10.5061/DRYAD.22V00
Chen, Yining
McGill University
Clark, Oliver
McGill University
Woolley, Sarah C.
McGill University
Data from: Courtship song preferences in female zebra finches are shaped
by developmental auditory experience
Dryad
dataset
2017
EGR1
Taeniopygia guttata
preference
auditory processing
Social context
2017-04-06T14:16:35Z
2017-04-06T14:16:35Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.0054
43397 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
The performance of courtship signals provides information about the
behavioural state and quality of the signaller, and females can use such
information for social decision-making (e.g. mate choice). However,
relatively little is known about the degree to which the perception of and
preference for differences in motor performance are shaped by
developmental experiences. Furthermore, the neural substrates that
development could act upon to influence the processing of performance
features remains largely unknown. In songbirds, females use song to
identify males and select mates. Moreover, female songbirds are often
sensitive to variation in male song performance. Consequently, we
investigated how developmental exposure to adult male song affected
behavioural and neural responses to song in a small, gregarious songbird,
the zebra finch. Zebra finch males modulate their song performance when
courting females, and previous work has shown that females prefer the
high-performance, female-directed courtship song. However, unlike females
allowed to hear and interact with an adult male during development,
females reared without developmental song exposure did not demonstrate
behavioural preferences for high-performance courtship songs.
Additionally, auditory responses to courtship and non-courtship song were
altered in adult females raised without developmental song exposure. These
data highlight the critical role of developmental auditory experience in
shaping the perception and processing of song performance.
EGR1_dataNumber of EGR1 neurons/mm2 in the NCM, CMM and
IC.preference_score_by_maleIDAverage preference scores of all females
tested on each male stimulus.preference_scores_all_femalesraw data for
call back preference tests for normally-reared and song-naive females
tested on stimuli from different
malespreference_score_vs_song_measuresPercent difference for measures of
song between courtship and non-courtship singing. Measures include the
number of introductory notes and motifs, syllable entropy, CV of the
fundamental frequency and song tempo (motif duration).