>Eric wrote:
>
>>Well, I'll rethink -- but I still think that mere variation such that
>>"adopted birds sing songs more like their adopted, not biological,
parents"
>>is stretching the definition of meme pretty far. If it could be shown
>>that, say, a robin can be raised to sing like a chick-a-dee, you'd have me
>>convinced.
>
>Here are some of the results of a websearch on Alta Vista for "(birdsongs
or
>songbirds) and (imitation or learning)":
>
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>TEMPORAL STRUCTURE OF BIRDSONG: THE ROLE OF INNATE KNOWLEDGE Peter Marler
>Animal Communication Lab. University Of California Davis, CA 95616-8761,
>USA...
>URL: www.hip.atr.co.jp/~bateson/hawaii/abstracts/marler_abs.html
>
>"A distinctive pattern of vocal development characterizes birds with
learned
>songs, including an early phase resembling babbling. Many songbirds
>overproduce songs as juveniles, with socially-influenced selective
attrition
>winnowing the repertoire as maturity approaches. Social factors have a
>strong selective influence on which songs are discarded from the
repertoire,
>by a process called "action-based learning." This is of interest because it
>may be phylogenetically more widespread than the typical form, which has
>been dubbed "memory-based learning." In the latter, sensitive periods for
>song acquisition are typical. Choice of song models for imitations is
>non-random, and each species brings distinct patterns of innate knowledge
to
>bear on the acquisition process, and on song production. Although song
>development is based on imitation, many birds also display a high degree of
>vocal inventiveness, breaking learned songs down into syllable-like
>components and rearranging them into new patterns. This is how large song
>repertoires are created, sometimes numbering in the hundreds."
>
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>NEUROBIOLOGY OF BIRDSONG. NEUROBIOLOGY OF BIRDSONG. Introduction. Anatomy
of
>the Song System (not yet implemented) LIST OF LABORATORIES. By
>geographical...
>URL:
>http://soma.npa.uiuc.edu/courses/physl490b/models/birdsong_learning/bird_so
n
>g.html
>
>"The learning of birdsong has become one of the most popular model systems
>in the neuroethology community for understanding how experience modifies
the
>brain, and interacts with non-experiential aspects.
>
>"The learning of birdsong by developing young is a process that begins with
>the production of subsong vocalizations and ends with the production of a
>rendition of the tutor's song (usually, the father). The acquisition of
>birdsong has a "sensitive period" in some species, including zebra finches,
>where interfering with the development of song during this period results
in
>permanent impairment. In zebra finches, young will form an auditory model
of
>the tutor's song as early as 20 days after hatching, and song acquisition
>will be completed by around 35 days. The song becomes consistent through
>rehersal by around 60 days, and crystallizes (becomes invarient) at sexual
>maturity, approximately 90 days. Although the development of bird song has
a
>relatively clear and stereotypic pattern, birdsong's precise role in their
>subsequent day-to-day activities is still an area of research."
>
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>THE NATURAL ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE: ARBITRARY OR INNATE
>Index Robin Allott. Chapter II. CHAPTER I. LANGUAGE - ARBITRARY OR INNATE.
>The generally accepted view of those who study language professionally is
>that..
>URL: www.percep.demon.co.uk/nol1.htm
>
>"Perhaps even more interesting and relevant for the subject of this chapter
>has been research related to imprinting in the development of birdsong.(33)
>The course of vocal learning in bird-song resembles that already described
>for imprinting in that the young bird is born with an inherited
>responsiveness to a broad pattern of external auditory stimulation. In the
>course of its experience of the range of sounds in its environment, it
>acquires more selective responsiveness to a particular subset of specific
>attributes found in the environment.
>
>"If a young bird becomes deaf before it starts to sing, it subsequently
>develops a highly abnormal song which is in complete contrast with the
>highly controlled, tonal morphology of normal song, that is, the pattern of
>song it develops is distorted because of its inability to hear samples of
>'normal' bird-song for its species. Perhaps even more relevantly and
>interesting, if a young bird with its hearing completely undamaged is
raised
>in a special restricted environment where it cannot hear any song by others
>of its species, it also develops an idiosyncratic song which is abnormal
but
>diverges less from normal song than does that of the bird deaf from birth.
>The song of the isolated bird has a definite patterned morphology, made up
>of relatively pure and sustained tones, which however shows a progressive
>loss of species-specificity, that is, tends to diverge more and more from
>the norm for its species. To put the matter anthropomorphically, a
songbird,
>like a child, must learn from other birds, if it is to vocalise correctly."
>
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>MPIV. Dept. Wickler. Staff. Publications 1995 1996 1997. Phd-theses.
>Diploma-thesis. Wolfgang Wickler - Uta Seibt - Edith Sonnenschein.
>Traditive...
>URL: http://ss20.mpi-seewiesen.mpg.de/~knauer/waldwee.html
>
>"Traditive behaviour traits
>
>The behaviour of many birds and mammals is markedly influenced by
>non-genetically transmitted behaviour programs. Behaviour copied between
>individuals is subject to traditive (cultural) evolution. Our studies on
>traditive behaviour concentrate on local dialects of two songbird species,
>the slate-coloured boubou Laniarius funebris, and the forest weaver Ploceus
>bicolor, and on tool behaviour in free-living baboons."
>
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>POPULATION CONSEQUENCES OF INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR. ABSTRACTS & REFERENCES.
>Susan Alberts. Behavior And Genetic Structure In Primate Societies. My
>central...
>URL: www.npb.ucdavis.edu/abggpage/abstracts.htm
>
>Jill Soha. Song Learning, Dialects, And Speciation In Passerine Birds.
>Song learning is widespread within the avian order passeriformes, or
>"perching birds." Song learning is thought in many species to give rise,
>over generations, to song "dialects," which are regional variations in song
>structure within a species. Does this dialect formation eventually lead to
>speciation? I consider a simple proposal in which song learning facilitates
>dialect formation, which then leads to population isolation by serving as a
>behavioral isolating mechanism, and finally, isolated populations diverge
>into distinct species. I review some evidence pertaining to each of these
>possible steps. I conclude that dialect formation alone is not very likely
>to give rise to speciation, but that in the presence of other
(geographical)
>reproductive isolating mechanisms, song learning does facilitate speciation
>in passerines.
>
>Catchpole, C. K. and Slater, P. J. B. (1995) Bird Song: Biological themes
>and variations. Cambridge University Press. Especially Ch. 9, Variation in
>time and space.
>Kroodsma, D. E. and Miller, E. H. (1982) Acoustic Communication in Birds,
>Vol. 2: Song learning and its consequences. Academic Press.
>
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>Baker, Myron C.; Cunningham, Michael A. The biology of bird-song dialects.
>Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 1985 Mar, v8 (n1):85-133.
>
>ABSTRACT: Contends that no single theory gives a satisfactory account of
the
>origin and maintenance of bird-song dialects and that this failure is a
>consequence of a weak comparative literature that precludes careful
>comparisons among species or studies and of the complexities involved.
>Evolution of vocal learning, experimental findings on song ontogeny,
dialect
>descriptions, female and male reactions to differences in dialect, and
>population genetics and dispersal are discussed. A synthetic theory of the
>origin and maintenance of song dialects is proposed. It is suggested that
>subdialect formation is linked to a theory of the evolution of repertoire
>size, but data are too fragmentary to examine this idea critically.
>
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>-Prof. Tim
>