The Primary Study Of Singing Strategy And The Study Of The Expressions Of FoxP2 Genes In Parus Varius

Birdsong is essential for the life span of birds.During seasons of winter and autumn,birds use singing to communicate with each other to combat through cold and infertile environment.While in seasons such as spring and summer,birdsongs play an very important role in the breeding behavior of birds.By comparing the different songs of birds in different seasons,we found that,the bird songs are tremendous diversified during breeding seasons.We suspect that,this might be related to its complicated task of this period.This thesis examined the change of singing types in the different times and its underlying molecular mechanism.The vocal data of Parus varius varius were collected between March and July 2012 in Xianrendong Nature Reserve,Liaoning province.All the data came from nine pairs of adult individuals and their chicks.In all,we got nine kinds of call types,including searching partner call,warning call,alarming call,threatening call,expelling call,thrilling call,feeding call,begging for food call,and assembling call.At the same time,five kinds of song types were recorded.Birdsong 1s very complicated during breeding season,while it would change through out the breeding season.In order to uncover the mystery of its complicated songs,we conducted a experiment.We studied the expression of FoxP2 in the brain of varied tit.The results showed that,FoxP2 had a high level expression in the brain of varied tit.In area X and striatum areas,the FoxP2 genes had the greatest expression.These result suggest that FoxP2 may play a crucial role in controlling song's diversty during breeding season.The acoustic characteristics of songs were measured and analyzed with Avisoft-SASLab Pro software(Germany).There were 18 kinds of syllable types.The vocal parameters of nine male individuals were tested using Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA.The durations of verse and syllable among the nine individuals were statistically different,whereas the maximum and minimum frequencies were not statistically different.This study quantified the characteristics of songs from Parus varius,,and thus would help improve our understanding of its behavior during breeding season.It has been shown that birdsong vary greatly among different individuals.In order to check whether varied tit can perceive each other through songs,we conducted a birdsong play back experiment.Our results showed that the varied tit's responses to 2 different songs are significantly diferent.We believe that varied tit can recognize each other by songs.The functions of birdsong are different among different species,and the unique mode of singing may indicat the correlated breeding strategy.We compared the singing behavior between varied tit and great tit.Varied tit and great tit live together all year around,they have very similar living habits and morphological character.Our results showed that,l)the great tit sings significantly more than varied tit during pre-egg laying period.2)In contrast to great tit,varied tit still have a high level of singing activity during egg laying and incubation period.We thought that the following two aspects of breeding strategies may impact the singing activity of those two species.1)the great tit and varied tit are both monogamy,but they all have extra pairs,the extra pair rate of varied tit 1s 55%,while the extra pair rate of great tit is 8.12%.2)the great tit have bigger clutches than varied tit.The research on extra pair paternity is focusing more on the molecular mechanism these years.The researches include inherited diversity,morphological character and immunity.Our researches are looking forward to find the relation between birdsong and extra pair paternity.We checked 8 nests varied tit's paternity.Our results showed that two of them have extra pair paternity.We analyzed male varied tit's sing activity,sing frequency,sing duration from eight nests.Our results showed that,they have signifieant difference in sing frequency and sing duration.We suspect that the specific song type might be the key for the non-extra pair nest's male to defend their partner.