April 3 (UPI) — New research suggests songbirds with greater cognitive abilities don’t necessarily attract more mates.
According to the study, published in journal Animal Cognition, there’s no correlation between a male songbird’s singing abilities and his overall smarts — a surprise.
As soon as a male songbird is born, he begins mimicking the melodies of the community elders. Previous studies have shown females prefer males who copy songs more accurately, and also those with larger song repertoires.
Scientists hypothesized songbirds with large song banks and a tuneful voice would have greater cognitive abilities than their less musically inclined peers.
Researchers began by hand-rearing male song sparrows in the lab, which allowed them to more precisely control and measure the song-learning abilities.
“The most direct way to assess the quality of song learning is to compare the songs produced by young males to the model songs they have heard during their critical learning periods,” Rindy Anderson, an assistant professor of biological sciences in Florida Atlantic University, said in a news release. “Accurate copying of models then equates unambiguously with superior song learning.”
After measuring each bird’s song-learning ability, researchers subjected the sparrows to a series of cognitive tests, including color association and spatial learning. The researchers found no correlation between singing and problem solving.
“We were surprised that we found no evidence that song and cognition are positively associated overall, and our study is the first to punch a hole in the hypothesis that learned qualities of song can indicate a male songbird’s general cognitive ability,” said Anderson. “It appears that male songbirds don’t have general cognitive abilities, they have specific cognitive abilities that do not positively associate.”
