Inheritance of temporal song features in Java sparrows

Lewis, Rebecca N, Kwong, Anthony, Soma, Masayo, De Kort, Selvino R and Gilman, R Tucker (2023) Inheritance of temporal song features in Java sparrows. Animal Behaviour, 206. pp. 61-74. ISSN 0003-3472

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Abstract

The inheritance of structural characteristics and individual note parameters is often studied in oscine passerines. However, other song features, such as the temporal characteristics of song, are less well studied. Inheritance of these features could be influenced by a range of factors, including social inheritance, mechanical constraints, genetic relatedness and the developmental environment. Using archived song data, we examined patterns of inheritance of temporal song features, relating to song duration, song tempo and internote intervals, in a laboratory population of Java sparrows, Padda oryzivora, some of which had been cross fostered. Overall, we found strong evidence for cultural inheritance of temporal song features, that is, temporal song features were learned from the social father. We found that song duration was, at most, weakly socially inherited and constrained by a correlation between song tempo and number of notes. Internote gap durations were also influenced by other song features, in particular the duration of the preceding and following notes, although social learning was still apparent when controlling for these features. Across all measures, we found no evidence that temporal song features were affected by genetic relatedness or the developmental environment. Our findings, and those in other species, suggest that temporal song features are likely to be inherited through a combination of the learning of song structure and spectral structure of notes, and specific learning of temporal song features during development.