How social networks shape the diversity of monk parakeet voices

In the urban parks of Barcelona, ​​Spain, the call of tropical parrots fills the air. Paraquito, a bright green monk native to South America, has found a new home in a European city. The monk Paraquits thrive in the enormous colonies and communicate with each other using many distinct sounds. It offers scientists a unique window into understanding the interaction of individual social relationships with voice diversity.

For social animals, communication is the key to unlocking the benefits of group living. It is well known that animals with more complex social lives tend to have more complex ways of communicating, from dolphin clicks and whistles to primate calls. Although this pattern is widely seen in many species, new research on wild parrots delves deep into the social and vocal life of individual birds.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Animal Behavior (MPI-AB) have analyzed the social networks of Spanish monk Paraquitos, revealing how individual social connections form the invocation of these birds.

The findings can be found in the Journal Royal Society Open Science.

MPI-AB scientists have closely observed 337 monk paraquiettes over two years, documenting social life as well as recording all the screams, scorchs and whistles that totaled 5,599 utterances.

The team looked at these calls in terms of repertoire diversity (the number of sounds that a bird can make) and contact calls diversity (how different this particular type of call is). They also mapped bird social networks and analyzed everything from the frequency of interaction with others to the strength of their relationships.

Based on this data, the team could conclude that individual paraquiets living in larger groups actually produced a more variable sound repertoire. They also found that female parakeets have a more diverse repertoire than males. This is rare for birds.

“This research is a really important first step,” says Simeon Sheele, the first author of the study. “It appears there are some call types that are used uniquely in truly social situations, and it’s really interesting to see women appear to be producing more of these.

Social network analysis showed that paraquiets (possibly more influential in groups) with a more central position in social structures tend to have a more diverse vocal repertoire. In other words, most social individuals appeared to have a better vocabulary than social individuals.

“What I find really exciting is that I was able to connect what an individual says to a very specific level of sociality,” says Smeer, who conducted his research as a doctoral student at MPI-AB. “For example, close friends who allowed each other to peck distances didn’t sound like each other, as if they were trying to sound unique in a small gang.”

The results provide clues regarding the evolution of complex communication, including human language. Previous studies have demonstrated that sociality is associated with a more diverse repertoire of species ranging from Carolina’s forty condensed contamination to malmosetts. This study goes further by showing how vocal communication is formed by the web of individual social networks.

Smeer said, “The next big step is to better understand that each sound is a real mammoth challenge, as most social scoping occurs in large groups where many individuals are talking at the same time.”