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Duetting as a collective behavior Logue, David M.; Krupp, Daniel B. Mated birds of many species vocalize together, producing duets. Duetting behavior occurs at two levels of organization: the individual level and the pair level. Individuals initiate vocalizations, answer their mates’ vocalizations, and control the structure and timing of their own vocalizations. Pairs produce duets that vary with respect to duration, temporal coordination, and phrase-type combinations, among other properties. To make sense of this hierarchical structure, organize duetting research, and identify new avenues of investigation, we advocate a “collective behavior” approach to the study of duets. We critically review key terminology in the duetting literature in light of this approach, and elucidate six insights that emerge from the collective behavior approach: (1) Individual-level behaviors describe pair-level behaviors, but the opposite is not true; (2) The level of organization informs how we test for the rules that govern behavior; (3) Functional hypotheses about duetting must distinguish individual from group characters; (4) Stimulus-response, cybernetics, and entrainment offer alternative hypotheses for the cognitive control of duetting behavior; (5) Avian duetting has the potential to be a model system for the ontogeny of vocal interaction; and (6) The collective behavior approach suggests new avenues of research. Ultimately, we argue that nearly every aspect of duetting research stands to benefit from adopting a collective behavior approach. This approach also has applications to other forms of interactive vocal communication in birds and primates, including humans. Sherpa Romeo green journal. Open access article. Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) applies.

Chorus song of the indri (Indri indri: Primates, Lemuridae): Group differences and analysis of within-group vocal interactions Baker-Medard, Merrill S. A.; Baker, Myron C.; Logue, David M. The loud chorus songs of the group-living lemur Indri indri are a striking feature of rainforest areas of eastern Madagascar. Despite some research on the conspicuous vocal display of the indri, two hypotheses have not been addressed: do groups differ in the acoustic properties of their songs, and is there evidence of coordinated singing between individuals within groups. We recorded and analyzed the songs of three indri groups to examine these two questions. To answer the first question, we made quantitative spectral measures on songs of the three groups and performed multivariate analyses of the acoustic features of the notes constituting the songs. Our results showed songs of the three groups differed significantly, although there was overlap between groups. To answer the second question, we classified note types and quantified their occurrence as overlapping and abutting pairs. We found non-random associations between sequential note types in all three indri groups. These associations were consistent among groups, suggesting that individuals follow consistent answering rules when contributing to choruses. Whether indris use acoustic group identifiers in management of behavioral strategies and how within-group coordinated note production might function remain unknown. We compare our results to a number of taxonomically diverse species that live in groups and broadcast chorus and duet vocal signals. Open access article. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) applies.

A locally funded Puerto Rican parrot (Amazona vittata) genome sequencing project increases avian data and advances young researcher education Oleksyk, Taras K.; Pombert, Jean-Francois; Siu, Daniel; Mazo-Vargas, Anyimilehidi; Ramos, Brian; Guiblet, Wilfried; Afanador, Yashira; Ruiz-Rodriguez, Christina T.; Nickerson, Michael L.; Logue, David M.; Dean, Michael; Figueroa, Luis; Valentin, Ricardo; Martinez-Cruzado, Juan-Carlos Background: Amazona vittata is a critically endangered Puerto Rican endemic bird, the only surviving native parrot species in the United States territory, and the first parrot in the large Neotropical genus Amazona, to be studied on a genomic scale. Findings: In a unique community-based funded project, DNA from an A. vittata female was sequenced using a HiSeq Illumina platform, resulting in a total of ~42.5 billion nucleotide bases. This provided approximately 26.89x average coverage depth at the completion of this funding phase. Filtering followed by assembly resulted in 259,423 contigs (N50=6,983 bp, longest=75,003 bp), which was further scaffolded into 148,255 fragments (N50=19,470, longest=206,462 bp). This provided ~76% coverage of the genome based on an estimated size of 1.58 Gb. The assembled scaffolds allowed basic genomic annotation and comparative analyses with other available avian whole-genome sequences. Conclusions: The current data represents the first genomic information from and work carried out with a unique source of funding. This analysis further provides a means for directed training of young researchers in genetic and bioinformatics analyses and will facilitate progress towards a full assembly and annotation of the Puerto Rican parrot genome. It also adds extensive genomic data to a new branch of the avian tree, making it useful for comparative analyses with other avian species. Ultimately, the knowledge acquired from these data will contribute to an improved understanding of the overall population health of this species and aid in ongoing and future conservation efforts. Sherpa Romeo green journal. Open access article. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 (CC BY 2.0) applies

Aggressiveness and size: a model and two tests Logue, David M.; Takahashi, April D.; Cade, William H. Individual variation in aggressive behavior in animals might be caused by adaptive covariation with body size. We developed a model that predicts the benefits of aggressiveness as a function of body size. The model indicated that individuals of intermediate sizes would derive the greatest benefits from being aggressive. If we assume that the cost of aggression is approximately uniform with respect to body size, selection should favor higher aggression in intermediate-sized individuals than in large or small individuals. This prediction was tested by stimulating male Madagascar hissing cockroaches, Gromphadorhina portentosa, with disembodied antennae and recording the males’ aggressive responses. Antennae from larger males evoked weaker responses in subjects, suggesting that males obtained information about their opponents’ size from the opponents’ antennae alone. After accounting for this effect, we found support for the key prediction of our model: aggressiveness peaked at intermediate sizes. Data from actual male-male interactions validated that the antenna assay accurately measured aggressiveness. Analysis of an independent data set generated by staging male-male interactions also supported the prediction that intermediate-sized males were most aggressive. We conclude that adaptive covariation between body size and aggressiveness explains some interindividual variation in aggressiveness. Sherpa Romeo green journal. Permission to archive final published version

I only wrote a chapter in this new book, The HTML and CSS Workshop: A New, Interactive Approach to Learning HTML and CSS, but it is a new book and my name is on it and it’s on Amazon, so it’s still ???? cool. I wrote the chapter on Themes, Colors, and Polish. Here’s what […]

Like many of you I’m working from home for a while. As a mental health strategy, I’m going to do some writing and coding in the hour or so I get back each day from not having to commute. The first post, which will follow today, will be my thoughts on working from home. I […]

I use VS Code almost exclusively now. It’s the best editor for Angular and TypeScript and that’s where I spend most of my time these days. It’s also a pretty good all-around editor, so even when I’m not working in TypeScript I still use it. I recently found the need to edit a WordPress theme […]

While we’re preparing an upcoming release, I didn’t want the day to go by without mentioning that ten years ago today, HTML5 Boilerplate was released. Here’s the story of the project as we wrote it up a few years ago. The History of HTML5 Boilerplate Sometime in 2009… “Wouldn’t it be great if we created […]

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