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Trill performance components vary with age, season, and motivation in the banded wren

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Abstract

Acoustic displays with difficult-to-execute sounds are often subject to strong sexual selection because performance levels are related to the sender’s condition or genetic quality. Performance may also vary with age, breeding stage, and motivation related to social context. We focused on within-male variation in four components of trill performance in banded wren (Thryophilus pleurostictus) songs: note consistency, frequency bandwidth, note rate, and vocal deviation. The latter is a composite measure reflecting deviation from the performance limit on simultaneously maximizing both frequency bandwidth and note rate. We compared the changes in these song parameters at three time scales: over the course of years, across the breeding season, and at different times of the day with contrasting agonistic contexts. Vocal deviation decreased and note consistency increased between years, suggesting that experience may improve individual proficiency at singing trills. Consistency also increased across the season, confirming that practice is important for this parameter. Although there was no significant seasonal change in vocal deviation, one of its components, note rate, increased during the season. Neither vocal deviation nor consistency varied with agonistic context. However, note rate increased during playback experiments simulating territorial intrusions compared to dawn chorus singing. The magnitude of a male’s increase in note rate was positively correlated with his aggressive behavior during the playback experiment. Thus consistency, bandwidth, and vocal deviation indicate age, whereas trill rate flexibly indicates the singer’s aggressive motivation. We also found evidence of a within-male trade-off between vocal deviation and consistency.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Área de Conservación Guanacaste for permission to work in Santa Rosa National Park and the park staff, especially Roger Blanco and María Marta Chavarría, for the logistical support in Costa Rica. Anya Illes, Erin Eldermire, Jessica Niederer, Stephanie Lessard-Pilon, Elizabeth Ochoa, and Kate Neville assisted with the field recording. Jack Bradbury provided comments on the manuscript. This work was funded by NIMH grant R01-MH60461.

Ethical standards

The experimental methods for this study complied with current rules and regulations within the USA.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurobiology and Behavior, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    S. L. Vehrencamp

  2. Department of Environmental and Forest Biology, SUNY-ESF, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, NY, 13210, USA

    J. Yantachka

  3. Department of Zoology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, 3010, Australia

    M. L. Hall

  4. School of Science & the Environment, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, M1 5GD, UK

    S. R. de Kort

  5. Laboratory of Ornithology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, 14850, USA

    S. L. Vehrencamp, J. Yantachka, M. L. Hall & S. R. de Kort

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  1. S. L. Vehrencamp
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Correspondence to S. L. Vehrencamp.

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Communicated by H. Brumm

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Vehrencamp, S.L., Yantachka, J., Hall, M.L. et al. Trill performance components vary with age, season, and motivation in the banded wren. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 67, 409–419 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-012-1461-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-012-1461-x

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