Transcript 2 | Ofer Tchernichovski, Balanced Imitation Sustains Song Culture: Zebra Finches

Our second lecture will be given by Ofer Tchernichovski on how balanced imitation sustains song culture in zebra finches. When birds learn songs, they balance their imitation performance in a manner that sustains a rich and stable culture of song repertoires. Did you know that songbirds acquire songs by imitation, as humans do speech? A frequency dependent balanced imitation prevents extinction of rare song elements and the overabundance of common ones, promoting repertoire diversity within groups while constraining drift across groups, which together prevents the collapse of vocal culture into either complete uniformity or chaos.