Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Tuesday July 07 2020, @08:24AM   Printer-friendly
from the 🐦♪ dept.

A 'Viral' New Bird Song in Canada Is Causing Sparrows to Change Their Tune

Birds rarely change their chirpy little tunes, and when they do, it's typically limited to the local environment, where slight song variants basically become regional dialects. New research published today in Current Biology describes an extraordinary exception to this rule, in which a novel song sung by white-throated sparrows is spreading across Canada at an unprecedented rate. What's more, the new song appears to be replacing the pre-existing melody, which dates as far back as the 1960s.

Birds sing to mark their territories and attract prospective mates. Traditionally, white-throated sparrows in western and central Canada sing a song distinguished by its three-note ending. The new song, which likely started off as a regional dialect at some point between 1960 and 2000, features a distinctive two-note ending, and it's taking the sparrow community by storm. What makes the new ending so viral is a mystery to the study authors, led by Ken Otter from the University of Northern British Columbia.

"These songs are learned—otherwise new variants would not arise or spread," Otter told Gizmodo. "Where it started could have been a single bird, but it then gets learned by others, and they would form tutors for other birds. It wouldn't spread from a single bird."

The new song, which can now be heard from British Columbia through to central Ontario—a distance of over 1,900 miles (3,000 km)—spread between 2000 and 2019, according to the research. The old melody, with its highly musical triplet outro, is now at risk of going extinct.

Journal Reference:
Ken A. Otter. Continent-wide Shifts in Song Dialects of White-Throated Sparrows, Current Biology (DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.05.084)


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by DannyB on Tuesday July 07 2020, @02:25PM (4 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 07 2020, @02:25PM (#1017649) Journal

    I could care less.

    That's a poor attitude to have about such a highly important scientific issue.

    All governments need to cooperate to create a United Nations fund to enable the massive recording of bird songs. This data set over time would enable AIs to learn what makes certain variations appealing to birds as evidenced by the spread of those song variations.

    AIs could then manufacture new song variations which would become instant hits among bird populations. Encoding packets into these song variations be a true improvement for ISPs such as Comcast.

    These song variations could be subtly introduced into Spotify to improve collective human intelligence. (With proper licensing of course.)

    If humans could have the IQ of birds, even outside the US and UK, then imagine what a glorious world we could halve!

    --
    People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Funny=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @04:10PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @04:10PM (#1017733)

    Shut up and watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR74FdWGtjo [youtube.com]

  • (Score: 2) by EJ on Tuesday July 07 2020, @07:57PM (2 children)

    by EJ (2452) on Tuesday July 07 2020, @07:57PM (#1017844)

    I guess the point of my comment was lost on everyone. Bird song is like language. Humans are lazy, and screw up language by dropping syllables they don't understand or don't care about when they hear others do it.

    "I couldN'T care less" is what you thought you read.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @09:46PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @09:46PM (#1017894)

      Yes, but English:

      I (or he, she, etc.) couldn't (N. Amer. informal also could) care less informal used to express complete indifference: he couldn't care less about football.

      • (Score: 2) by EJ on Tuesday July 07 2020, @10:38PM

        by EJ (2452) on Tuesday July 07 2020, @10:38PM (#1017907)

        Exactly. The (N. Amer. informal also could) part is exactly what is similar with these bird calls. The N. Amer. birds don't give a damn about the right way to sing the song. They could[sic] care less about that third note.