Content bias in the cultural evolution of house finch song

Abstract

In this study, we used a longitudinal dataset of house finch (Haemorhous mexicanus) song recordings spanning four decades in the introduced eastern range to assess how individual-level cultural transmission mechanisms drive population-level changes in birdsong. First, we developed an agent-based model (available as a new R package called TransmissionBias) that simulates the cultural transmission of house finch song given different parameters related to transmission biases, or biases in social learning that modify the probability of adoption of particular cultural variants. Next, we used approximate Bayesian computation and machine learning to estimate what parameter values likely generated the temporal changes in diversity in our observed data. We found evidence that strong content bias, likely targeted towards syllable complexity, plays a central role in the cultural evolution of house finch song in western Long Island. Frequency and demonstrator biases appear to be neutral or absent. Additionally, we estimated that house finch song is transmitted with extremely high fidelity. Future studies should use our simulation framework to better understand how cultural transmission and population declines influence song diversity in wild populations.