Retraction of the mobile descended larynx during groaning enables fallow bucks (Dama dama) to lower their formant frequencies

A permanently descended larynx is found in humans and several other species of mammals. In addition to this, the larynx of species such as fallow deer is mobile and in males it can be retracted during vocalization. The most likely explanation for the lowered retractable larynx in mammals is that it serves to exaggerate perceived body size (size exaggeration hypothesis) by decreasing the formant frequencies of calls. In this study, we quantified for the first time the elongation of the vocal tract in fallow bucks during vocalization. We also measured the effect of this vocal tract length (VTL) increase on formant frequencies (vocal tract resonances) and formant dispersion (spacing of formants). Our results show that fallow bucks increase their VTL on average by 52% during vocalization. This elongation resulted in strongly lowered formant frequencies and decreased formant dispersion. There were minimal changes to formants 1 and 2 (−0.91 and +1.9%, respectively) during vocal tract elongation, whereas formants 3, 4 and 5 decreased substantially: 18.9, 10.3 and 13.6%, respectively. Formant dispersion decreased by 12.4%. Formants are prominent in deer vocalizations and are used by males to gain information on the competitive abilities of signallers. It remains to be seen whether females also use the information that formants contain for assessing male quality before mating.     

Invited review: The evolution of cattle bioacoustics and application for advanced dairy systems

Vocalisations are commonly expressed by gregarious animals, including cattle, as a form of short- and long-distance communication. They can provide conspecifics with meaningful information about the physiology, affective state and physical attributes of the caller. In cattle, calls are individually distinct meaning they assist animals to identify specific individuals in the herd. Consequently, there is potential for these vocalisations to be acoustically analysed to make inferences about how individual animals or herds are coping with their external surroundings, and then act on these signals to improve feed conversion efficiency, reproductive efficiency and welfare. In the case of dairy farming, where herd sizes are expanding and farmers are becoming more reliant on technologies to assist in the monitoring of cattle, the study of vocal behaviour could provide an objective, cost effective and non-invasive alternative to traditional measures of welfare. The vocalisations of cattle in response to calf separation, social isolation and painful husbandry procedures, alongside changes to feeding and oestrous activity are here reviewed. For future application of sound technology, research is first necessary to analyse the acoustic structure of cattle vocalisations and determine the specific information they encode. This review draws together the latest research in field of cattle bioacoustics highlighting how the source–filter theory and affective state dimensional approach can be adopted to decode this information and improve on-farm management.     

Application of MRI and biomedical engineering in speech production study

Speech production has always been a subject of interest both at the morphological and acoustic levels. This knowledge is useful for a better understanding of all the involved mechanisms and for the construction of articulatory models. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful technique that allows the study of the whole vocal tract, with good soft tissue contrast and resolution, and permits the calculation of area functions towards a better understanding of this mechanism. Thus, our aim is to demonstrate the value and application of MRI in speech production study and its relationship with engineering, namely with biomedical engineering. After vocal tract contours extraction, data were processed for 3D reconstruction culminating in model construction of some of the sounds of European Portuguese. MRI provides useful morphological data about the position and shape of the different speech articulators, and the biomedical engineering computational tools for its analysis.     

The interplay of within-species perceptual predispositions and experience during song ontogeny in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata)

Vocal acquisition in songbirds and humans shows many similarities, one of which is that both involve a combination of experience and perceptual predispositions. Among languages some speech sounds are shared, while others are not. This could reflect a predisposition in young infants for learning some speech sounds over others, which combines with exposure-based learning. Similarly, in songbirds, some sounds are common across populations, while others are more specific to populations or individuals. We examine whether this is also due to perceptual preferences for certain within-species element types in naive juvenile male birds, and how such preferences interact with exposure to guide subsequent song learning. We show that young zebra finches lacking previous song exposure perceptually prefer songs with more common zebra finch song element types over songs with less common elements. Next, we demonstrate that after subsequent tutoring, birds prefer tutor songs regardless of whether these contain more common or less common elements. In adulthood, birds tutored with more common elements showed a higher song similarity to their tutor song, indicating that the early bias influenced song learning. Our findings help to understand the maintenance of similarities and the presence of differences among birds'' songs, their dialects and human languages.     

White-throated sparrow morphs that differ in song production rate also differ in the anatomy of some song-related brain areas

White-throated sparrows are unusual among songbirds in that they occur in two color morphs, white-striped and tan-striped, determined by a chromosomal inversion and maintained by negative assortative mating. These differ in several reproductive behaviors, including amount of singing: white-striped males sing frequently, tan-striped females never sing, and tan-striped males and white-striped females sing an intermediate amount. The present study measures the volumes of several nuclei in the avian song system and relates these to color morph and to sex. We find that robustus archistristalis and the tracheosyringeal part of the hypoglossal nucleus, nuclei closely involved in song production, are larger in white-striped than in tan-striped birds. We also find morph differences for nuclei in the rostal division of the song system, nuclei believed to be less directly involved in song production. We find sex differences throughout the song system as has been reported in other songbirds. Relationships between structure and function in the song system are discussed. © 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Vocal individuality,but not stability,in wild palm cockatoos (Probosciger aterrimus)

The ability to identify individuals within a population is often essential for a detailed understanding of the ecology and conservation of a species. However, some species, including large parrots, are notoriously difficult to catch and mark for individual identification. Palm cockatoos (Probosciger aterrimus) are a large, poorly understood species of parrot which are likely in severe decline within the eastern part – and possibly the western part – of their range on Cape York Peninsula, Australia. Here, we investigated whether three different palm cockatoo call types are sufficiently individually distinctive to function as a non-invasive “marker” for identifying individuals over time. Using Discriminant Function Analysis, overall identification accuracy among 12 putative individuals for all call types was 81% (i.e. 148 out of 183 calls were assigned to the correct individual) on the basis of multiple temporal, energy (amplitude) and frequency measurements on the spectrogram. For three different call types, individual identification accuracy among males and females ranged from 69 to 95%. However, based on a limited sample sizes of five putative individuals between years, our data suggest that individual call structure, as quantified by call parameters, was not stable between years. We discuss the applicability of these results for future studies of palm cockatoos and other parrot species.     

Inspiring song: The role of respiratory circuitry in the evolution of vertebrate vocal behavior

Vocalization is a common means of communication across vertebrates, but the evolutionary origins of the neural circuits controlling these behaviors are not clear. Peripheral mechanisms of sound production vary widely: fish produce sounds with a swimbladder or pectoral fins; amphibians, reptiles, and mammalians vocalize using a larynx; birds vocalize with a syrinx. Despite the diversity of vocal effectors across taxa, there are many similarities in the neural circuits underlying the control of these organs. Do similarities in vocal circuit structure and function indicate that vocal behaviors first arose in a single common ancestor, or have similar neural circuits arisen independently multiple times during evolution? In this review, we describe the hindbrain circuits that are involved in vocal production across vertebrates. Given that vocalization depends on respiration in most tetrapods, it is not surprising that vocal and respiratory hindbrain circuits across distantly related species are anatomically intermingled and functionally linked. Such vocal‐respiratory circuit integration supports the hypothesis that vocal evolution involved the expansion and functional diversification of breathing circuits. Recent phylogenetic analyses, however, suggest vocal behaviors arose independently in all major tetrapod clades, indicating that similarities in vocal control circuits are the result of repeated co‐options of respiratory circuits in each lineage. It is currently unknown whether vocal circuits across taxa are made up of homologous neurons, or whether vocal neurons in each lineage arose from developmentally and evolutionarily distinct progenitors. Integrative comparative studies of vocal neurons across brain regions and taxa will be required to distinguish between these two scenarios.