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Behavioral Ecology Advance Access published online on October 20, 2004
Behavioral Ecology, doi:10.1093/beheco/arh167
© 2004 by International Society for Behavioral Ecology
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Received May 14, 2004
Revised August 10, 2004
Accepted September 8, 2004

Article

Sexually size dimorphic brains and song complexity in passerine birds

László Zsolt Garamszegi 1*, Marcel Eens 1, Johannes Erritzøe 2, and Anders Pape Møller 3

1 Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Wilrijk Belgium
2 Taps Old Rectory, DK-6040 Christiansfeld, Denmark
3 Laboratoire de Parasitologie Evolutive, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 7 quai St. Bernard, F-75252 Paris, France

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
László Zsolt Garamszegi, E-mail: laszlo.garamszegi{at}ua.ac.be


  Abstract

Neural correlates of bird song involve the volume of particular song nuclei in the brain that govern song development, production, and perception. Intra- and interspecific variation in the volume of these song nuclei are associated with overall brain size, suggesting that the integration of complex songs into the brain requires general neural augmentation. In a comparative study of passerine birds based on generalized least square models, we tested this hypothesis by exploring the interspecific relationship between overall brain size and repertoire size. We found no significant association between song complexity of males and brain size adjusted for body size. However, species in which males produced complex songs tended to have sex differences in overall brain size. This pattern became stronger when we controlled statistically for female song complexity by using sex differences in song complexity. In species with large differences in song complexity, females evolved smaller brains than did males. Our results suggest no role for the evolution of extended neural space, as reflected by total brain size, owing to song complexity. However, factors associated with sexual selection mirrored by sex differences in song complexity were related to sexual dimorphism in overall brain size.

Keywords: bird song; brain size; comparative analysis; generalized least square models; repertoire size; sexual selection.
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