Funded PhD at Royall Holloway (UK) on pollution and bird song learning

[Vincent Lostanlen]

Dear members of the BirdVox discussion group,

Please see below my signature for an announcement of a funded PhD at
Royal Holloway (London, UK) on pollution and bird song learning.

Contact:
https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/robert-lachlan(8512d999-03f5-422f-81ec-43971f051745).html


Sincerely,

Vincent.


POLLUTION AND BIRD SONG LEARNING

Robert Lachlan (Psychology; Primary supervisor; responsible for
aspects of the project to do with bird song, acoustics and modeling
cultural evolution) and Elli Leadbeater (Biological Sciences;
Secondary supervisor; expert on the effects of pollution on cognition
and on insects, and on social learning)

Many birds learn their songs socially from adults early in life,
providing a model system for exploring vocal learning and animal
culture. Previous experimental work has shown that song learning can
be disrupted by developmental stress early in life. In the real world,
human activities may generate such stress through noise and chemical
pollution. While such pollution has been shown to shape the structure
of bird songs and also to affect other aspects of cognition. In this
project, we will examine whether pollution interferes with song
learning, and how it influences processes of cultural evolution. The
project will involve recording song from different sites, subject to
different patterns of pollution through road noise or agricultural
pesticides. We will use bioacoustic analysis to identify cases of
aberrant songs or poor learning quality. And we will apply cultural
evolutionary models to examine how pollution might interfere with the
generation of cultural traditions. Finally, we will use song playback
techniques and/or operant conditioning to examine how poorly learned
songs are perceived by other individuals. We expect to reveal whether
or not poorly learned songs are more common and whether or not
cultural traditions change more rapidly in polluted or noisy areas.