ArticleBehavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology
Zebra finch song is a very short-range signal in the wild: evidence from an integrated approach.
Article in Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral Ecology. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- An experimental test of chronic traffic noise exposure on parental behaviour and reproduction in zebra finches.Biology open · 2022Pooled it
- Social familiarity strengthens neural and vocal responses to conspecific calls in zebra finches.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Windy weather drives social structure in wild zebra finches.Movement ecology · 2026Article
- Article
- The ecology of zebra finch song and its implications for vocal communication in multi-level societies.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Review
- Male and female syringeal muscles exhibit superfast shortening velocities in zebra finches.The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Zebra finch song is a very short-range signal in the wild: evidence from an integrated approach.Behavioral ecology : official journal of the International Society for Behavioral EcologyArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Birdsong is typically seen as a long-range signal functioning in mate attraction and territory defense. Among birds, the zebra finch is the prime model organism in bioacoustics, yet almost exclusively studied in the lab. In the wild, however, zebra finch song differs strikingly from songbirds commonly studied in the wild as zebra finch males sing most after mating and in the absence of territoriality. Using data from the wild, we here provide an ecological context for a wealth of laboratory studies. By integrating calibrated sound recordings, sound transmission experiments and social ecology of zebra finches in the wild with insights from hearing physiology we show that wild zebra finch song is a very short-range signal with an audible range of about nine meters and that even the louder distance calls do not carry much farther (up to about fourteen meters). These integrated findings provide an ecological context for the interpretation of laboratory studies of this species and indicate that the vocal communication distance of the main laboratory species for avian acoustics contrasts strikingly with songbirds that use their song as a long-range advertisement signal.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.