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.

William Lynn (Bill) kicked off our Interspecies Conversations 2021 Lecture Series. Seeking King Solomon’s ring’ in the interpretation of other animals is a pathbreaking scientific and technical challenge. Alongside those challenges are profound ethical issues and implications that must inform this work from the outset.