Mechanisms of species diversity in birdsong learning.

Vocal communication is critical for social interactions across a diversity of animals. A subset of those animals, including humans and songbirds, must learn how to produce their vocal communication signals. In this issue of PLOS Biology, Wang and colleagues use genome-wide investigations of gene exp...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Sarah Cushing Woolley, Jon Tatsuya Sakata
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2019-12-01
Series:PLoS Biology
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000555
Description
Summary:Vocal communication is critical for social interactions across a diversity of animals. A subset of those animals, including humans and songbirds, must learn how to produce their vocal communication signals. In this issue of PLOS Biology, Wang and colleagues use genome-wide investigations of gene expression in species hybrids to uncover transcriptional networks that could influence species differences in song learning and production. We provide an overview of birdsong learning and discuss how the study by Wang and colleagues advances our understanding of mechanisms of song learning and evolution.
ISSN:1544-9173
1545-7885