A limit to sustained performance constrains trill length in birdsong

Sierro, Javier, de Kort, Selvino R and Hartley, Ian R (2023) A limit to sustained performance constrains trill length in birdsong. iScience, 26 (11). 108206. ISSN 2589-0042

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.108206

Abstract

In birds, song performance determines the outcome of contests over crucial resources. We hypothesized that 1) sustained performance is limited within song, resulting in a performance decline towards the end and 2) the impact of song length is compromised if performance declines. To test these hypotheses, we analyzed the songs of 597 bird species (26 families) and conducted a playback experiment on blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus). Our multi-species analysis showed that song performance declines after sustained singing, supporting our hypothesis. If the performance decline is determined by individual attributes (i.e., physical condition), our results explain how trill length can honestly signal quality. Our experiment showed that longer trills of high performance elicited a stronger response during territorial interactions. However, long trills that declined in performance elicited a weaker response than short, high-performance trills. A trade-off between the duration and performance quality of a motor display can be an important aspect in communication across taxa.

Item Type:	Article (Article)
Peer-reviewed:	Yes
Date Deposited:	03 Nov 2023 09:16
Publisher:	Elsevier
Additional Information:	This is an open access article which originally appeared in iScience, published by Elseiver
Divisions:	Faculties > Science and Engineering Research Centres > Ecology and Environment Research Centre
Data Access Statement:	Audio recordings from the multi-species analysis are taken from a public repository of bird sound recordings (xeno-cant.org) and a list of the exact recordings analysed is deposited in a public data repository. The DOI is listed in the key resources table (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589004223022836?via%3Dihub#sec4.1). All original code has been deposited at Figshare and is publicly available as of the date of publication. DOIs are listed in the key resources table. Any additional information required to re-analyse the data reported in this paper is available from the lead contact upon request.
Report number:	108206
URI:	https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/632938
DOI:	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.108206
ISSN	2589-0042

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