Zonotrichia

Understanding the causes and consequences of divergence in mate recognition traits has long been a fundamental question in evolutionary biology. In songbirds, songs are culturally transmitted, and cultural divergence can generate discrete geographic …

Many songbird species have a predisposition to learn conspecific songs, suggesting song learning may be guided by an innate auditory template. Evidence for such a template includes preferential response to conspecific song in early life, even before …