title: Studying the silent side of birdsong.
abstract: The quality of complex communication signals, such as birdsong, is difficult to assess and compare across individuals or species. A new study on skylark song avoids the problem of signal complexity by assessing motor performance during the silent gaps of songs. This provides a metric of song quality applicable to species with very diverse songs, which facilitates novel types of analyses and comparisons in avian bioacoustics.
authors.forename: Gonçalo C
authors.initials: GC
authors.lastname: Cardoso
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D020308:Songbirds / Q000502:physiology*; D014828:Vocalization, Animal / Q000502:physiology*