DBE - 'no alarms and no surprises'

Acoustic communication in ortolan bunting Emberiza hortulana

On going project: "Cheat neighbours and get a female: How age and quality of male affect strategy of acoustic communication in Ortolan Bunting Emberiza hortulana". This is a joint polish-norwegian project, with bioacoustics research supported by the MNiI grant No. 3 P04C 083 25.

Team: A. Mickiewicz Univ.: T.S. Osiejuk (head of the project), K. Ratynska ; Norwegian University of Life Sciences: Svein Dale and Oyvind Steiffeten... and many field workers from Norway and France. Bioacoustics analyses of microphone array recordings are conducted in cooperation with Sandra L. Vehrencamp (Cornell Lab of Ornithology).

The main aim of this project is to test relationships between age and quality of Ortolan Bunting males and the strategy of singing within the communication network of neighbours competing for a resource in shortage (i.e. females). Particularly, we would like to focus on how the strategy of acoustic territory defence and female attraction depends on strategies employed by rivals. Male quality will be considered at different levels, ranging from the simple body weight/body size ratio to lifetime reproduction success. The project deals with fundamental problems of current behavioural and evolutionary ecology, linking multi-way interactions characteristic for communication networks with life-history traits of individuals (age and its correlates). The accomplishment of objectives will be possible thanks to an original implementation of the microphone array recording technique. This method enables simultaneous recording of many neighbouring singers and their precise localisation in space.

The study is conducted on an isolated Norwegian population of Ortolan Buntings. It was chosen as an ideal model to answer questions addressed in this project. The population was the subject of bioacoustics investigations with standard methods (recordings, playback experiments) in 2001-2006, when ca. 1000 long recordings of up to 90% males from the population were made. The planned investigations are complementary to parallel Norwegian projects, which focus on ecology and genetic variation in that population. Thanks to those projects, most males in that population are not only colour-ringed but also intensively studied from the point of view of phenology, mating success, breeding success, habitat selection and dispersal patterns.

Past projects

2001-03 "Ecological correlates of song variation and singing strategy in Ortolan Bunting Emberiza hortulana" T.S. Osiejuk with K. Ratynska and J.P. Cygan (supported by A. Mickiewicz Univ.)

2001-02 "Within-song type variation in Ortolan Bunting: functions or constraints?" T.S. Osiejuk with K. Ratynska (supported by A. Mickiewicz Univ. grant PBWB 301/2001)

1999-2002 "Acoustic communication in closely related bunting species: an interactive playback study" T.S. Osiejuk with K. Ratynska, J.P. Cygan, J. Rutkowska-Guz (supported by KBN grant No. 6 P04C 038 17)

More photos from Norway here.