Perceptual relevance of species-specific differences in acoustic signal structure in Streptopelia doves

Acoustic signal characteristics that differ strongly between vocalizations of closely related species need not necessarily be the perceptually most im portant ones. In the dove genus Streptopelia, temporal parameters have been identified as the most distinctive species-specific differences between pe rch-coo vocalizations. Using synthetic coo model stimuli and an operant des ign, we tested the perceptual relevance of species-specific differences in temporal structure and amplitude modulation structure for two partly sympat ric species, S. decaocto and S. chinensis. The majority of birds used both parameters to classify sound stimuli, although overall, amplitude modulatio n structure appeared somewhat more important. In an additional experiment, we tested the same birds to examine whether they predominantly used the fir st element in the classification of coo model stimuli. Our results show tha t the characteristics of the full signal, rather than the first element, de termine classification. (C) 2001 The Association for the Study of Animal Be haviour.