502
Abstract
The critically endangered Yellow-breasted Bunting has undergone population collapse globally because of illegal hunting and habitat deterioration. It was listed as critically endangered (CR) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2017 and designated a Class I (highest level) national [...] Read more.
The critically endangered Yellow-breasted Bunting has undergone population collapse globally because of illegal hunting and habitat deterioration. It was listed as critically endangered (CR) by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2017 and designated a Class I (highest level) national conservation bird species in China in 2021. Birdsong in the breeding season is the main communicative signal under sexual selection, and song variations have long been considered critical evidence of divergence among subspecies or populations. We compared the songs of 89 males from 18 populations to test subspecies taxonomy. We found that songs of the Yellow-breasted Bunting Emberiza aureola are subspecies specific and that three subspecies can be clearly discriminated by song divergences. Moreover, an analysis of multiple vocal traits supports the claim that insulana is distinct from aureola and ornata. Finally, at the geographic population level, populations can be clearly classified in accordance with the three subspecies, although the aureola population in Xinjiang, China is differentiated from other populations of the same subspecies. The results of this study demonstrate that all populations and subspecies are unique and should be protected to maintain intraspecies song diversity. In addition, several specific populations, such as insulana populations in Japan and the Xinjiang, China population of aureola, need to be paid special attention to prevent the extinction of unique or local taxa. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bird Culture: Diversity and Functions of Bird Vocalizations)
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9 pages, 734 KiB  
Article
Anti-Predation Responses to Conspecific versus Heterospecific Alarm Calls by the Nestlings of Two Sympatric Birds
by Yuxin Jiang, Jingru Han and Canchao Yang
Animals 2022, 12(16), 2156; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12162156 - 22 Aug 2022
Viewed by 1678
Abstract
Predation is generally the main cause of bird mortality. Birds can use acoustic signals to increase their predation survival. Bird response to mobbing alarm calls is a form of anti-predation behavior. We used a playback technique and acoustic analysis to study the function [...] Read more.
Predation is generally the main cause of bird mortality. Birds can use acoustic signals to increase their predation survival. Bird response to mobbing alarm calls is a form of anti-predation behavior. We used a playback technique and acoustic analysis to study the function of mobbing alarm calls in the parent–offspring communication of two sympatric birds, the vinous throated parrotbill (Sinosuthora webbianus) and oriental reed warbler (Acrocephalus orientalis). The chicks of these two species responded to conspecific and heterospecific mobbing alarm calls by suppressing their begging behavior. The mobbing alarm calls in these two species were similar. Mobbing alarm calls play an important role in parent–offspring communication, and chicks can eavesdrop on heterospecific alarm calls to increase their own survival. Eavesdropping behavior and the similarity of alarm call acoustics suggest that the evolution of alarm calls is conservative and favors sympatric birds that have coevolved to use the same calls to reduce predation risk. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bird Culture: Diversity and Functions of Bird Vocalizations)
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10 pages, 836 KiB  
Article
Female Cuckoo Calls Deceive Their Hosts by Evoking Nest-Leaving Behavior: Variation under Different Levels of Parasitism
by Jiaojiao Wang, Laikun Ma, Xiangyang Chen and Canchao Yang
Animals 2022, 12(15), 1990; https://doi.org/10.3390/ani12151990 - 05 Aug 2022
Viewed by 1769
Abstract
The common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is an obligate brood parasite that has evolved a series of strategies to trick its hosts. The female cuckoo has been hypothesized to mimic the appearance and sounds of several raptors to deceive the hosts into [...] Read more.
The common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) is an obligate brood parasite that has evolved a series of strategies to trick its hosts. The female cuckoo has been hypothesized to mimic the appearance and sounds of several raptors to deceive the hosts into exhibiting anti-predator behavior. Such behavior would relax the protection of the host nest and thus allow the female cuckoo to approach the host nest unopposed. Many anti-parasite strategies have been found to vary among geographical populations due to different parasitic pressures from cuckoos. However, the effect of female cuckoo calls related to different levels of parasitic pressure has not been examined. Here, we studied the effect of female cuckoo calls on the oriental reed warbler (Acrocephalus orientalis), one of the major hosts of the common cuckoo, in two geographical populations experiencing different levels of parasite pressure. Four kinds of sounds were played back to the hosts: the calls from female common cuckoos, male common cuckoos, sparrowhawks (Accipiter nisus), and oriental turtle doves (Streptopelia orientalis). The results showed that the female cuckoo calls induced the hosts to leave their nests more frequently than the male cuckoo or dove calls in both populations, and two populations of the hosts reacted similarly to the female cuckoo calls, implying that the function of female cuckoo calls would not be affected by the difference in parasitism rate. This study indicates that female cuckoo calls function to distract the hosts’ attention from protecting their nests. However, we propose that such a deception by the female cuckoo call may not be due to the mimicry of sparrowhawk calls, but rather that the rapid cadence of the call that causes a sense of anxiety in the hosts. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Bird Culture: Diversity and Functions of Bird Vocalizations)
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