DOES HABITAT FRAGMENTATION INDUCE THE EVOLUTION OF CULTURAL SONG UNITS IN THE YELLOW CARDINAL GUBERNATRIX CRISTATA?

DOMINGUEZ, M.; REBOREDA, J.C.; MAHLER, B.

Congreso; XV Congress of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology; 2014

ISBE

The songs of oscine birds are one of the cultural traits best studied in animals. Although some aspects of singing appear to be genetically determined, the acquisition of song is performed through vocal learning. One consequence of vocal learning is that song often varies geographically. This variation results from the combined effect of copying incorrectly the song of parental individuals and of philopatry. The loss of variability in the acoustic signal has been observed in populations isolated by habitat fragmentation, which in turn generates a high differentiation in the songs of the populations which constitute cultural units. The Yellow Cardinal, Gubernatrix cristata, is a globally endangered passerine bird endemic of southern South America. In the past, this species was widely distributed in the thorny deciduous shrubland forests of central Argentina, most of Uruguay and part of southern Brazil. At present, the main populations are in Argentina, where its distribution is discontinuous due to habitat fragmentation. The aim of this study was to determine cultural units of the species and compare the geographical variability of the songs with the genetic differentiation previously found among populations.  We found little variation of the songs between individuals and among different allopatric breeding populations. Our results show that this culturally transmitted trait does not follow genetic evolutionary pathways.