Note types and coding in parid vocalizations: the chick-a-dee call of the Mexican Chickadee Poecile sclateri

作者：Moscicki Michele K; Hoeschele Marisa; Sturdy Christopher B^*

来源：Acta Ornithologica, 2010, 45(2): 147-160.

DOI：10.3161/000164510X551282

• Mexican Chickadee
• bioacoustics
• Poecile
• communication

To understand the communicative functions of any vocalization it is important to describe and classify the elements of that vocalization. Mexican Chickadees produce a namesake chick-a-dee call. Here, the note types (A, C, D, and D(h)) from a sample of Mexican Chickadee chick-a-dee calls are identified, described, and classified. Frequency and temporal features of each note type are measured and compared to determine which features may be useful for note-type discrimination. Frequency measures, particularly peak frequency, appear to be most useful for discriminating among note types. Call syntax is analyzed to determine rules for note-type production. Mexican Chickadees produce the notes within their chick-a-dee calls in a consistent order: A -> C -> D(h) -> D with the potential for any note type to be repeated or omitted within this sequence. Similar to species in the brown-headed chickadee clade, B notes were not found in the calls of Mexican chickadees, suggesting this species may belong to the brown-headed clade. This work describes the chick-a-dee call of Mexican Chickadees and provides a foundation for future work aimed at understanding the communicative significance of this call within this species, as well as for comparative work on the chick-a-dee call among chickadee species.

• 出版日期2010