Responses in adult pied flycatcher males depend on playback song similarity to local population

Song divergence driven by social learning has been proposed to be a key factor driving allopatric speciation in oscine birds. Songbirds often respond more to songs deriving from their local population, suggesting the potential for acoustic divergence across populations to shape both intra- and intersexual interactions. However, many of these studies were conducted on species with simple songs and, as a result, we know comparatively little about the emergence of population differences and song discrimination in species with complex songs. We addressed this question in the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) by calculating the dissimilarity of songs from 2 foreign populations as well as from our study site to the local centroid. We then conducted a paired-design playback experiment where both local and foreign songs were played simultaneously. We found that pied flycatcher males showed significantly stronger responses to those songs that sounded more similar to the local population. This suggests that despite the high complexity of the pied flycatcher song, individuals are still able to discriminate across populations. Our results support the hypothesis that learned song divergence can act as a mechanism for assortative mating and allopatric speciation.