Essay: Frogs and Birds

TOPIC

Compare and contrast the mating signals of two very different vertebrate orders: anurans (frogs and toads) and passerines (songbirds). What features do the anuran and passerine mating vocalizations share in common? What features are different? Discuss the mating signals themselves (acoustic structure, including elements and complexity), as well as how (anatomy and physiology) and why (sociology) those particular vocalizations are produced (by speaker) and preferred (by listener). This discussion should include comparison of the physical and social environments in which frogs and songbirds live and what kinds of socio-ecological problems each is required to solve. Your analysis should address each of Tinbergen's four perspectives on animal behavior: adaptation, mechanism, ontogeny, and phylogeny.

GUIDELINES

Essays are assessed not only for content, but also for grammar, clarity, conciseness, and coherence. Strive to make your essays accurate, relevant, and organized, and use academic English. Your writing should demonstrate an understanding of key scientific terms related to sound and communication, with accurate use of technical terms such as amplitude, spectrum, conspecific, heterospecific, etc. You might think of this as writing a short article directed towards an educated layperson, and it should read as a prose essay, not a lab report outlining observations. The purpose is to assess your writing skills in addition to your understanding of the material presented in class.

For source material, you may draw on a mix of course lectures, videos, and assigned readings, but to earn full credit, you must include material from (and cite) at least two articles from the relevant course readings. No further outside sources are required, though you are certainly welcome to draw on other research materials if you like. There is no need to provide citations for material you draw from lectures, unless the material originated from one of the readings or videos. Properly cite these and any other data drawn from course readings and videos. (You may use the formal citation style of your choice, so long as you are consistent and the source and page number of the material is made clear. If you do use additional sources, be sure to cite them and provide full bibliographical entries.) Otherwise, as with any academic writing, your work must be your own and in your own words.

FORMATTING AND SUBMISSION

• Provide your own original, descriptive title for your essay. (Do not simply copy and paste "Frogs and Birds".)

• Your essay must be a minimum of 1500 words long, but no longer than 1700 words. Include the word count at end of the document in square brackets [ ].

• Document formatting should use a 12 pt. font, have 1-inch margins on all sides, and be saved as either a .doc/.docx or .pdf format.

• Your document should include your name, course name and section at the top of the document. The name of the document itself should also include this information, e.g. Jones R L123-06 E1, Smith Y L123-08 E1, etc. Documents that are not properly named will not be accepted.

Articles:

1.Allometry of Alarm Calls: Black-Capped Chickadees Encode Information About Predator Size by Christopher N. Templeton.

2. Christopher N. Templeton By: Haruka Wada.

3. Vocal Production in Birds by G J L Beckers.

4. Acoustic Communication in Fishes and Frogs by RANDY ZELICK, DAVID A. MANN, AND ARTHUR N. POPPER.