Bacallado, J. J., G. Ortega, G. Delgado, and L. Moro. . La fauna de Canarias. Santa Cruz de Tenerife and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands: Gobierno de Canarias, Consejería de Medio Ambiente y Ordenación Territorial, Centro de la Cultura Popular Canaria. Bramwell, D., and Z. Bramwell. . Wild fl owers of the Canary Islands, nd ed. Madrid: Editorial Rueda. Brito, A., P. J. Pascu...

R. M. Souto, J. Izquierdo, J. J. Santana, A. Kiss, L. NagyandG. Nagy Department of Physical Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry, University of La Laguna, E-38200 La Laguna (Tenerife), Spain 2 Department of Process Engineering, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, E-35017 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain 3 Department of General and Physical Chemistry, Faculty of Sciences, Unive...

This paper is devoted to a detailed quantitative analysis of the vocal repertoire of a domestic male canary (Serinus Canarius) by multivariate statistical methods, and temporal and spectral feature extraction. In the first part of the paper, combination of various methods are employed to extract characteristic features to classify all syllables, and construct a complete seasonal syllable dictio...

Avian bornaviruses are causative agents of proventricular dilatation disease (PDD), an often fatal disease of parrots and related species (order Psittaciformes) which is widely distributed in captive psittacine populations and may affect endangered species. Here, we established a vaccination strategy employing two different well described viral vectors, namely recombinant Newcastle disease viru...

New neurons are added to the high vocal center (HVC) of adult males in seasonally breeding songbirds such as the canary (Serinus canaria) that learns new songs in adulthood, and the song sparrow (Melospiza melodia) that does not. In both cases, the new neurons numerically replace others that have died, resulting in a seasonal fluctuation in HVC volume and neuron number. Peaks in neuronal replac...

Among vertebrates, the sense of smell is mediated by olfactory receptors (ORs) expressed in sensory neurons within the olfactory epithelium. Comparative genomic studies suggest that the olfactory acuity of mammalian species correlates positively with both the total number and the proportion of functional OR genes encoded in their genomes. In contrast to mammals, avian olfaction is poorly unders...

Songbirds produce learned vocalizations that are controlled by a specialized network of neural structures, the song control system. Several nuclei in this song control system demonstrate a marked degree of adult seasonal plasticity. Nucleus volume varies seasonally based on changes in cell size or spacing, and in the case of nucleus HVC and area X on the incorporation of new neurons. Reelin, a ...

The metabolic cost of birdsong production has not been studied in detail but is of importance in our understanding of how selective pressures shape song behavior. We measured rates of oxygen consumption during song in three songbird species, zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata), Waterslager canaries (Serinus canaria) and European starlings (Sturnus vulgaris). These species sing songs with differ...

Steroid hormones regulate multiple but distinct aspects of social behaviors. Testosterone (T) has multiple effects on learned courtship song in that it regulates both the motivation to sing in a particular social context as well as the quality of song produced. The neural substrate(s) where T acts to regulate the motivation to sing as opposed to other aspects of song has not been definitively c...