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Paulo Gama Mota - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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colourful male european serins Serinus Serinus are more careful with their plumage
Ibis, 2015Co-Authors: Paulo Gama Mota, Ana V LeitaoAbstract:Ornamental traits typically advertise individual condition and can be costly to maintain. Plumage maintenance behaviour can increase plumage quality and positively influence female mate preference. We investigated this prediction by performing female mate-choice trials and measuring male plumage maintenance behaviour in the European Serin Serinus Serinus. More colourful males spent more time in plumage maintenance than less colourful males, but this was not correlated with body condition or ectoparasite load. Females preferred more colourful males, although this was not influenced by male plumage maintenance. Our findings highlight the fact that investment in plumage maintenance depends on individual coloration and this may reinforce the honesty of ornamental plumage and convey positive information for mate choice.
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limited inter annual song variation in the serin Serinus Serinus
Ethology, 2012Co-Authors: Paulo Gama Mota, Ana T MamedeAbstract:Patterns of song plasticity in passerine birds beyond the first year are poorly studied. In general, songbirds are divided into two categories: open-ended learners and closed-ended learners, depending on the pattern of age-related vocal plasticity. However, recent work based on longitudinal studies revealed a broader range of flexibility of song changes in adulthood. Serins sing very complex songs with large repertoires which are delivered in a very rigid way with little structural modification. However, there is little information on how serin song changes with age. We studied vocal plasticity in wild adult serins by recording male song over 2 years. The analyses show that male songs have only limited variation between years, with no increase in repertoire size and relatively small changes in their structural characteristics. Syllable production was very consistent within and between years with very little structural variation. New syllables represented only 8% of the repertoire, and they appeared to emerge from fusion or splitting of pre-existing syllables. We conclude that serin song while structurally complex has a very limited age-related plasticity after the first year. We hypothesise that this structural stability is a consequence of selection for performance consistency.
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song diversification and complexity in canaries and seedeaters Serinus spp
Biological Journal of The Linnean Society, 2007Co-Authors: Gonçalo C. Cardoso, Paulo Gama MotaAbstract:Bird song is a composite trait that shows great variation in syntax and phonology between taxa, which hampers the precise quantification of complexity. This should be more feasible for closely-related species that share aspects of song organization. We conducted a comparative study of song and syllable characteristics in the largest fringillid genus, Serinus (canaries and seedeaters), with two objectives: (1) to describe and quantify song complexity in the genus and (2) to assess evolutionary dynamics of song, in particular whether interspecific song diversification evolved along intraspecific lines of covariation between syllable characteristics. We document a pattern of intense, very labile evolution of song in the genus. Well-known vocal constraints such as the relationship between frequency and body size did not appear to limit this evolution, and intraspecific trade-offs between different aspects of syllable complexity did not constrain interspecific diversification. Factor analysis returned an axis of variation that comprehensively expresses song complexity in the genus, and is defined by song speed, repertoire size, and also various aspects of syllable phonology. The species body size is not related to this axis of complexity, but to a minor axis that may indicate better respiratory capacity of larger birds. We discuss the pattern of song evolution in Serinus spp. in the context of the evolutionary dynamics of sexually selected traits. © 2007 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2007, 92, 183–194.
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Female and male serins (Serinus Serinus) respond differently to derived song traits
Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, 2007Co-Authors: Gonçalo C. Cardoso, Paulo Gama Mota, Violaine DeprazAbstract:We tested if male or female behavior towards manipulated song indicates intra- or inter-sexual selection of two characteristics of serin song that are extreme and evolutionarily derived in this species: high frequency and fast syllable rate. In a first experiment, we monitored vocal responses and attendance to song playbacks. Female behavior indicated a preference for high-frequency song and suggested an aggressive function for fast syllable rates, as fast songs inhibited vocal response. Males did not show discrimination of frequency or syllable rate with this experimental design. The second experiment used a simple approach/no approach design, and in this experiment, males showed stronger discrimination between stimuli than did females. Therefore, sex differences in discrimination appear not to result from differences in perceptual abilities but from differences in the context of stimulus presentation. The second experiment also supported a role of song frequency in female choice, as the effect of frequency was limited to females: males did not respond differently to song frequency and approached high-frequency songs less than females did. Results of this experiment also supported an aggressive function for fast syllable rates, as the effect of fast songs did extend to male behavior. Taken together, our results indicate that the high frequency and fast syllable rate of serin song cannot result from a single selection process: while high frequency may have evolved by inter-sexual selection, syllable rate provokes a pattern of response that is more consistent with intra-sexual selection.
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A Test of the Effect of Male Song on Female Nesting Behaviour in the Serin (Serinus Serinus): a Field Playback Experiment
Ethology, 2004Co-Authors: Paulo Gama Mota, Violaine DeprazAbstract:It is well established, through laboratory experiments, that male song in birds can stimulate female reproductive activity, affecting their behaviour and physiology, such as follicular growth, nest building and egg-laying. However no clear demonstration has yet been provided that this effect works under natural conditions. Previous work in natural populations of serins showed that female nest-building behaviour correlated with male singing time. Furthermore male serin song peaked exactly in the day that rapid follicular growth was estimated to start in females, suggesting that in this species song may also serve to stimulate the female's reproductive development. Direct causal evidence, however, was lacking. We conducted field playback experiments to investigate how song can influence female nesting activity during nest building. Our results show that females who listened daily to playbacks of serin songs, during the nest-building stage, spent more time nest building than females that were not exposed to additional songs. Moreover, the singing behaviour of the mated males was not affected by the playbacks, suggesting that the song playback treatment had a direct positive effect on female nesting behaviour.
Gabriel B Mindlin - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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dynamical model for the neural activity of singing Serinus canaria
Chaos, 2020Co-Authors: Cecilia T Herbert, Gabriel B Mindlin, Santiago Boari, Ana AmadorAbstract:Vocal production in songbirds is a key topic regarding the motor control of a complex, learned behavior. Birdsong is the result of the interaction between the activity of an intricate set of neural nuclei specifically dedicated to song production and learning (known as the “song system”), the respiratory system and the vocal organ. These systems interact and give rise to precise biomechanical motor gestures which result in song production. Telencephalic neural nuclei play a key role in the production of motor commands that drive the periphery, and while several attempts have been made to understand their coding strategy, difficulties arise when trying to understand neural activity in the frame of the song system as a whole. In this work, we report neural additive models embedded in an architecture compatible with the song system to provide a tool to reduce the dimensionality of the problem by considering the global activity of the units in each neural nucleus. This model is capable of generating outputs compatible with measurements of air sac pressure during song production in canaries (Serinus canaria). In this work, we show that the activity in a telencephalic nucleus required by the model to reproduce the observed respiratory gestures is compatible with electrophysiological recordings of single neuron activity in freely behaving animals.
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an integrated model for motor control of song in Serinus canaria
Journal of Physiology-paris, 2016Co-Authors: Rodrigo Gogui Alonso, Ana Amador, Gabriel B MindlinAbstract:Birdsong is a learned motor behavior controlled by an interconnected structure of neural nuclei. This pathway is bilaterally organized, with anatomically indistinguishable structures in each brain hemisphere. In this work, we present a computational model whose variables are the average activities of different neural nuclei of the song system of oscine birds. Two of the variables are linked to the air sac pressure and the tension of the labia during canary song production. We show that these time dependent gestures are capable of driving a model of the vocal organ to synthesize realistic canary like songs.
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a circular model for song motor control in Serinus canaria
Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, 2015Co-Authors: Rodrigo Gogui Alonso, Marcos Alberto Trevisan, Ana Amador, Franz Goller, Gabriel B MindlinAbstract:Song production in songbirds is controlled by a network of nuclei distributed across several brain regions, which drives respiratory and vocal motor systems to generate sound. We built a model for birdsong production, whose variables are the average activities of different neural populations within these nuclei of the song system. We focus on the predictions of respiratory patterns of song, because these can be easily measured and therefore provide a validation for the model. We test the hypothesis that it is possible to construct a model in which (1) the activity of an expiratory related (ER) neural population fits the observed pressure patterns used by canaries during singing, and (2) a higher forebrain neural population, HVC, is sparsely active, simultaneously with significant motor instances of the pressure patterns. We show that in order to achieve these two requirements, the ER neural population needs to receive two inputs: a direct one, and its copy after being processed by other areas of the song system. The model is capable of reproducing the measured respiratory patterns and makes specific predictions on the timing of HVC activity during their production. These results suggest that vocal production is controlled by a circular network rather than by a simple top-down architecture.
Jordi Figuerola - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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increased endoparasite infection in late arriving individuals of a trans saharan passerine migrant bird
PLOS ONE, 2013Co-Authors: Guillermo Lopez, Joaquin Munoz, Ramon C Soriguer, Jordi FiguerolaAbstract:Earlier migration in males than in females is the commonest pattern in migrating passerines and is positively related to size dimorphism and dichromatism. The early arrival of males is a costly trait that may confer reproductive advantages in terms of better territories and/or mates. Given the physiological cost of migration, early migrants are those in best condition and accordingly the prevalence, load, and/or diversity of parasites is expected to increase in both sexes for late migrants. To test this hypothesis, we sampled 187 trans-Saharan migrant garden warblers Sylvia borin and 64 resident serins Serinus Serinus (as a control for potential circannual patterns in parasite load) during spring migration in Spain. We assessed the prevalence of blood parasites (Haemoproteus, Plasmodium, and Leucocytozoon) and the prevalence and load of intestinal parasites (mainly coccidians and spirurids). The relationship between parasite (prevalence, load, and richness) and the timing of passage through a stopover area was tested using generalized linear models. Protandry occurs in the monomorphic garden warbler and males migrated on average 5.5 days before females. Intestinal parasite richness increased with the date of migration. The timing of migration was unrelated to the presence or load of the other parasite groups analyzed. Our results support the idea that the timing of migration is a condition-dependent trait and suggests that multiple intestinal parasite infestations could delay migration in birds. Even in monomorphic species parasites may play a role in sexual selection by delaying the arrival of the most infected individuals at breeding grounds, thereby further increasing the benefits of mating with early-arriving individuals.
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plumage colour is related to ectosymbiont load during moult in the serin Serinus Serinus an experimental study
Animal Behaviour, 2003Co-Authors: Jordi Figuerola, Jordi Domenech, Juan Carlos SenarAbstract:Various hypotheses propose that plumage ornamentation is a reliable indicator of the health or resistance to parasites and illness of individuals. The impact of endoparasites on plumage brightness has only recently been demonstrated experimentally. We tested the impact of ectosymbionts, in particular feather mites, on plumage brightness, using 2 years of observational data and experiments in the field. The abundance of feather mites during moult was negatively correlated with brightness and saturation of plumage coloration developed by male serins. The application of an insecticide before moult resulted in experimental males developing a brighter plumage than control individuals. Experimental adult males, but not juveniles, also developed more saturated plumages in one of the years, but did not differ from controls in the other year. This is the first experimental demonstration that ectosymbionts (including mites) have a negative impact on the characteristics of the plumage developed and consequently can signal the healthiness of their hosts. 2003 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd on behalf of The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
Gérard Leboucher - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Female signalling to male song in the domestic canary, Serinus canaria
Royal Society Open Science, 2015Co-Authors: Mathieu Amy, Pauline Salvin, Marc Naguib, Gérard LeboucherAbstract:Most studies on sexual selection focus on male characteristics such as male song in songbirds. Yet female vocalizations in songbirds are growing in interest among behavioural and evolutionary biologists because these vocalizations can reveal the female's preferences for male traits and may affect male display. This study was designed to test whether male song performance influences the different female signals in the domestic canary (Serinus canaria). Female canaries were exposed to three types of song performance, differing in the repetition rate of sexy syllables. This experiment demonstrates that female birds are engaged in multimodal communication during sexual interaction. The results support the copulation solicitation hypothesis for female-specific trills: these trills were positively correlated and had a similar pattern to the copulation solicitation displays; responses were higher to the songs with higher performance and responses decreased with the repetition of the stimulation. Also, we observed a sensitization effect with the repetition of the song of the highest performance for the simple calls. Simple trills and other calls were more frequent during the broadcast of canary songs compared with the heterospecific control songs. The differential use of female signals in response to different song performance reveals a highly differentiated female signalling system which is discussed in light of the role of female traits to understand sexual selection in a broader perspective.
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Mate preferences in female canaries (Serinus canaria) within a breeding season
acta ethologica, 2006Co-Authors: Nathalie Béguin, Gérard Leboucher, Laetitia Bruckert, Michel KreutzerAbstract:Divorce and remating in birds can be described as strategies used to enhance reproductive success. Mate switching often occurs because pairs failed to brood at least one chick during the previous breeding season. In the present study, we evaluated the influence of reproductive success on female preferences in domesticated canaries ( Serinus canaria ). For that purpose, females previously paired and having reared young were placed in a choice test situation: They were allowed to choose between their previous mate and a familiar male (a male neighbor during the breeding period). During these choice tests, females tended to stay near their previous mate longer than near a male neighbor when their reproductive success was “good” (at least two chicks). On the other hand, females with “poor” reproductive success (one chick) did not show a preference for their previous mate. Furthermore, in the present study, we observed that during choice tests males reacted to the presence of their previous mate in a particular way, by gathering nest material. This behavior was more scarcely observed in neighbor males which, on the contrary, sang significantly more than previous mates did.
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sexually attractive phrases increase yolk androgens deposition in canaries Serinus canaria
General and Comparative Endocrinology, 2004Co-Authors: Aurelie Tanvez, André Lacroix, Nathalie Béguin, Olivier Chastel, Gérard LeboucherAbstract:Abstract The androgen concentration in birds’ eggs varies with laying order, breeding conditions, and mate attractiveness. In passerine birds, mate attractiveness depends upon song quality. The aim of our study was to evaluate the effect of one criterion used by females to assess male song quality that is to say the presence of sexually attractive phrases on yolk androgen deposition. Twenty-five female Canaries were assigned to three experimental groups; in the first group, the females were allowed to hear songs made up with attractive phrases; in the second group, they were allowed to hear songs made up with non-attractive phrases; and in the control group, the females could not hear any song. Our results show that females allowed to hear songs with attractive phrases deposit significantly higher amounts of androgens (mostly testosterone) in their eggs than females without acoustical stimulation. The females exposed to songs with non-attractive phrases had androgen amounts halfway between the two other groups. This suggests that when females are paired with mates able to sing attractive phrases they can allocate more androgens in their eggs during the pre-laying period.
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Progesterone inhibits female courtship behavor in domestic canaries (Serinus canaria).
Hormones and Behavior Hormones and Behaviour, 2000Co-Authors: Gérard Leboucher, Nathalie Béguin, André Lacroix, Michel KreutzerAbstract:We studied copulation solicitation display (CSD) responses to playback in photostimulated female canaries given systemic injections of progesterone. Eight females received injections of 0.1 mg of progesterone dissolved in olive oil during their first breeding cycle and were untreated during their second breeding cycle; eight females received only the oil vehicle during their first breeding cycle and received no treatment during their second breeding cycle. The injections were performed every second day during 15 days, after the onset of nest building. Progesterone treatment resulted in a significant increase of plasma progesterone which in turn provoked an inhibition of females' CSDs and decreased the size of the clutch. During the first breeding cycle, progesterone- treated females had lower CSDs and egglaying scores than did control females. During the second breeding cycle, when females received no treatment, no differences emerged between the two groups. The suppressive effect of progesterone on female sexual responses was observed as soon as 48 h after the beginning of the treatment. We propose that progesterone plays a key role in mediating the transition from active female courtship behavior to sexual refractoriness in this species. Suppressive effects of progesterone on female sexual behavior have been previously described in lizards as well as in rodents. Our data are consistent with the hypothesis of Godwin et al. (J. Godwin, V. Hartman, M. Grammer, and D. Crews, Horm. Behav. 30, 138– 144, 1996) which proposed that the decrease in sexual behavior following plasma progesterone increase represents an evolutionarily conserved mechanism in the regulation of female sexual behavior.
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sexual preferences for mate song in female canaries Serinus canaria
Behaviour, 1998Co-Authors: Nathalie Béguin, Gérard Leboucher, Michel KreutzerAbstract:Recent studies have shown that female passerine birds give more sexual displays for songs of their mates than for songs of other males. The present study aimed to determine to what extent familiarisation with a song may account for females' song preferences. Ten female canaries were paired with a male during 3 days before egg laying; females were subsequently left alone to incubate and rear their young. Females were subjected to the familiarisation procedure when nestlings were 9 days old, until they were 17 days old. During the familiarisation period, twice a day, each female was successively exposed to the playback of three successive song records: (a) The mate song (M), a song frequently emitted by their previous sexual partner; when this song was played back, females were concurrently exposed to the sight of their previous mate. (b) The song of a non-mate accompanied by the sight of the mate (NMAS), a song emitted by a non-mate male; when this song was played back, females were also exposed to the sight of their previous mate. (c) The song of a non-mate not accompanied by the sight of the mate (NMNAS). At the end of this familiarisation period, the sexual preferences of the females for these songs were studied. Sexual responses were elicited by the emission of the M, NMAS and NMNAS songs, without male presentation. We analysed the total number of copulation solicitation displays (CSDs) elicited by each song. Females displayed more for M song than for NMAS or NMNAS songs. Eight of the 10 females gave at least half of their displays to M song. In a separate experiment, females without reproductive experience with the males failed to present a preference for any of these songs. Taken together, these results strongly suggest that mate recognition is not a mere effect of familiarisation with songs but is closely associated with previous reproductive experience. Song preferences that develop as a result of association with a particular male may be important in the maintenance of pair bonds and could influence future copulation acceptance with this mate.
Juan Carlos Senar - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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multi state analysis of the impacts of avian pox on a population of serins Serinus Serinus the importance of estimating recapture rates
Animal Biodiversity and Conservation, 2004Co-Authors: Juan Carlos Senar, Michael J ConroyAbstract:Multi–state analysis of the impacts of avian pox on a population of Serins (Serinus Serinus): the importance of estimating recapture rates.— Disease is one of the evolutionary forces shaping populations. Recent studies have shown that epidemics like avian pox, malaria, or mycoplasmosis have affected passerine population dynamics, being responsible for the decline of some populations or disproportionately killing males and larger individuals and thus selecting for specific morphotypes. However, few studies have estimated the effects of an epidemic by following individual birds using the capture–recapture approach. Because avian pox can be diagnosed by direct examination of the birds, we are here able to analyze, using multistate models, the development and consequences of an avian pox epidemic affecting in 1996, a population of Serins (Serinus Serinus) in northeastern Spain. The epidemics lasted from June to the end of November of 1996, with a maximum apparent prevalence rate > 30% in October. However, recapture rate of sick birds was very high (0.81, range 0.37–0.93) compared to that of healthy birds (0.21, range 0.02– 0.32), which highly inflated apparent prevalence rate. This was additionally supported by the low predicted transition from the state of being uninfected to the state of being infected (0.03, SE 0.03). Once infected, Serin avian pox was very virulent with (15–day) survival rate of infected birds being of only 0.46 (SE 0.17) compared to that of healthy ones (0.87, SE 0.03). Probability of recovery from disease, provided that the bird survived the first two weeks, however, was very high (0.65, SE 0.25). The use of these estimates together with a simple model, allowed us to predict an asymptotic increase to prevalence of about 4% by the end of the outbreak period, followed by a sharp decline, with the only remaining infestations being infected birds that had not yet recovered. This is in contrast to the apparent prevalence of pox and stresses the need to estimate recapture rates when estimating population dynamics parameters.
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plumage colour is related to ectosymbiont load during moult in the serin Serinus Serinus an experimental study
Animal Behaviour, 2003Co-Authors: Jordi Figuerola, Jordi Domenech, Juan Carlos SenarAbstract:Various hypotheses propose that plumage ornamentation is a reliable indicator of the health or resistance to parasites and illness of individuals. The impact of endoparasites on plumage brightness has only recently been demonstrated experimentally. We tested the impact of ectosymbionts, in particular feather mites, on plumage brightness, using 2 years of observational data and experiments in the field. The abundance of feather mites during moult was negatively correlated with brightness and saturation of plumage coloration developed by male serins. The application of an insecticide before moult resulted in experimental males developing a brighter plumage than control individuals. Experimental adult males, but not juveniles, also developed more saturated plumages in one of the years, but did not differ from controls in the other year. This is the first experimental demonstration that ectosymbionts (including mites) have a negative impact on the characteristics of the plumage developed and consequently can signal the healthiness of their hosts. 2003 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd on behalf of The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
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analysis of individual and time specific covariate effects on survival of Serinus Serinus in north eastern spain
Journal of Applied Statistics, 2002Co-Authors: Michael J Conroy, Juan Carlos Senar, Jordi DomenechAbstract:We developed models for the analysis of recapture data for 2678 serins (Serinus Serinus) ringed in north-eastern Spain since 1985. We investigated several time- and individual-speci® c factors as potential predictors of overall mortality and dispersal patterns, and of gender and age di˛ erences in these patterns. Time-speci® c covariates included minimum daily temperature, days below freezing, and abundance of a strong competitor, siskins (Carduelis spinus) during winter, and maximum temperature and rainfall during summer. Individual covariates included body mass (i.e. body condi- tion), and wing length (i.e. ¯ ying ability), and interactions between body mass and environmental factors. We found little support of a predictive relationship between environ- mental factors and survival, but good evidence of relationships between body mass and survival, especially for juveniles. Juvenile survival appears to vary in a curvilinear manner with increasing mass, suggesting that there may exist an optimal mass beyond which increases are detrimental. The mass-survival relationship does seem to be inuenced by at least one environmental factor, namely the abundance of wintering siskins. When siskins are abundant, increases in body mass appear to relate strongly to increasing survival. When siskin numbers are average or low the relationship is largely reversed, suggesting that the presence of strong competition mitigates the otherwise largely negative aspects of greater body mass. Wing length in juveniles also appears to be related positively to survival, perhaps largely due to the inuence of a few unusually large juveniles with adult-like survival. Further work is needed to test these relationships, ideally under experimentation.
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sex differences in survival selection in the serin Serinus Serinus
Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 2001Co-Authors: Mats Bjorklund, Juan Carlos SenarAbstract:Natural selection is demonstrated in most natural populations which suggests that populations are dispatched from their adaptive peaks as a result of selection on correlated characters, or conflicting selection between the sexes. We analysed patterns of survival selection in a population of serins (Serinus Serinus) outside Barcelona over a period of 13 years. There was directional selection for increased wing length in males and females accompanied by strong disruptive selection on both tail and wing length in males and a selection against a positive correlation between the two characters in males. In females there was directional selection for increased bill width but decreased bill depth, which should be contrasted to the stabilizing selection acting on bill depth in males. There were conflicting selection on the characters within a sex and conflicting selection of the same characters between sexes, which constrain the rate of access to the nearest adaptive peak.
