Acoustic variations in the geographically isolated populations of L punctulata in India.

Abstract

Birds use verity of acoustic signals for their daily communication. These signals are very important for their daily life in individual recognition, food hunting, prey alarm etc. For successful reproduction acoustic signals are very important in mate recognition and attraction. However signals are very much affected by local habitat and geographical pressures and well reflected in populations and genetic structure. In present work geographical variation in the calls of L punctulata has been investigated. Results indicate that L punctulata is mono-syllabic in morning calls. Spectrographically no variations were observed across all locations. However in parametric comparisons variations were observed across all geographical regions. Population level acoustic signatures were seen in majority of individuals. UPGMA tree based on the parametric distance indicates population level structure in both notes with some admixture. This indicates the possibility of local level difference in genetic structure of L punctulata.