Conditions experienced prenatally, by modulating developmental processes, have lifelong
effects on individual phenotypes and fitness, ultimately influencing population dynamics. In …

In many species, embryos can perceive and learn external sounds. Yet, the possibility that
parents may use these embryonic capacities to alter their offspring's developmental …

Prenatal auditory stimulation is known to critically affect the development of acoustic
preference and species recognition throughout ontogeny in birds. We focus our review on …

Embryos were traditionally considered to possess limited learning abilities because of the
immaturity of their developing brains. By contrast, neonates from diverse species show …

Vocal production learning (the capacity to learn to produce vocalizations) is a
multidimensional trait that involves different learning mechanisms during different temporal …

Prenatal imitative learning is an emerging research area in both human and non-human
animals. Previous studies in Superb Fairywrens (Malurus cyaneus) showed that mothers are …

Sound is arguably the external cue most accessible to embryos of many species, and as
such may constitute an unrivalled source of early information. Recent evidence shows that …

Birdsong is regarded as a classic example of a sexually-selected trait and has been
primarily studied in systems with male song. Complex solo female song is emerging from the …

Female song is an ancestral trait in songbirds, yet extant females generally sing less than
males. Here, we examine sex differences in the predation cost of singing behaviour. The …

Variation in the acoustic structure of alarm signals has mainly been viewed as coding
information about the type of predator or the level of threat posed by the predator. Alarm …