Competition for acoustic space in a temperate-forest bird community

Animals that communicate by acoustic signaling share a common acoustic environment. Birds are particularly vocal examples, using a wide repertoire of songs and calls for mate attraction and territorial defense. However, interference caused by sounds that overlap in frequency and time can disrupt signal detection and reduce reproductive success. This may be particularly important in temperate regions where breeding is restricted to short seasonal windows. Here we investigated competition avoidance mechanisms used by the bird community inhabiting a primeval lowland temperate forest in Białowieża, Eastern Poland. We recorded morning soundscapes at 84 locations in early and late spring and calculated song dissimilarity indices to examine how species with greater song similarities use spatial and temporal partitioning to avoid competition for acoustic space throughout the breeding season. The bird community changed its use of acoustic space throughout the day and season. Birds did not use sp..., , , # Competition for acoustic space in a temperate-forest bird community

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.73n5tb339](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.73n5tb339)

We calculated the Song Dissimilarity Index (SDI) for each pair of the species present in Białowieża Forest using good quality recordings of 55 reference species from the area (8±2 individuals per species, 414 individuals in total). The index is based on the Acoustic Dissimilarity Index developed by Sueur et al. (2008). To obtain the song samples, we recorded songs of 62 individuals of 10 species in Białowieża Forest between 19-28 April 2021. The recordings were made using a digital recorder (Marantz PMD661) at a sampling rate of 48kHz with16-bit accuracy, with a Sennheiser directional microphone. We supplemented these with recordings of 352 individuals downloaded from Xeno-canto (xeno-canto.org), recorded at a minimum 44.1 kHz sampling rate. As the files from Xeno-canto were saved in mp3 format, we first converted our recordings to mp...