21 Giu. 2016 - Tereza Petrusková

What can we learn from the bird song?

Presenta: Tereza Petrusková

Department of Ecology, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague

Birdsong has attracted people for ages. It has inspired numerous artists (especially in music) and music sheets together with verbal descriptions were also at the beginning of its research. Two main functions of the bird song, mate attraction and territory defence, were discovered and proven many years ago. However, fast development of technical equipment and availability of bioacoustic software allow us to discover much more subtle details about bird songs. Song variation among bird taxa is enormous and therefore it is difficult to discover any general rules that would fit most species. However, there are some more widespread phenomena, studying of which are particularly promising. The aim of this talk is to present at least some of them, in which Dr Petruskovà is involved. For example, she will show how the birdsong can encode quality of the singer, how birds can assess aggressive motivation of an opponent by listening his singing or how and why passerines are able of individual recognition. At the end of the talk, Dr Petruskovà will focus at the potential use of the bird song in conservation biology and behavioral studies.

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