In studies of cumulative cultural evolution in non-human animals, the focus is most often on
incremental changes that increase the efficacy of an existing form of socially learned …

Young songbirds draw the source material for their learned songs from parents, peers, and
unrelated adults, as well as from innovation. These learned songs are used for intraspecific …

Cumulative cultural evolution, the accumulation of sequential changes within a single
socially learned behaviour that results in improved function, is prominent in humans and has …

Communication needs to be complex enough to be functional while minimizing learning and
production costs. Recent work suggests that the vocalizations and gestures of some …

Culture (information or behavior acquired by social learning and shared by members of a
community) is an inheritance system that that can contribute to the designation of …

Highlights•We analysed house finch songs from three years spanning four decades in New
York.•We compared real data against simulations to make inferences about cultural …

The long-term stability of culturally transmitted traits like bird song has attracted much
attention from researchers; however, it remains insufficiently studied up to the present time …

Geographic differences in vocalizations provide strong evidence for animal culture, with
patterns likely arising from generations of social learning and transmission. Most studies on …

We found a stable pattern of geographic variation in songs across the breeding range of the
Geothlypis philadelphia (Mourning Warbler) over a 36-year period. The Western, Eastern …

Dickcissel (Spiza americana) males occupying territories in cropland sites produced songs
that were less similar on average to other Dickcissel songs in their neighborhood than did …