Please read the ORCA 2021 Abstract Below for an understanding of the Project.

Male zebra finches learn to sing through social interactions with an older, male tutor bird. The tutee’s song crystalizes around 90 days post-hatch when the male reaches sexual maturity. Sexually mature males will then use their learned song to attract mates. Some males sing more often than other males; however, the physiological mechanisms of this behavioral difference are not well understood. Previous research suggests that singing behavior in birds is evolutionarily advantageous. Moreover, male zebra finches exhibit a linear relationship between song length and oxygen consumption. Over the summer, I aim to investigate the relationship between resting metabolic rate and the rate of undirected singing in male zebra finches. Specifically, I will test the hypothesis that a lower metabolic cost of song production is evolutionarily advantageous. This hypothesis predicts that male zebra finches with lower resting metabolic rates will sing more often than males with higher resting metabolic rates.
To test this hypothesis, I will classify each bird examined as either a weak, mediocre, or strong singer, based on the time spent singing within the first hour of their daily lights-on photoperiod. To increase the accuracy of my categorization, I will track the singing behavior of each bird for one week. Using established singing behavior-tracking methods, I will build a library of song files for each bird for later analyses of their spectral features. In addition, I will measure each bird’s oxygen consumption to calculate their resting metabolic rate for three consecutive days and determine an average resting metabolic rate for each bird. Similar to previous studies, I will first investigate the linear relationship between song length and resting metabolic rate. Second, I will refine this analysis by replotting resting metabolic rate against bout length after segregating the behavioral data into three categories singing rate (weak, mediocre, or strong). I will calculate a line of best fit for each of the three graphs. I will compare the slope of each of the lines to determine if there are any differences in the relationship between resting metabolic rate and bout length that can be described by singing strength.
The data I gather could help identify which of the captive-bred birds in our vivarium to use for breeding and ongoing experimentation in the lab. The lab is currently working to characterize gene expression patterns in singing versus non-singing birds. Once completed, my work over the summer to investigate the relationship between resting metabolic rate and song production may continue to be used for screening animals in the Whitney lab. Currently, the lab observes each zebra finch for multiple days to predict how it will act during subsequent behavioral observation. This process is time-consuming and could greatly benefit from my work this coming summer.

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