Zebra finches survive Australian heatwaves by predicting high temperatures

DECEMBER 2, 2019

by Curtin University

The survival habits of a native Australian bird have given Curtin University researchers vital clues that may help understand how wildlife can withstand harsh heatwaves that may prove fatal.

The research, published in Frontiers in Physiology, monitored the physiological and behavioural responses that enabled zebra finches, an iconic desert bird, to survive extreme temperatures of more than 40 degrees Celsius over three to four days at Fowlers Gap, north of Broken Hill in New South Wales.

Lead author Dr. Christine Cooper, from Curtin's School of Molecular and Life Sciences, said researchers monitored zebra finches, which are distinctive native birds known for their zebra-striped tails and commonly found in the drier parts of Australia, while they were feeding and drinking.

"Given that birds are particularly susceptible to extreme weather events and there have been recent cases of mass bird deaths during heatwaves, it is important to understand how desert Australian birds respond to heatwaves," Dr. Cooper said.

"Our research found that zebra finches survived heatwaves of 40 to 45 degrees Celsius by avoiding or limiting their movement during the hottest parts of the day and pre-emptively feeding and drinking in preparation for long periods of inactivity."

Dr. Cooper said the research offered important clues to understand how other species may respond to extreme weather events, including harsh Australian heatwaves.

Read on

Pupil's brain recognizes the perfect teacher

Social brain lights up in juvenile songbirds that find a singing mentor

Date:  October 17, 2018

Source:  Duke University

Youngsters learn many important behaviors by imitating adults. But young learners are selective in who they copy, and scientists don't understand how they choose the right teacher.

Young male zebra finches must learn to copy the song of an adult tutor in order to ultimately attract a mate. Researchers already knew that juveniles don't copy songs played through a loudspeaker or sung by other species of birds. Now, findings from Duke University scientists show how the juvenile birds identify the right teacher.

The study, which appears early online Oct. 17 in the journal Nature, reveals that being near a singing tutor activates connections between a social area of the young bird's brain and the part of the brain responsible for the juvenile's ability to sing. If those connections aren't activated, a young finch fails to copy the tutor's song.

Continued  

Traffic noise may make birds age faster

August 27, 2018, BioMed Central

Traffic noise may be associated with an increased rate of telomere loss in Zebra finches that have left the nest, according to a study published in Frontiers in Zoology. Telomeres are caps on the ends of chromosomes that protect genes from damage. Shortening of telomeres indicates accelerated biological aging.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Germany and North Dakota State University, USA, investigated the effect of traffic noise on the telomere length of offspring Zebra finches. The researchers found that zebra finches that were exposed to traffic noise after they had left the nest had shorter telomeres at 120 days of age than Zebra finches that were exposed to noise until 18 days post-hatch (before they had left the nest) and whose parents were exposed to traffic noise during courtship, egg-laying, and nesting. Finches exposed to noise after leaving the nest also had shorter telomeres than those which had not been exposed to traffic noise at all.

Dr. Adriana Dorado-Correa, corresponding author of the study, said: "Our study suggests that urban noise alone, independent from the many other aspects of city life, such as light pollution or chemical pollution, is associated with increased telomere loss and may contribute to aging in Zebra finches. Our study is a first step towards identifying the causal mechanisms that may account for differences in life span observed between birds living in urban or rural environments."

Dr. Sue Anne Zollinger, co-author of the study added: "Cellular ageing as a result of urban stressors is something that may not have a very visible impact, but our study indicates that although birds may seem to be adapting to life in noisy cities, they may actually be aging faster. It may be important to consider developmental stages in birds when studying the effects of urbanization, as the mechanisms by which these human-induced habitat changes impact individuals may change throughout their lifetime."

Read more at: 

Birds categorize colors just like humans do

Zebra finches perceive only red or orange, even when the truth falls somewhere in between

Date:  August 1, 2018

Source:  Duke University

Summary:

For a reddish-beaked bird called the zebra finch, sexiness is color-coded. Males have beaks that range from light orange to dark red. But to females, a male's colored bill may simply be hot, or not, findings suggest. Due to a phenomenon called categorical perception, zebra finches partition the range of hues from red to orange into two discrete categories, much like humans do, researchers report.

Continued

How birds learn

Date:  August 13, 2018

Source:  ETH Zurich

Children are constantly learning new things, but whether they find it easy or hard to generalise what they have learned and apply it to new situations can depend on how they learned it. It is much the same for songbirds. In their first few months of life, they too must learn a great deal; for example, the characteristic song of their species. And like people, birds also learn in different ways. How these methods impact the ability to generalise was the subject of a study on zebra finches, conducted by a research team led by Richard Hahnloser, Professor at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich.

In their experiments, the researchers were able to show that zebra finches can learn by observing fellow members of their species. The birds had to learn through trial and error to discriminate between two classes of birdsong, one long and one short. Without any special preparation, the median number of repetitions it took for the birds to master the task was 4,700. But if the finches were able to observe other finches as they learned this task, then it took them just 900 repetitions. In this experimental set up and for statistical reasons, 800 repetitions are required in order to evaluate the animals' performance. This means that the observing birds mastered the task almost from the very beginning.

Read on  

Zebra finches' social experiences alter their genomic DNA, changing ability to learn

May 7, 2018 by Elizabeth Braun, University of Chicago

Asst. Prof. Sarah London has long appreciated zebra finches for their unique learning characteristics. The males learn from another male tutor, but their ability to memorize the tutor's song is restricted to a "critical period," or CP. This offers a unique opportunity to study how the brain learns, and how brain processes affect whether or not a mentor's song can be learned, London said.

Previous research has shown that males who had experienced a tutor in their first 65 days of post-hatch life could no longer learn a song after that, but that young males isolated from hearing song during this period were still able to learn a song after day 65. What researchers hadn't deciphered until now was what preserved or prevented these late learning capabilities.

In a new study, London's team found the first comprehensive explanation for this in an epigenetic mechanism, a process in the brain by which experience—in this case, tutor experience—can modify structural properties of the genomic DNA. London and her team demonstrate measurable and repeatable epigenetic differences between the brains of zebra finches who receive tutoring, and those that do not.

These epigenetic differences directly relate to levels and patterns of gene expression in the brains of finches that can still learn from a tutor compared to those that can no longer learn song.

London believes the results of this study could have future implications for helping trauma patients to prevent encoding those events into their long-term memory, as well as advancing our understanding of how young children learn, and what can be done to enhance learning capabilities among disadvantaged youth in order to level the playing field of learning among children entering school.

"These results help us understand complex genomes in the context of the everyday learning experience," London said. "It decouples the actual experience from the genomic process happening in the brain, and this knowledge could be a guide to therapeutics."

Read more at:

Lactation hormone cues birds to be good parents

Date:  February 5, 2018

Source:  Cornell University

Summary:

Toppling a widespread assumption that a “lactation” hormone only cues animals to produce food for their babies, researchers have shown the hormone also prompts zebra finches to be good parents.

Continued 

Lost in translation: To the untrained zebra finch ear, jazzy courtship songs fall flat

Date: July 10, 2017

Source: McGill University

Summary: Zebra finches brought up without their fathers don't react to the singing of potential suitors in the same way that female birds usually do, hinting that the environment in which the birds are raised can have a determining effect on their behaviour.

Read more

Genetic influence in juvenile songbird babblings

Familial differences in earliest vocal babblings of juvenile songbirds suggests possible genetic basis for variations

Date: August 18, 2016

Source: Hokkaido University

As human language and birdsong are both acquired through vocal practice, different patterns emerge among individuals. These distinctions play an important role in communication and identification. Until now, however, it was unclear how individual birds learned slightly different vocal patterns.

The research team uncovered variances in the earliest practice singing--known as "subsong"--of zebra finch juveniles, including different temporal patterns between individuals. Furthermore, these differences were found to be more pronounced among different families. Experiments also showed that differences persisted among the juvenile birds even when deafened.

Continued  

Zebra finch 'heat song' changes hatchling development

By Jonathan Webb Science reporter, BBC News

19 August 2016

When the weather is hot, zebra finches in Australia sing to their eggs - and these "incubation calls" change the chicks' development, a study has found.

The surprising discovery suggests that the birds are preparing their offspring for warm conditions after they hatch.

Scientists collected eggs and incubated them in controlled conditions, playing recordings of the incubation song.

Compared to a control group, hatchlings that received these calls grew more slowly and coped better in the heat.

Writing in the journal Science, the researchers say this is the sort of adaptation that could help animals acclimatise to rising global temperatures.

"It doesn't mean that they will still be able to breed at extreme temperatures - this was within the range they currently experience," said the paper's lead author Mylene Mariette, from Deakin University in Geelong.

"But what's encouraging is that it's a strategy that the birds use to adjust the growth of their offspring to temperature, that we didn't know about."

It is also the first time that singing to unborn chicks has been shown to yield such long-term results.

Continued  

Mystery over death of 35 birds at park aviary

16:45

Tuesday 29 December 2015

Mystery surrounds the death of 35 birds who were found dead in their aviary in a Peterborough park over the Christmas weekend.

About half of the zebra finches which are kept in the aviary at Central Park in Peterborough died over the long bank holiday weekend.

Kieron King, Peterborough’s Principle Operations Manager for Amey said the finches in the aviary, which has three bird houses, are fed every day of the year. He said:“Each aviary houses a different bird species which includes parakeets, budgies and zebra finches but all birds can fly from one aviary to another.

“Following the bank holiday 35 finches have been found dead.

“The RSPCA and a vet attended and inspected the aviaries and birds. A vet is assessing the remaining birds and will carry out a post mortem on one of the dead birds to determine the cause of deaths.”

Read more:

Drunk birds don’t sing as well, study finds

December 29, 2014

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Just as getting drunk can impact a person’s ability (and willingness) to sing, consuming too much alcohol can have a similar effect on some types of birds, researchers from the Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) have discovered in a new study.

In an interview with NPR on Sunday, Christopher Olson explained how he and his colleagues used zebra finches as part of their research, since the birds have long been used as a model to study vocal learning and communication skills in humans. Since alcohol can have a major impact on the speech patterns of people, they wanted to see if the finches would also be affected.

“We just showed up in the morning and mixed a little bit of juice with 6 percent alcohol, and put it in their water bottles and put it in the cages,” he explained. “At first we were thinking that they wouldn’t drink on their own because, you know, a lot of animals just won’t touch the stuff. But they seem to tolerate it pretty well and be somewhat willing to consume it.”

The blood alcohol content of the birds were measured in the .05 percent to .08 percent range. While those levels would not be enough to make a person become fall-down drunk, it was more than enough to generate the intended effects, since birds metabolize alcohol differently.

An audio recording indicates that the finches’ song becomes quieter and slightly slurred, or as Olson put it, the birds become “a bit less organized in their sound production.” He added that his research team now wants to find out how being drunk changes the way finches learn new songs.

Read more at

Bad parenting could give zebra finches the evolutionary edge

William Feeney, The Conversation

Species must reproduce to survive, and animals have found unique ways of achieving this. For some, including us, it seems as though producing a few offspring that require extended care is the best strategy. For others, such as many coral reef fishes, many offspring that require little care appears better suited.

Brood parasitism is among the most bizarre breeding strategies in nature. A brood parasite, such as a cuckoo, manipulates another individual into raising its young. Hosts do all they can to stop brood parasites from successfully reproducing, because they usually harm their own young. Brood parasites fight back, and the two species can become locked in a coevolutionary arms race.

Despite these troubles, not having to build a nest, incubate eggs or care for offspring allows brood parasites to produce more eggs than they would otherwise. This can make brood parasitism viable through evolutionary time.

Read more at: 

Pair bonding reinforced in the brain: Zebra finches use their specialized song system for simple communication

Date:

October 28, 2014

Source:

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft

Summary:

In addition to their song, songbirds also have an extensive repertoire of calls. While the species-specific song must be learned as a young bird, most calls are, as in the case of all other birds, innate. Researchers have now discovered that in zebra finches the song control system in the brain is also active during simple communication calls. This relationship between unlearned calls and an area of the brain responsible for learned vocalizations is important for understanding the evolution of song learning in songbirds.

Continued ...

Zebra finches use camouflage

BY 

SARAH ZIELINSKI

2:00PM, OCTOBER 8, 2014

Bird’s nests come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, and they’re built out of all sorts of things. Hummingbirds, for instance, create tiny cups just a couple centimeters wide; sociable weavers in Africa, in contrast, work together to build huge nests more than two meters across that are so heavy they can collapse trees. There are nests built on rocky ledges, in mounds on the ground, high in trees and on the edges of buildings. Bowerbirds even construct their nests as tiny houses decorated with an artistic eye to attract the ladies.

So perhaps it’s not all that surprising the no one had ever investigated whether birds camouflage their nests to protect their eggs against potential predators. It would make sense that they do, but if you were to test it, where would you start?

For Ida Bailey of the University of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland, and colleagues, the answer was zebra finches. Male finches usually build nests in dense shrubs and layer the outside of the nests with dry grass stems and fine twigs. Predators, usually birds, take a heavy toll on the zebra finches, though. Since birds tend to hunt based on sight rather than smell, camouflaging a nest might work to protect the eggs sequestered inside. And even better, because zebra finches have good color vision, building a camouflaged nest might be possible.

Continued ...

Motherless Male Zebra Finches Prefer Same-Sex Mates

By Joseph Castro, Live Science Contributor | June 17, 2014 09:32am ET

Male zebra finches prefer to form lifelong pair bonds with other males if they're raised by their dad alone, new research shows.

This mate choice is likely the result of males "imprinting" on their fathers, researchers say.

Zebra finches are socially monogamous, meaning that each bird pairs up with a single mating partner for the rest of its life. These tiny birds are also known to form lifelong same-sex pair bonds, though scientists aren't sure what factors influence the sex of the birds' partner choice.

Continued

'Bird Man' Nabbed in Illegal Avian Import Scheme

Israeli man stopped by import inspectors at Ben Gurion Airport trying to smuggle 40 Zebra Finches into Israel.

By David Lev

First Publish: 11/24/2013, 3:40 PM

An Israeli who returned from a trip to Holland was stopped by customs inspectors at Ben Gurion Airport Sunday morning – when he was found trying to smuggle 40 Zebra Finches into Israel.

The traveler walked through the “green lane” on his way into the passenger terminal, indicating that he did not have anything for the customs inspectors to check, and owed no duty on the items he was bringing into the country.

Continued

Super Song Learners: Mechanism for Improving Song Learning in Juvenile Zebra Finches Uncovered

Oct. 23, 2013 — Most songbirds learn their songs from an adult model, mostly from the father. However, there are relatively large differences in the accuracy how these songs are copied. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen now found in juvenile zebra finches a possible mechanism that is responsible for the differences in the intensity of song learning. They provided the nerve growth factor “BDNF” to the song control system in the brain. With this treatment the learning ability in juvenile males could be enhanced in such a way that they were able to copy the songs of the father as good as it had been observed in the best learners in a zebra finch nest.

The improvement of cognitive abilities plays an important role in the therapy of neurological and psychiatric diseases. In this context research focusses more and more on the protein BDNF (Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor). BDNF is mainly responsible for the preservation, growth and differentiation of nerve cells. Moreover, from experiments in mice it is known that BDNF enhances the ability to solve complex cognitive tasks.

Read more

Baby of brood is 'best explorer' in zebra finches

The birds are named for their black and white markings

The youngest members of zebra finch broods "explore more" than older siblings in adult life, say scientists.

Researchers investigated how the birds' behaviour was affected by the way their parents cared for them as hatchlings.

The team studied broods where females lay and incubate a clutch of eggs over a period of days, resulting in a size hierarchy within the clutch.

They found the youngest birds were more likely to explore their environment as adults in search of food.

The study, published in Animal Behaviour, tested over 100 captive zebra finches' exploratory behaviour to see whether hatching order, and consequently parental investment, affected their behaviour in adulthood.

Late hatched birds are smaller than their older siblings, and it is the larger hatchlings that "get the lion's share" when parents bring in food "because they can reach up higher and beg better," explained research team member Dr Ian Hartley from Lancaster University.

Continued:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/20546860