Transcript Document 7372526

Song development and its
importance in male and
female zebra finches
(Taeniopygia guttata).
Jodie Miller
Phuoc Ho
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Two distinct sub-species of zebra
finch
• Taeniopygia guttata guttata
• Taeniopygia gutatta castanotis
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medium sized finch
• 10-11 cm long
• weighing about 12 grams
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male and female
• head and back are grey
• the tail has black and white bars
social creatures
 live year round in flocks of 50 and up
to 100 or more birds
 produce as many as 5 to 7 eggs
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The young
• undergo a rapid development
• reaching nutritional independence at
about 35 days
• sexually mature at 3 months
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Monogamous and sexually dimorphic
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Song system of zebra finches and
other song birds
 two pathways
Efferent pathway
Anterior forebrain pathway
Song learning and production
regions
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HVC- caudal nucleus of the ventral
hyperstriatum
RA- robust nucleus of the archistriatum.
DLM- medial nucleus of the dorsolateral
thalamus
lMAN- lateral magnocellualr nucleus of the
anterior neostriatum.
Area X- lobus parolfactorius
nXIIts- tracheosyringeal portion of the
hypoglossal nucleus
Efferent pathway
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Production of
learned song
HVC  RA 
nXIIts  vocal
organ
Anterior forebrain pathway
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Song learning
pathway
HVC  area X 
DLM  lMAN  RA
Volume sizes
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lMAN, HVC, RA, area X
lMAN
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initiation and early development of
song learning
males
• 10-20 days - increased ~72%
• 20-40 days – decrease ~ 48%
• > 40 days – no change
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Females
• Exhibit same patterns
• Males lMAN volume twice that of
females at 10 days
• 30 days - = lMAN volume of males
• > 30 days – decrease until adulthood
HVC
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Males
• Development until adulthood
• 10 -30 days – increased ~ 71%
• 30 – 40 days – further increased of 47%
• 40 - 50 days – growth stop
• 50 – 60 days – increased 39%
• > 60 days – constant
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Females
• 10 days – adulthood – no volume
growth detected
RA
volume similar during the first 20
days for males and females
 Males
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• 20 - 30 days – increase ~48%
• Every 10 days – increase ~ 22% until
normal value is reached
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Females
• 20 – 30 days – decrease 23%
• Continue to decrease until normal value
is reached in adulthood
Area X
Visible in males
 Missing in females
 Occurred at two period
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• 20 days – increased ~ 84%
• 40 days – further increased ~ 76%
What does it indicate?
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Song learning consists of two phases
• Memorizing song (sensory acquisition
phase)
• Reproducing song (sensorimotor
learning phase)
• Memorizing phase started first
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Lasted up to 40 days
• Reproducing phase started later
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Lasted up to 60 days
• phases partly overlapping
lMAN
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There is 10 days delay for females
• Related to only memorizing song
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Important to differentiate songs
Males early development related to
both the memorizing and
reproducing song
HVC & RA
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Males
• HVC increase in two time periods &
increase continually in RA
May related to memorizing phase started
first
 May related to reproducing phase started
later
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Females
• Declined of HVC & RA
Occurred before reproducing phase has
started
 Only memorizing phase occurred
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Song learning process
Males
-process takes place between 25-90 days of
age
-plays a crucial role in mate selection,
developing the species or population specific
vocalization.
-exposure of songs can be acquired through
social learning between non-relatives but is
usually done by the father
-must learn before sexual maturation for
repertories to be stable
Learning process con’t
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Females
• Learn preferences for males by the
male’s songs. Trait is passed on to the
nestlings.
• vocalization developed independently
from social learning because they do not
sing.
• Provides a natural control group where
perception learning is not influenced by
song production learning
• Preferred songs like their father’s over
an unfamiliar one.
Distance Call structure
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Male call
• tonal component- made up of pure, sustained
harmonic tones
• Noise component- harsh, rapidly-modulated
quality
Female Call
• Only tonal component- longer and lower
pitched
• Males, not females learn distance calls from
father during first 40 days of life
Female Song preferences
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Songs heard early in life influence which song
advertised by males they will choose to mate
with in adulthood
Need adult song exposure in early development
to develop normal song preference
Reared with adult males=preferred normal
quality songs
Reared without adult males=preferred abnormal
quality song
Prefer fathers’ song over unfamiliar ones
Experiments conducted
Stress effects on song structure
Stress of song structure affects the
attractiveness of the song.
 Stressed males exhibited shorter,
simpler songs
 Nutrition stress effects
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• brief period of under-nutrition affects
the repertoire size (quantity of what is
learned) and also the ability to copy
local song material (the quality of what
is learned).
Stress effects Con’t
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Study conducted on stress effects.
• The stressed males exhibited lower
numbers of syllables and fewer different
syllables in a phrase. Rate and
frequency did not differ between two
song types
• Females showed a significant preference
for non-stressed songs
• Non-stressed males conducted a
complex song. Complexity of a song
may indicate that a male is older and
therefore having a better territory.
Other effects on song quality
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The number of male siblings cause social
inhibition of song imitation among each
other
Study conducted by Tchernichovski
• Found that incomplete imitations are more
common among early-hatched than among
late-hatched siblings.
• Young siblings were more likely to develop
song first and imitate entirely their fathers
song than the older siblings.
White noise effect
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Used chronic exposure to loud white noise
Long-term exposure to continuous wn
resulted in disruption of songs similar to
that observed after deafening
Recovery of pre-WN song patterns were
limited after restoration of hearing.
Suggested that an adult form of learning
existed
References:
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