The evolutionary origin of variation in song length and frequency in the avian family Cettiidae |
| |
| Authors: | Chentao Wei Trevor D Price Jiayu Liu Per Alström Yanyun Zhang |
| |
| Institution: | 1. http://orcid.org/0000‐0001‐7310‐0473;2. Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity and Ecological Engineering, College of Life Sciences, Beijing Normal Univ., Beijing, China;3. Dept of Ecology and Evolution, The Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA;4. Dept of Animal Ecology, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala Univ., Uppsala, Sweden, and Swedish Species Information Centre, Swedish Univ. of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden, and Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Inst. of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chaoyang District, Beijing, PR China |
| |
| Abstract: | Aspects of bird song have been shown to correlate with morphological and ecological features, including beak and body size, and habitat. Here we study evolution of song length and song frequency among 30 species belonging to the Cettiidae. Frequency is negatively correlated with body size, and song length increases with latitude. Although migration distance correlates with latitude, the association of song length with latitude is only present within the non‐migratory species, implying the association is not a consequence of migration. We place these correlations in a historical framework to show that the body size‐frequency association arose early in the group, but the latitude‐song length association is more evolutionarily labile. We suggest that latitudinal correlates of song length may reflect increased importance of sexual selection by female choice. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
|
|
