Melatonin is a key hormone in the regulation of circadian rhythms of vertebrates, including songbirds. Understanding diurnal melatonin fluctuations, and being able to reverse or simulate natural melatonin levels, is critical to investigating the influence of melatonin on various behaviors, such as singing in birds.
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The semantics of calls is essential for the acoustic communication of individuals in social groups. The aim of this project is to probe the acoustic forebrain of songbirds to prove the existence of neurons that represent the semantic meaning of vocalizations.
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Social mammals and birds have a rich repertoire of communication calls. Some call types are used rarely, but in specific contexts, while others are produced in large numbers, but are not linked to a specific context.
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To investigate the role of the male song control system in call-based male female communication, we recorded the neural activity in a premotor nucleus of the song control system RA (robust nucleus of the arcopallium) in freely behaving male zebra finches.
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When kept in a group, zebra finch males and females will form breeding pairs. Pair bonding takes place in justa few days. The developing pattern of antiphonal calling is an indicator for this process. Individuals of a pair use certain call types to exchange information with the partner (Ter Maat et al., 2014).
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