ArticlePloS one2020
Undirected singing rate as a non-invasive tool for welfare monitoring in isolated male zebra finches.
Article in PloS one, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed.
- Estimating the motor exploration in reinforcement learning.iScience · 2026Article
- Automated, stress-free, and precise measurement of songbird weight in neuroscience experiments.PloS one · 2026Article
- Visually-guided compensation of deafening-induced song deterioration.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Article
- Goal-directed vocal planning in a songbird.eLife · 2024Article
- Role of the ventral portion of intermediate arcopallium in stability of female Bengalese finch song preferences.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- Distinct patterns of activity within columns of the periaqueductal gray are associated with functionally distinct birdsongs.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2023Article
- Using seasonality and birdsong to understand mechanisms underlying context-appropriate shifts in social motivation and reward.Hormones and behavior · 2022Review
- Birdsong and the Neural Regulation of Positive Emotion.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Review
- Neurally driven synthesis of learned, complex vocalizations.Current biology : CB · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
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Abstract
Research on the songbird zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) has advanced our behavioral, hormonal, neuronal, and genetic understanding of vocal learning. However, little is known about the impact of typical experimental manipulations on the welfare of these birds. Here we explore whether the undirected singing rate can be used as an indicator of welfare. We tested this idea by performing a post hoc analysis of singing behavior in isolated male zebra finches subjected to interactive white noise, to surgery, or to tethering. We find that the latter two experimental manipulations transiently but reliably decreased singing rates. By contraposition, we infer that a high-sustained singing rate is suggestive of successful coping or improved welfare in these experiments. Our analysis across more than 300 days of song data suggests that a singing rate above a threshold of several hundred song motifs per day implies an absence of an acute stressor or a successful coping with stress. Because singing rate can be measured in a completely automatic fashion, its observation can help to reduce experimenter bias in welfare monitoring. Because singing rate measurements are non-invasive, we expect this study to contribute to the refinement of the current welfare monitoring tools in zebra finches.
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