Interview with Donald Kroodsma For over 30 years, Donald Kroodsma has worked to unravel such mysteries of avian communication. Through field studies and laboratory experiments, he's studied the ecological and social forces that may have contributed to the evolution of vocal learning.
Kroodsma has paid particular attention to local variation in song types, known as dialects. Young parrots, songbirds and hummingbirds learn a repertoire of songs, just as human infants learn to talk. But why is this ability to learn a vocal communication system something we share with birds, but not with our closer relatives, such as the nonhuman primates? in Science > Ethologywith donaldethologyinterviewkroodsmascience