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Birds convey complex signals in simple songs

The quality of a bird’s song during courtship can influence whether a male is selected as a mate. An innovative approach using machine learning offers a way to analyse the characteristics of birdsong.
  1. Kate T. Snyder

    1. Kate T. Snyder is in the Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37240, USA, and in the Evolutionary Studies Initiative, Vanderbilt University.

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  2. Nicole Creanza

    1. Nicole Creanza is in the Department of Biological Sciences, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee 37240, USA, and in the Evolutionary Studies Initiative, Vanderbilt University.

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How do you measure a song? Researchers have long attempted to quantify songs to understand bird evolution and behaviour. However, basic ways of measuring these diverse sounds, such as through pitch, duration and loudness, cannot fully capture the songs’ intricacy, let alone reveal what properties birds find appealing. Writing in Nature, Alam et al.1 propose a holistic method of measuring song using innovative computational tools. Furthermore, the authors present behavioural evidence that suggests their metric can capture variation that is meaningful to the intended listeners of songs — other birds.

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Nature 628, 37-39 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-00677-6

References

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Competing Interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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