The songs of singing honeyeater, Meliphaga virescens, populations on a
n island and the mainland of Western Australia were compared. For the
island population as a whole, the pool of syllable types (memes) from
which whole songs are constructed was smaller than for the mainland me
me pool. The island population also had fewer song types, syllable typ
es per song, total syllables per song and notes per song. The reductio
n in signal diversity is likely to be caused by a founder effect. A pr
evious report on these same populations showed that island and mainlan
d birds do not respond to each other's songs. (C) 1996 The Association
for the Study of Animal Behaviour