NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2012

Wheatcroft David, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

The evolution of vocalizations with specific "meanings" in songbirds The assignment of arbitrary sounds with culturally defined meanings is a key building block in the development of language. However, a similar phenomenon can be found in the non-human animal world. Some animals, ranging from non-human primates to birds, use certain alarm signals in association with particular predator types, which allows others to respond appropriately without themselves observing the predator. How such communication systems arise is difficult to understand, because both the form of the signals and how others interpret them must develop in tandem. Are such context-specific signals truly arbitrarily assigned to stimuli? This project addresses these issues by evaluating the evolution of vocalizations used by a group of related species. Members of these species use a particular type of alarm call that is very similar across species when they observe cuckoos that seek to lay their eggs parasitically in their nests, but use species-specific alarm calls when confronting other types of threats. The project will develop theoretical mechanisms to explain why the evolution of the cuckoo-specific vocalizations is so constrained across species in comparison to other types of vocalizations and test the assumptions and predictions using field experiments. This project involves collaboration between mathematicians and field biologists, exposing theoreticians to real world, testable problems and training field biologists in techniques of mathematical modeling so that their experimental research can be better planned and informed. The principal investigator will employ and train undergraduate research assistants in field techniques and basic research.