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Paradoxical calls: the opposite signaling role of sound frequency across bird species

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  • Gonçalo C. Cardoso

Abstract

The behavioral literature contains inconsistent results on the function of sound frequency (pitch) across species, offering an unexplored opportunity to investigate evolutionary diversification of communication systems. I review those results for birds, where about half the studied species use lower than average frequency (LAF) as a relevant sexual signal, and the remaining species use higher than average frequency (HAF) for the same functions. This variation appears nonrandom with respect to putative causal factors, suggesting that advertising body size determines which species use LAF as a sexual signal. I evaluate different hypotheses to explain why the remaining species use HAF instead. Integrating tests of alternative hypotheses on focal species will be required to demonstrate the causes for this divergence in communication systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Gonçalo C. Cardoso, 2012. "Paradoxical calls: the opposite signaling role of sound frequency across bird species," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 23(2), pages 237-241.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:beheco:v:23:y:2012:i:2:p:237-241.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/beheco/arr200
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Bruce E. Byers, 2007. "Extrapair paternity in chestnut-sided warblers is correlated with consistent vocal performance," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 18(1), pages 130-136, January.
    2. Paolo Galeotti & Roberto Sacchi & Daniele Pellitteri Rosa & Mauro Fasola, 2005. "Female preference for fast-rate, high-pitched calls in Hermann's tortoises Testudo hermanni," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 16(1), pages 301-308, January.
    3. Yang Hu & Gonçalo C. Cardoso, 2009. "Are bird species that vocalize at higher frequencies preadapted to inhabit noisy urban areas?," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 20(6), pages 1268-1273.
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    Cited by:

    1. Paweł Ręk & Tomasz S. Osiejuk, 2013. "Temporal patterns of broadcast calls in the corncrake encode information arbitrarily," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 24(2), pages 547-552.
    2. Mary J. Montague & Marine Danek-Gontard & Hansjoerg P. Kunc, 2013. "Phenotypic plasticity affects the response of a sexually selected trait to anthropogenic noise," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 24(2), pages 343-348.
    3. Pavel Linhart & Hans Slabbekoorn & Roman Fuchs, 2012. "The communicative significance of song frequency and song length in territorial chiffchaffs," Behavioral Ecology, International Society for Behavioral Ecology, vol. 23(6), pages 1338-1347.

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