Behavioural Neurobiology of Avian Communication

This research program examines how environment affects both the behaviour and brain of songbirds. More specifically, I will study how changes in the local environment, such as day length (photoperiod) or housing condition affect male and female vocal behaviour and perception, and how they affect neural regions in the brain that are important for singing and for processing vocalizations. These neural measures include rate of new cell birth, size of regions important for song, and responsiveness of the neurons to acoustic stimuli. I will use two songbird species: zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) and black-capped chickadees (Poecile atricapillus) as complementary model systems in projects that may fall under three separate but related aims. One aim of my research program studies how differences in housing, such as level of enrichment or number of birds in one cage, affect neurogenesis, or birth, migration, and survival of new neurons. The second and third streams of research relate to seasonal changes in perception and the neural regions important for perception of vocalizations. Temperate songbirds such as chickadees are sensitive to changes in photoperiod: change from short to long days make birds photostimulated (or brings them into breeding condition), and a change from long to short days makes birds photorefractory (brings birds into non-breeding condition). Breeding condition in turn affects chickadee behaviour (e.g. song production) and the brain (e.g. selectivity of neural response). We will continue our research on how photoperiod affects perception by (1) asking how breeding condition affects birds ability to discriminate acoustic stimuli by testing birds perceptual abilities in operant chambers with vocalizations from their own and other species (2) examine how breeding condition affects both expression of the immediate early gene Zenk, a marker of brain activity in neural regions important for vocal perception and expression of FoxP2, a transcription factor important for vocal communication. As a whole my research program will provide insight into vocal communication at both behavioural and neural levels, using an integrative, comparative and multidisciplinary approach.