A preference for own-subspecies' song guides vocal learning in a song bird

In many song birds, males develop their songs as adults by imitating the so ngs of one or more tutors, memorized previously during a sensitive phase ea rly in life. Previous work using two assays, the production of imitations b y adult males and playback-induced calling by young birds during the sensit ive phase for memorization, has shown that song birds can discriminate betw een their own and other species' songs. Herein I use both assays to show th at male mountain white-crowned sparrows, Zonotrichia leucophrys oriantha, m ust learn to sing but have a genetic predisposition to memorize and learn t he songs of their own subspecies. Playback tests to young naive birds befor e they even begin to sing reveal that birds give begging calls more in resp onse to oriantha song than to songs of another species. After 10 days of tu toring with songs of either their own or another subspecies, birds continue to give stronger call responses to songs of their own subspecies, irrespec tive of whether they were tutored with them, and are more discriminating in distinguishing between different dialects of their own subspecies. The mem ory processes that facilitate recognition and discrimination of own-subspec ies' song may also mediate the preferential imitation of song of a bird's o wn subspecies. Such perceptual biases could constrain the direction and rat e of cultural evolution of learned songs.