Across taxa, both neural growth and cognitive function show considerable developmental
plasticity. Data from studies of decision making, learning, and discrimination demonstrate …

Mate choice hypotheses usually focus on trait variation of chosen individuals. Recently,
mate choice studies have increasingly attended to the environmental circumstances …

Songbirds are important models for understanding the mechanisms and fitness
consequences of imitative vocal learning. Although the effects of early-life environmental …

Many male signallers convey information to female receivers in multimodal courtship
displays. While much is known about how males vary in terms of signalling, variation in …

Reptiles and birds are a fascinating group of animals that is most critical to understanding
the evolution of vertebrate brains. Birds are the only class of vertebrates that can rival …

The performance of courtship signals provides information about the behavioural state and
quality of the signaller, and females can use such information for social decision-making (eg …

The developmental stress hypothesis posits that the honesty of bird song is maintained by
costs incurred during development, rather than at the time of adult song production. Song is …

Female songbirds are attracted to male song, and song may honestly signal male quality.
Song is a phenotypic expression of a complex learned behavior and therefore could be …

The zebra finch is the model species for the study of the evolution of birdsong, female song
preferences, song learning and the neural processes underlying song learning and …

Highlights•Little is known about heat stress and mate choice in female songbirds.•At housing
temperature, female zebra finches prefer conspecific songs.•At high temperatures, birds did …