Birds produce an impressive variety of songs and calls, but the biological and ecological factors that influence the pitch, or frequencies, that birds create hasn’t been well understood — until now. Previous studies haven’t come to a consensus likely because they were small in scope, focusing on an individual species or a specific range. But […]
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Birds produce an impressive variety of songs and calls, but the biological and ecological factors that influence the pitch, or frequencies, that birds create hasn’t been well understood — until now.
Previous studies haven’t come to a consensus likely because they were small in scope, focusing on an individual species or a specific range. But in the largest study of its kind, researchers analyzed more than 140,000 recordings from 77% of bird species across 12 geographic regions worldwide to determine the physical and ecological factors that influence the acoustic frequencies of birds. They used citizen-science data collected on Xeno-Canto, a website dedicated to recording and sharing sounds of wildlife.
