9306467 Baptista Young white-crowned sparrows learn songs from adults, and vocal tradition coupled with isolation of local populations gives rise to regional song dialects. A number of parallels between speech development in humans and song development in birds have been noted. These include early language acquisition, bilingualism or singing two song types at dialect boundaries, lateralization of the brain, location of speech/song storage centers, and vertical tradition along sexual lines (i.e., sons learn from fathers and daughters from mothers). Although song and singing behavior of male white-crowned sparrows have been subjects of intense study over the last three decades, little attention has been paid to song of females. Dr. Baptista and his colleagues recently documented regular singing by female white- crowned sparrows. The present research is designed to test the function(s) of female singing in territoriality and/or mate advertisement as well as the role of song quality in acquiring a high-quality mate early in the breeding season to ensure successful breeding. One prediction to be tested is that females with good-quality songs will produce more young than females with poor-quality songs (as measured by a new technique called autocorrelation). Even though white-crowned sparrows (like many species of songbirds) have generally been thought to be monogamous, previous studies have indicated that over 30% of white-crowned sparrows in a population are products of matings outside the "monogamous" pair. The pursuit of such matings may be a female strategy that ensures maximum production of young, but it also leads to conflict between the sexes. Dr. Baptista predicts that high-quality females will try to mate with more than one male. This prediction will be tested by DNA fingerprinting, which will reveal identities of males fathering young in a nest. Recognition of the occurrence and role of female vocalizations has the potential to revolutionize our under standing of vocal behavior, its social and evolutionary importance, and its neural and hormonal mechanisms.
