Temporal stability in song dialects of black redstarts (Phoenicurus ochruros rufiventris) in Menyuan, Qinghai Province

Bird song dialects provide a useful model for the study of cultural evolution and its interactions with genetic evolution. By comparing song dialects over an 8-year span in the black redstarts (Phoenicurus ochruros rufiventris) of Haibei station (37°29'N, 101°28'E, 3, 200 m a.s.l.) in Menyuan county, Qinghai Province,This study examined the temporal stability of the birds’ song dialects. Songs of black redstarts were recorded from mid-April to late May in 2001 by Uher-CR 210 tape recorder with Sony directional microphone and in 2009 by Marantz PMD 670 digital recorder with Sennheiser ME 66 directional microphone. Songs were analyzed by using Avisoft-SASLab pro. The similarity of songs between different years were analyzed by investigating the sonagram, measuring temporal and frequency properties and processing cluster analysis by Spss 10.0 on windows. The results showed that species-specific syllable, typical song forms, and the typical strophe keep high temporal stability. Males investigated from 2001 and 2009 shared the entire strophe or some of the syllables. Males sampled from 2009 have a larger strophe repertoire than that from 2001. The study also indicated that the divergence of shared strophe in 2009 is correlated with distance between territories. The degree of strophe type sharing and song similarity are higher between neighbours than that from more distant males.