Subspecies-level variations in song characteristics of Indian robin Copsychus fulicatus across India
: Kumar, Anil; Rawal, Prakhar
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
: 2025
: Ornithology research
: Ornithology Research
: 44
: 33
: 1
: 2662-673X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43388-025-00249-w
: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43388-025-00249-w
Birdsong is a widely accepted and used model to study communication and evolutionary divergences among species. Various mechanisms have been proposed to explain the variation in songs, including sexual pressures, adaptation to different habitats and errors in learning. Studies investigating song variations help unravel the evolutionary history of species and subspecies. Here, we set out to investigate the song variation in four subspecies of the Indian robin Copsychus fulicatus, endemic to the Indian subcontinent. We extracted 41 spectro-temporal variables for 1372 phrases from 118 individuals distributed across 4 regions in India. We found the four subspecies to vary significantly in their acoustic signature. Pairwise comparison of subspecies revealed that the eastern sub-population (C. f. erythrurus) was the most distinct, with the greatest number of variables differing in pairwise comparison with other populations namely C. f. cambaiensis and C. f. fulicatus, respectively. Meanwhile, C. f. fulicatus and C. f. intermedius were the only pair not found to be significantly different. The presence and absence of geographical barriers relevant to this scrubland species, like mountain ranges and forests, may shape gene flow and song learning and could explain the discrimination, or lack thereof, between different subspecies of the Indian robin.
:
The study was carried out with the financial support from SERB, New Delhi, in the form of research project, titled, ‘Microstructure, individual and sub-species variations of song in Indian Robin Copsychus fulicatus (Family: Muscicapidae)’ vide grant no. CRG/2018/003508.