Lack of sleep changes the way birds sing: study
AUCKLAND: A study has found a lack of sleep can change how birds sing.
Several University of Auckland scientists worked on the research, which was conducted in Australia.
It found sleepdeprived magpies sang fewer, but longer, songs.
School of Biological Sciences PhD student Juliane Gaviraghi Mussoi, who worked on the research, said a lack of sleep could also alter the pitch and timing of birds’ vocalisations.
‘‘It makes sense that, like humans, birds may struggle with communication when they don’t get the sleep they need,’’ she said.
‘‘But because of a lack of research, we’re only just starting to get a sense of exactly what happens when birds are sleep deprived.’’
Mussoi and her coauthors, Drs Margaret Stanley and Kristal Cain, highlighted the avian sleepdisturbance issue in a Biology Letters journal article published last week.
Light and noise pollution were increasing with urban sprawl, and the resulting interruption to birds’ sleep patterns could be affecting the vocalisations they used to attract mates and defend territory, they said.
Bird vocalisations were remarkably diverse and the way sleep affected those vocalisations was similarly varied, the authors said.
Despite that, research on the effects of sleep disturbance on birds was ‘‘shockingly scarce’’.
‘‘This lack of broader research is problematic given that the extreme diversity of bird vocal learning and performance suggests there will be equally diverse responses to sleep disturbances.’’
Earlier work by a different group of scientists referenced in the article found that zebra finches moved their vocal organ muscles while sleeping, suggesting they required sleep to accurately learn songs. — RNZ