Degradation of song in a species using nesting holes: the Pied Flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca

• Autor(a) principal: Lampe,Helene M.
• Data de Publicação: 2004
• Outros Autores: Dabelsteen,Torben, Larsen,Ole N., Pedersen,Simon B.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0001-37652004000200012
• topic: sound degradation; hole nesting; Pied Flycatcher; Ficedula hypoleuca

The habitat, but also the nest hole of a hole-nesting species, will degrade the song during transmission. We investigated how the sounds degrade in a sound transmission experiment with the song of the Pied Flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca (Muscicapidae). Ten different song elements were transmitted to microphones placed inside and outside a nest box. On average, song degradation was much greater inside than outside the nest boxes, especially with respect to excess attenuation and blurring of the song elements. Being inside a nest box therefore strongly reduces a Pied Flycatcher's possibility of detecting and recognizing songs or eavesdropping on singing interactions.