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Vocal dialects in the flight call of the orange-winged-parrot (Amazona amazonica) [abstract]

Moura, L N , Vielliard, J & Silva, M L (2012). Vocal dialects in the flight call of the orange-winged-parrot (Amazona amazonica) [abstract]. Bioacoustics, Volume 21 (1): 49 -50

 

Abstract: 

Parrots are one of the three known bird lineages that have the capacity of vocal learning. Their “flight call” appears to carry the species-specific recognition function of the song of most other birds. We intended to check if the flight call of different populations of the Orange-winged-Parrot presented dialects as recognized in the song of vocal learning birds. We recorded (Sennheiser ME-67 shotgun mike and Marantz PMD660 solid state recorder) flight calls of eight individuals in each of five localities from the State of Pará (Brazil), from North to South: municipalities of Magalhães Barata (MB), Santa Bárbara (SB), Belém (BL), Moju (MJ), and Tailândia (TL). For each individual eight flight calls were selected and analyzed with the Avisoft SASLab Pro 4.3 software. Frequency and time parameters were used for cluster analyses. Considering the distance between the studied areas and the flight call physical parameters we did a cluster analyses and the following configurations were obtained, respectively: MBvsSB=94km and 1158, MBvsBL=133km and 698, MBvsMJ=180km and 685, MBvsTL=286km and 985, SBvsBL=40km and 1004, SBvsMJ=89km and 1001, SBvsTL=205km and 561, BLvsMJ=47km and 193, BLvsTL=164km and 697, MJvsTL=117km and 651. As observed, the distances between the areas are not proportional to the linkage distances obtained from the cluster analysis. The most different flight call is from the population of MB and the flight calls of BL and MJ are the most similar. We also observed at a roosting site in Belém some parrots that emitted two distinct flight calls; however, we could not observe if the roost gathers individuals from two populations with different dialects, explaining the occurrence of bilingual birds.