Female song is widespread and ancestral in songbirds

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dc.contributor.authorOdom, Karan J.
dc.contributor.authorHall, Michelle L.
dc.contributor.authorRiebel, Katharina
dc.contributor.authorOmland, Kevin E.
dc.contributor.authorLangmore, Naomi E.
dc.date.accessioned2018-10-30T13:16:16Z
dc.date.available2018-10-30T13:16:16Z
dc.date.issued2014-03-04
dc.description.abstractBird song has historically been considered an almost exclusively male trait, an observation fundamental to the formulation of Darwin’s theory of sexual selection. Like other male ornaments, song is used by male songbirds to attract females and compete with rivals. Thus, bird song has become a textbook example of the power of sexual selection to lead to extreme neurological and behavioural sex differences. Here we present an extensive survey and ancestral state reconstruction of female song across songbirds showing that female song is present in 71% of surveyed species including 32 families, and that females sang in the common ancestor of modern songbirds. Our results reverse classical assumptions about the evolution of song and sex differences in birds. The challenge now is to identify whether sexual selection alone or broader processes, such as social or natural selection, best explain the evolution of elaborate traits in both sexes.en_US
dc.description.sponsorshipThis research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and Australian Academy of Science through an East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes graduate research fellowship to K.J.O. N.E.L. was supported by an Australian Research Council Fellowship and Discovery Grant. K.E.O. was supported by NSF grant DEB 1119506.en_US
dc.description.urihttps://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4379en_US
dc.format.extent6 pagesen_US
dc.genrejournal articlesen_US
dc.identifierdoi:10.13016/M2GT5FK24
dc.identifier.citationKaran J. Odom, Michelle L. Hall, Katharina Riebel, Kevin E. Omland & Naomi E. Langmore, Female song is widespread and ancestral in songbirds, Nature Communications volume 5, Article number: 3379 (2014), DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4379en_US
dc.identifier.uri10.1038/ncomms4379
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11603/11775
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.publisherMacmillan Publishers Limiteden_US
dc.relation.isAvailableAtThe University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Biological Sciences Department Collection
dc.relation.ispartofUMBC Faculty Collection
dc.rightsThis item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.
dc.rightsAttribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)*
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/*
dc.subjectFemaleen_US
dc.subjectDarwin’s theoryen_US
dc.subjectsongbirdsen_US
dc.subjectevolutionen_US
dc.titleFemale song is widespread and ancestral in songbirdsen_US
dc.typeTexten_US

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