Short-Term Variations of Dialects in Short Songs of Two Species of Colonial Caciques (Cacicus)
The vocalizations involved in social communication of many oscine species present dialectal variants in vocalizations involved in social communication. Different hypotheses predict the function of these dialects: the "local adaptation" hypothesis, the "social adaptation" hypothesis
and the "epiphenomenon" hypothesis. The social adaptation hypothesis predicts a rapid change in local dialects adjusted to each colonial variant via vocal sharing of constantly drifting song types. Here we investigated the dialect temporal variations of two colonial Cacicus species as we know
that spatially-restricted dialectical variants, probably linked to social organization, exist in these species. Sound recordings were collected in the field, focalising on a series of nesting colony trees followed over several years. Songs were analysed from sonograms and their temporal and
frequency parameters were compared. The fact that we observed short-term variations of colonial dialects tends to support the hypothesis of a culturally acquired colony-specific vocalization in both species.
Document Type: Research Article
Publication date: 01 July 2014
- Access Key
- Free content
- Partial Free content
- New content
- Open access content
- Partial Open access content
- Subscribed content
- Partial Subscribed content
- Free trial content