Data for 'Translocated wild birds are predisposed to learn songs of their ancestral population'

Data and code to reproduce results and figures from 'Translocated wild birds are predisposed to learn songs of their ancestral population'. Abstract: Population differences in socially learned mating signals like oscine birdsong are particularly vulnerable to breakdown through dispersal. Despite this challenge, geographic variation in learned signals is ubiquitous. A proposed explanation for this pattern is that birds express predispositions to selectively learn and produce population typical songs. While experimental studies on lab-reared birds have shown the existence of within-species learning predispositions, it remains unclear whether and how learning predispositions influence song acquisition in the wild. Here, we investigated innate song learning predispositions in wild pied flycatchers (Ficedula hypoleuca) by measuring the songs of individuals translocated as eggs from a Dutch population to a breeding population in Sweden. We compared the songs of the adult males hatched from these translocated eggs with those from the ancestral and receiving populations. Songs of translocated males closely resemble the local Swedish songs to which they were exposed during development, supporting the importance of social learning. However, translocated males selectively learned those local Swedish song elements that sound the most ‘Dutch-like’. As a result, their songs are significantly shifted towards those of the ancestral Dutch population. This suggests that innate learning predispositions track ongoing song evolution in wild populations of pied flycatchers. We propose that as songs continue to diverge over time, this coevolutionary relationship between song and learning predispositions may contribute to the emergence of incipient pre-mating barriers.

本数据集与配套代码可复现《易位野生鸟类倾向于学习其祖先种群的鸣唱》一文的全部结果与图表。

摘要：鸣禽鸣唱这类社会习得的求偶信号所存在的种群差异，尤其容易因个体扩散而瓦解。尽管面临这一挑战，习得信号的地理差异仍普遍存在。针对这一现象，有假说提出鸟类天生具有选择性学习并产生种群典型鸣唱的倾向性。尽管针对笼养鸟类的实验研究已证实种内学习倾向性的存在，但目前仍不清楚学习倾向性是否以及如何影响野生个体的鸣唱习得过程。本研究以野生斑姬鹟（Ficedula hypoleuca）为对象，将荷兰种群的卵易位至瑞典的繁殖种群中孵化饲养，通过分析这些个体的鸣唱，探究其先天鸣唱学习倾向性。我们将这些由易位卵孵化出的成年雄鸟的鸣唱，与来自祖先种群与接收种群的雄鸟鸣唱进行了对比。结果显示，易位个体的鸣唱与它们发育期间接触到的瑞典本土鸣唱高度相似，印证了社会学习在鸣唱习得中的重要作用。但易位个体却选择性地学习了瑞典本土鸣唱中最具"荷兰特征"的元素，因此其鸣唱显著偏向于祖先荷兰种群的鸣唱特征。这表明，先天学习倾向性会伴随斑姬鹟野生种群的鸣唱演化进程发生同步变化。我们据此提出，随着鸣唱随时间不断分化，鸣唱与学习倾向性之间的这种共演化关系，可能会促进初期交配前生殖隔离的形成。