This award supports a visit by Dr. Myron Charles Baker of Colorado State University to the University of Western Australia to work with Dr. Michael S. Johnson on behavioral and genetic components of the process by which new species are created in birds. Behavioral studies of song recognition by several species of Australian birds (the Fairy Wren multi- species complex) will be carried out by playback experimentation in natural populations. These results will form the basis for further investigations of features of the reproductive communication used in mate choice and will provide understanding of the differing degrees of divergence among the several species and subspecies. The researchers will conduct genetic studies as an extension of an ongoing research program in North America. Tissue samples from two closely-related species of buntings, and their hybrids, will be taken by Dr. Baker to a biochemical systematics laboratory at the University of Western Australia to be examined with enzyme and molecular techniques. The results will address the question of the nature of gene exchange in a pair of species that may be in the process of completing their isolation as a new species.
