Animals produce a wide array of sounds with highly variable acoustic structures. It is
possible to understand the causes and consequences of this variation across taxa with …

Communal signaling—wherein males and females collaborate to produce joint visual or
acoustic displays—is perhaps the most complex and least understood form of …

Recent studies show that traits long recognized as sexually selected ornaments, such as the
bright plumage colors and melodious vocal displays of songbirds, have evolved in …

Coordinated pair bonds are common in birds and also occur in many other taxa. How do
animals solve the social dilemmas they face in coordinating with a partner? We developed …

Social interactions are central in the lives of many animals. Social partners can lower
individual stress levels (Rault, 2012), a process known in humans and primates as social …

Highlights•We measured singing by female house wrens during nest visits and during a
playback experiment.•Song was common at the start of egg laying when conspecifics …

Bird song is often cited as a classic example of a sexually-selected ornament, in part
because historically it has been considered a primarily male trait. Recent evidence that …

Highlights•Although understudied, recent studies suggest that female birdsong is
widespread.•We compared male and female song using a novel statistical equivalence …

Actualistic observations form the basis of many taphonomic studies in paleontology.
However, surveys limited by environment or taxon may not be applicable far beyond the …

The duets of birds have intrigued biologists for a long time, yet much remains unknown
about the evolution of these striking collective displays. This is partly because previous …