Doctoral Dissertations

Orcid ID

0000-0002-2926-8831

Date of Award

8-2025

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Psychology

Major Professor

Todd M. Freeberg

Committee Members

Todd M. Freeberg, Gordon M. Burghardt, Elizabeth Derryberry, David Buehler, Matthew A. Cooper

Abstract

Animal communication and the study of nonhuman personality (including behavioral syndromes) are popular fields of study. However, few studies have combined the two fields. The majority of the studies that do combine the two fields, moreover, examine communication as a subcomponent of the behavioral type in question, such as boldness or exploration. These results are variable and suggest that while communicative signals are often repeatable, they are not always perfectly correlated with other behavioral syndromes. An alternative possibility is that communication is a standalone behavioral syndrome that correlates with other behavioral types. If communication is a unique behavioral syndrome, this would help explain variation in observed behaviors, including suboptimal behavior such as a lack of communication. This dissertation examines communication as a novel behavioral syndrome in two species of closely related songbirds, Carolina chickadees (Poecile carolinensis) and tufted titmice (Baeolophus bicolor). Communicative behaviors in these species were examined in several ways. First, the overall repeatability of call characteristics was calculated after a week of recording calls made by conspecific pairs of birds in non-manipulated contexts. Second, a new set of birds were each recorded in two different social contexts: in conspecific pairs and in small mixed-species groups. The calls were then compared for repeatability and consistency across social conditions. During this study, the birds’ behavior was also measured in a variety of behavioral assays, such as the novel environment test, to compare communicative behavior with other behavioral syndromes. Lastly, communicative outputs from the first two studies were combined and compared with each individual’s relative dominance status. The results from these three studies suggest that individual chickadees and titmice differ from conspecifics in call rate, note use, call type use, and call complexity. These calls are generally repeatable within an individual across different social contexts. The call characteristics that were investigated in these studies were not related to other behavioral syndromes, and only some characteristics were correlated with relative dominance status. The strong repeatability of these calls and the lack of clear relationship between communication and other behavioral syndromes and characteristics suggest that communication may be a novel behavioral syndrome.

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