Expertise
Behavior and Behavioral Ecology | Evolutionary Biology.
Research Interests:
My principal research interest is in animal communication.
One focus of this work has been on exploring the implications of proximate mechanisms of song development and song neurobiology for ultimate questions concerning the function of song in male-female communication. This focus has led to investigations of the effects of early nutritional stress on the development of the brain nuclei that control song and on the quality of song learning, using song and swamp sparrows as study organisms. We have also examined, using song sparrows, the preferences of females for well-learned over poorly-learned songs and for local over foreign songs. Another focus of our song work has been on how singing behaviors are used in aggressive signaling between male birds. We have examined a variety of possible aggressive signals in song sparrows, including song type matching, partial matching, song type and variant switching frequencies, and the use of low amplitude "soft song." We are especially interested in determining which behaviors are reliable indicators of attack and in elucidating the mechanisms that maintain reliability.
Laboratory Research Interests:
My recent research has focused on the evolution of signal reliability, using bird song as a model system.