@article {57930, title = {Significant Instances in Motor Gestures of Different Songbird Species}, year = {2019}, abstract = {

The nervous system representation of a motor program is an open problem for most behaviors. In birdsong production, it has been proposed that some special temporal instances, linked to significant aspects of the motor gestures used to generate the song, are preferentially represented in the cortex. In this work, we compute these temporal instances for two species, and report which of them is better suited to test the proposed coding (as well as alternative models) against data.

}, keywords = {birdsong production, cortical representation, motor gestures, songbirds, sparse coding}, doi = {10.3389/fphy.2019.0014210.3389/fphy.2019.00142.s001}, url = {https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fphy.2019.00142/full}, author = {Lassa Ortiz, Javier N. and Herbert, Cecilia T. and Mindlin, Gabriel B. and Amador, Ana} } @article {57565, title = {Eavesdropping on a heterospecific alarm call in the giant root-rat (Tachyorytes macrocephalus), an important prey of the Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis)}, year = {2019}, abstract = {

The giant root-rat of the Bale Mountains, Ethiopia has been reported to have a mutualistic relationship with a passerine, which involves eavesdropping on its alarm call. We tested this in a field playback experiment. Besides the alarm call, we included two sounds potentially acting as alarm cues and one as a control. Little reaction of root-rats was detected to the bird alarm call. However, intensive reaction was detected to an alarm call of the black-clawed brush-furred rat, a social rodent often occupying root-rats\’ burrows. This result is understandable given the two rodents have the same principal predator, the Ethiopian wolf.

}, keywords = {Afroalpine, Alarm, Anti-predator, eavesdropping, Mutualism, Wing whistle}, doi = {10.1007/s10164-019-00618-1}, url = {http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10164-019-00618-1}, author = {Hrouzkov{\'a}, Ema and Bernasov{\'a}, Eli{\v s}ka and {\v S}kl{\'\i}ba, Jan} } @article {52567, title = {Negative impact of urban noise on sexual receptivity and clutch size in female domestic canaries}, journal = {Ethology}, volume = {123}, year = {2017}, month = {Jan-11-2017}, pages = {843 - 853}, abstract = {

In oscines, male song stimulates female reproduction and females are known to adjust both their sexual preferences and their maternal investment according to song quality. Female domestic canaries are especially responsive to wide frequency bandwidth (4 kHz) male songs emitted with a high-repetition syllable rate and low minimal frequencies (1 kHz). We previously showed that low-frequency urban noise decreases female sexual responsiveness for these low-frequency songs (1\–5 kHz) through auditory masking. Based on the differential allocation hypothesis, we predicted that urban noise exposure will equally affect female maternal investment. Using a crossover design, we broadcast low-frequency songs to females either in an overlapping noise condition or in an alternating noise condition. Females decreased both their sexual responsiveness and their clutch size in the overlapping noise treatment relative to the alternative noise treatment. No differences were found concerning egg size or egg composition (yolk and albumen mass, testosterone concentration). Due to our experimental design, we can exclude a general impact of noisy conditions and thereby provide evidence for a detrimental effect through masking on avian courtship and reproductive output. These results suggest that noisy conditions may also affect avian communication in outdoor conditions, which may partly explain field reports on noise-dependent breeding success and reduced breeding densities at noisy sites.

}, doi = {10.1111/eth.2017.123.issue-1110.1111/eth.12659}, url = {http://doi.wiley.com/10.1111/eth.2017.123.issue-11}, author = {Huet des Aunay, Guillaume and Grenna, Marco and Slabbekoorn, Hans and Nicolas, Pierre and Nagle, Laurent and Leboucher, G{\'e}rard and Malacarne, Giorgio and Draganoiu, Tudor I.}, editor = {Fusani, L.} }