%0 Conference Paper %F Poster %T Social systems and vocal communication in African sturnids %+ Ethologie animale et humaine (EthoS) %+ Rhodes University, Grahamstown %A Coulon, Marion %A Houdelier, Cécilia %A Rousseau, Florence %A Henry, Laurence %A Levréro, Florence %A Hausberger, Martine %< avec comité de lecture %B Behavior 2009 - 31st International Ethological Conference %C Rennes, France %8 2009-08-19 %D 2009 %K African Sturnids %K vocal communication %K vocal evolution %K social life %K song %Z Life Sciences [q-bio]Conference poster %X Vocal systems of communication in songbirds have evolved under several lines of factorssuch as phylogeny, socials constraints and variation of habitats. We hypothesized here thatsocial life could have shaped vocal structures in response to different “social needs”. Wefocused on three phylogenetically close related species of South African sturnids thatpresented different social systems: Onychognathus nabouroup is a colonial species whereasLamprotornis nitens and Spreo bicolor form communal breeding of different size. Recordingswere all done in the Eastern Cape areas in order to limit potential geographical variations.Our results showed that differences in song structures of these species presented a gradientfollowing the social system. Colonial species (O. nabouroup) songs tended to havediscontinuous sequences of motifs, small family group species (S. bicolor) presented bothshort and loud sequences of song and long and variable sequences of song whereas largefamily group species (L. nitens) presented long and variable sequences of song. These resultssuggested that social life could have exerted strong selection pressures on vocalcommunication, modelling vocal signals in terms of structure and organisation, in relation tosocial life. %G English %L hal-01355772 %U https://univ-rennes.hal.science/hal-01355772 %~ UNIV-RENNES1 %~ CNRS %~ ETHOS %~ ETHOS-ICDC %~ ETHOS-PEGASE %~ COMUE-NORMANDIE %~ UR1-UFR-SVE %~ UR1-HAL %~ UR1-SDV %~ ETHOS-DEEP %~ TEST-UNIV-RENNES %~ TEST-UR-CSS %~ UNIV-RENNES %~ UNICAEN %~ UR1-BIO-SA %~ ETHOS-CIRCE