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Article: Bird songs may sound alarms.(habitats affects)(Brief article)
- Article from:
- The Futurist
- Article date:
- March 1, 2006
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2006 World Future Society. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Birds forced to move to a new place will change their vocalizations relatively quickly, so songs may be a good early-warning system for detecting ecological disturbances.
Ecologists studying Dupont's larks on the steppes of Spain and Morocco found that the male birds tended to mimic their neighbors more and their non-neighbors less when their habitats became fragmented by barriers created by human development.
The more isolated the habitats were, the more dissimilar were the birds' vocalizations. Neighbors were perceived as more of a threat, so mimicry became more pronounced, report researchers Paola Laiolo and Jose Tella of the Estacion Biologica de ...